Until now, no print of this film did justice of the great photographic quality and of the original colours of the film. The restoration is based on the existing nitrate elements held by the Cinémathèque Française and the National Film and Television Archive. The careful analysis of the different materials – all originating by the same negative – made possible to reconstruct the film and the original colours by following the colour scheme used in the only print which had been surely produced in Germany. Unfortunately, all prints had serious limitations in their photographic quality and in their state of conservation. Only one print was of first generation (i.e. printed from the original camera negative), while the others were printed from a rather low-quality duplicating negative produced in the silent era. On the other hand, in this first generation print all scenes which were toned (in sepia and – particularly – in blue) are seriously faded.

“After the argument he had with Henrik Galeen was solved, in early July Leni could finally get working on his dear project. In May-Film’s studios, at Weissensee, he started shooting Das Wachsfigurenkabinett. […] Shooting progressed rapidly, and the first episode – Haroun al Raschid – with Emil Jannings was completed in late July, soon followed by Ivan the Terrible with Conrad Veidt. In late September the completion of Jack the Ripper with Werner Krauss was announced together with the preparation for the envisaged fourth episode, Rinaldo Rinaldini, to be played by Wilhlem Dieterle, also acting in the role of the young poet in the framework story, linking all the episodes. […] However Rinaldo’s episode was not shot as rampant inflation made the project impossible […].

The fact that the fourth episode is missing harms the original structure; the framework story still contains the fourth wax figure, now completely devoid of any meaning. Therefore Leni decided at first to screen the episodes in the order of Ivan-Jack-Haroun, although during the first month of release it was changed into Haroun-Jack-Ivan, as envisaged in the script and in billboards. In this way the crescendo from a comic/fairy-tale character to a sombre and dreamlike approach is again restored”.

(Hans-Michael Bock, Licht/Schatten, in Paul Leni, a cura di H.-M. Bock, Frankfurt/M, Deutsches Filmmuseum, 1986).