Waxworks (1924)

 

One of the earliest anthology movies (in fact it's probably the second ever made) gets a Blu-ray release as Eureka brings Paul Leni's expressionist masterpiece to disc, scanned in 4K resolution and then restored in 2K.

William Dieterle, probably best known to readers here for directing Charles Laughton in 1939's THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME and for 1941's THE DEVIL & DANIEL WEBSTER, plays a poet who answers an ad in the paper to provide stories for some of the figures in a fairground waxworks. Dieterle also features in the stories as different characters.

The first story is about Caliph Harun al-Rashid (Emil Jannings, whose OTHELLO you get to see at the beginning of 1973's THEATRE OF BLOOD) who leaves a wax double of himself in bed while he prowls the city in search of the local baker's wife. 
The second has Conrad Veidt (CABINET OF DR CALIGARI, THE THIEF OF BAGDAD et al) as Ivan the Terrible, convinced he is going to be the taget of an assassination, stealing another man's bride and ending his days insane and convinced upending an hourglass will stop him from dying.

The final story is barely a story at all, as Werner Krauss (DR CALIGARI himself!) plays Jack the Ripper and pursues our hero around the waxworks before a rather abrupt ending. 

A title card inserted before the film begins states that over twenty minutes of footage of WAXWORKS has been lost, which explains why the film does seem to be over rather quickly. Still, this is a lovely print of a tinted transfer which comes with two new music scores - traditional piano from Richard Siedhoff and rather more avant-garde chamber work from Ensemble Musikfabrik, and much fun can be had flicking between the two depending on the mood of the scene (and the viewer).

Eureka's disc also comes with a commentary track from critic Adrian Martin, a talking head piece from Kim Newman, an interview with Julia Wallmuller about the search for WAXWORKS and Paul Leni's REBUS-FILM Nos 1-8 - a collection of short film crossword puzzles shown to accompany main features back in the day.

There's also a collector's booklet with new writing on the film, and the first 2000 come with a limited edition 'O' card.

Paul Leni's WAXWORKS is out on Blu-ray from Eureka on Monday 9th November 2020