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I seem unable to get away from horror anthologies. Waxworks, or Das Wachsfigurenkabinett if you like the German, is potentially the first horror film anthology in existence, but I’m not as versed on silent film history as I should be to be able to make that as a definitive claim. In truth, since this isn’t really that scary and only one of the three stories is overtly horror, it’s possible that someone might claim a later film as having that title. Regardless, there are certainly some clear sense that this has at least horror intentions. It might be better thought of as a prototype rather than the real thing.
The framing story is, unsurprisingly, going to take place in a wax museum. The proprietor of a wax museum (John Gottowt) and his daughter Eva (Olga Belajeff) put out an ad for a writer. It’s answered by a man called only “The Poet” (William Dieterle), who is engaged to write backstories for three of the museums exhibits: Harun Al-Rashid, Ivan the Terrible, and Spring-Heeled Jack, the silent version of Jack The Ripper, renamed to avoid problems with the censors. The Poet notices that the figure of Harun Al-Rashid is missing an arm, and this is the entry point for the first tale.
This first tale is the longest of the three, and concerns a baker (also played by Dieterle), whose shop is near the palace of Harun Al-Rashid (Emil Jannings). When the smoke from the bakery interferes with the caliph’s chess game with his grand vizier, he demands the vizier bring him the head of the baker. However, when the vizier goes to perform this deed, he encounters the baker’s wife (Belajeff, who will be the romantic interest throughout these tales) and is smitten by her great beauty. While the grand vizier extolls the beauty of the woman, she and her baker husband are fighting. Desperate to keep her happy, the baker tells her he will bring her the caliph’s wishing ring, which could involve having to cut off the caliph’s arm.
From this tale, which is more comic than anything, we move to the story of Ivan the Terrible (Conrad Veidt). Much less comedic, this tells the story of Ivan’s reign of terror, slaughtering anyone who stands in his way, and taking particular delight in watching his victims die of poison. His poison master, though, takes pity on a victim and is singled out by Ivan to go next. Meanwhile, though, Ivan needs to go to the wedding of a nobleman’s son (the bride and groom naturally being played by Belajeff and Dieterle). Ivan goes a bit mad and things turn into a sort of prima nocte situation, but the poisoner might get the last laugh.
The one true horror piece is the final story concerning Spring-Heeled Jack (Werner Krauss). Running just a few minutes and tucked into the end of the film, we find that our Poet has dozed off and awakens to discover that the statue of Jack the Ripper/Spring-Heeled Jack has come to life. Jack chases after both the Poet and Eva through the halls of the wax museum.
There are certainly some horror elements in all of the stories to one extent or another. There are hints in the first story, with the poor baker breaking into the palace and attacking the caliph with a sword, but much of this first story is played for comedy. The second story, which deals in large part with the impending madness of Ivan the Terrible, is much more horror-adjacent and dips its toes into that swimming pool a few times. While not horror in the sense of monsters and ghosts, there are elements here of a more mundane horror, and Ivan’s behavior certainly matches the genre. The final story really is horror, but it also only lasts about six minutes.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Waxworks is just how different its many stars’ lives turned out. Both Emil Jannings and Werner Krauss had substantial careers working in Nazi propaganda films in the 1930s and 1940s, much to the detriment of their later careers, and both were subjected to de-Nazification after the war. Conrad Veidt and William Dieterle both fled the country and had good, long careers in Hollywood. Dieterle was more known as a director, and Veidt died during the war on the golf course. Interestingly, Dieterle’s career was ended in its own way by fascism—he was blacklisted by HUAC. The saddest story is that of Gottowt, who was murdered by the SS in 1942.
Waxworks is pretty harmless. It’s worth seeing for the history of it. Anyone with any love of the horror genre may find this time well spent specifically because of how it presages other horror films and horror anthologies, even if nothing here is scary enough to upset the average child.
Why to watch Waxworks: An early horror anthology prototype.
Why not to watch: It’s about as scary as a hangnail.
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