Mystery of the Wax Museum

Mystery of the Wax Museum is a 1933 Technicolor horror film directed by Michael Curtiz (We're No Angels and others) and starring Lionel Atwill and Fay Wray (best known for King Kong but she was also in The Vampire Bat).

Moria says it's "one of the genuine genre classics to emerge out of the 1930s Golden Age of Horror." 1000 Misspent Hours calls it "a miserable old clunker". from the New York Times review from its release:

It is all very well in its way to have a mad scientist performing operations in well-told stories, but when a melodrama depends upon the glimpses of covered bodies in a morgue and the stealing of some of them by an insane modeler in wax, it is going too far
...
After witnessing this unhealthy film, it is very agreeable to gaze upon a short subject dealing with the wonders of Yellowstone Park.

Classic-Horror.com says,

it was one of the earliest experiments with color film as well as one of the earliest treatments of a now well-known mystery plot, topped with an intriguing visual style and some horror icons in fine form for good measure.

10/29/2008: House of Mirth and Movies has a review.