Paul Leni's expressionist horror movie looks great, but it never really takes off in the way you expect. Future Hollywood director William Dieterle not only plays a writer hired to provide backstories for the sinister figures in a fairground was museum, but he also stars as the hero of those stories opposite the comely Olga Belajeff. But Emil Jannings and Conrad Veidt are the big guns here - respectively playing a randy Caliph and psychotic Ivan the Terrible - and both seem to be having a whale of a time.
Review of Waxworks
