The Lighter Side of Early Weimar Cinema's Dark Canon: Paul Leni's Das Wachsfigurenkabinett (1924)

Abstract

Scholars frequently present Paul Leni's Das Wachsfigurenkabinett (1924) as a proto‐horror exemplar of early Weimar cinema's dark canon, aligning it neatly with films like Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari (1920) and Nosferatu (1922), and actively downplaying its substantial comedic element. In this article, I argue that the scholarly reception of Leni's film reveals the biases that color early Weimar cinema as a whole. The dominance of particular films—and only select aspects of Leni's film—arose from an historically and culturally specific confluence of technological and economic factors that together created an environment in which the darker films of early Weimar cinema could flourish, while lighter popular releases were lost to the historical imagination. Das Wachsfigurenkabinett offers a clearer view into Weimar film culture not only because it offers the kind of dark, mysterious film considered characteristic of early Weimar cinema, but because it also embraces generic possibilities left unexplored by its darker brethren, exemplifying in itself the era's rich generic diversity that until recently has been suppressed.