House of Wax (1953)

House of Wax (1953)

In director Andre de Toth's highly-successful, classic Technicolored mystery-horror film, it was actually a remake of Warner Bros' own earlier two-colored Technicolor thriller film - director Michael Curtiz' Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933). This 50's feature launched the horror film career of Vincent Price with his first major starring horror role - in a very enjoyable, devilish and hammy performance, he portrayed horribly-disfigured wax sculptor Prof. Henry Jarrod.

House of Wax's screenplay by Crane Wilbur for the 88 minute film was based upon Charles S. Belden's unpublished short story "The Wax Works." On a budget of 1ドル million, the sensational 3-D hit made 23ドル.75 million at the box-office. The film's major tagline described the plot: "The half-man half-monster who stalked a panic swept city for the beauties he craved for his chamber of horrors!" In homage to the original film, it was loosely remade as House of Wax (2005) starring Paris Hilton and Elisha Cuthbert:

With this film, Vincent Price established himself forever after as the quintessential horror villain. In conjunction with film promoter-huckster William Castle, Price became a prominent cult figure in gimmicky movies, including House on Haunted Hill (1959) (with Emergo skeletons) and The Tingler (1959) (with Percepto seat buzzers). Additional notable horror films in his career included The Fly (1958), Return of the Fly (1959), The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971), Theatre of Blood (1973), and his many appearances in Roger Corman's Edgar Allan Poe film adaptations (1960-1964).

House of Wax was designed to capitalize on the craze for 3-D films in the early 1950s, but ironically, the director was blind in one eye and could not experience the 3-D effects of the film. It was notable for a number of reasons:

• it was Warner Bros.' first 3-D film (created in "Natural Vision" 3-D)
• it was the first full-length color 3-D film produced and released by a major US studio
• it was also the first commercially-released 3-D film with a stereophonic three-track magnetic soundtrack

[Note: Columbia Pictures was actually the first major studio to release a 3-D movie - the black and white Man in the Dark (1953), their first 3-D feature, on April 9, 1953. It was also the first 3-D feature ever released by a major American studio. Following Columbia, Warners was the second major studio to release a 3-D film - its own competing film House of Wax (1953), premiering on April 25, 1953. Although Bwana Devil (1952) preceded both of them, it was made by United Artists, considered a minor studio.]

• the title credits played over nighttime views of rainy NYC streets at the turn of the century, as a figure with an umbrella was walking along a row of storefronts
• in the film's opening, the camera scanned from left to right over the interior of a Wax Museum Exhibition room lit by gaslights, showcasing historical wax figures famous for ghastly crimes, murders or executions, including Cleopatra (with her suicidal lover Mark Antony), Lincoln's Assassination in Ford's Theatre by John Wilkes Booth, Joan of Arc, Marie Antoinette, and a Guillotine Executioner during the French Revolution
• in an adjoining studio workshop, eccentric wax sculptor Professor Henry Jarrod (Vincent Price) was modeling a clay figure as his co-owner and business partner Matthew Burke (Roy Roberts), a solitary figure with an umbrella, entered from the street; Burke was disgruntled about lagging admissions revenue, and proposed that customers weren't interested in wax-figure history:
  • "Who cares a hang about history in wax?...more who want sensation, shock!"
• Jarrod argued that he was opposed to Burke's idea to have a "Chamber of Horrors: murder, torture, executions (to) scare the living daylights out of people. I don't care for that kind of patronage"
• Burke eagerly proposed dissolving the partnership in order to receive "a quick return" on his investment; Jarrod suggested that they pursue a buy-out arrangement with a potential investor who was arriving that evening with Jarrod's friend Bruce Allison (Phillip Tonge); shortly later, Allison and wealthy art-critic and financier Sidney Wallace (Paul Cavanagh) arrived at the museum and were given a tour of the facility; Jarrod bragged as he showed them each of his exquisite creations:
  • "To you, they're wax. But to me, their creator, they live and breathe"
• during their tour-meeting with Jarrod to discuss the possible buy-out (while Burke eavesdropped on their discussion from an upstairs office), Wallace explained that he would have to postpone a decision on the purchase until after he returned from a 3-month excursion to Egypt
• after the meeting, the impatient and scheming Burke suggested to Jarrod that an insurance loss, such as a fire, might be the fastest way to collect 25,000ドル dollars ("This whole place would go up like a paint factory"), but Jarrod was dismayed, upset and disturbed by Burke's suggested plan:
  • "Burn? Burn all my people? Do you think I'm a murderer?...I'd rather die myself than see my friends destroyed. I won't let you do it"
• Burke proceeded to deliberately set the wax museum on fire by lighting matches, torching the wax sculptures, and fanning the flames by spreading kerosene all around to be ignited; all of the historical figures (considered beautiful "friends" and living and breathing creatures by Jarrod) inside the museum quickly caught fire, burned, melted and dissolved, and ultimately their heads fell off; Burke fled, presuming that Jarrod (who had been struck and knocked out during their struggle) died after becoming trapped in the burning building that exploded when the gaslight spigots ignited

• afterwards, sometime later at an outdoor garden-dance venue known as Webers Hofbrau in the city, at one of the tables, Burke confided in a young and attractive lady acquaintance - his promiscuous, gold-digging blonde call-girl and possible fiancee Cathy Gray (Carolyn Jones in her first major role); he recalled that his friend-partner Jarrod was a "genius" and a "great artist," who was presumed dead although his body hadn't been located after the fire; Burke deceitfully lied: "Had I been there, I might have saved him"; he boasted that the insurance company had finally settled with him (even though there was no corpse) and given him the full insurance payout of 25,000ドル; he had just cashed the certified check and put the money in his safe; he now suggested that he could afford to take a "little trip" promised to her earlier; she suggested that they visit Niagara Falls and acquire a license to get married
• after Burke returned to his office and removed a wad of cash from his safe, the lights were turned off and he was confronted by a cloaked, black-garbed murderer (a disfigured a scar-faced individual) who had been hiding behind a black divan; Burke was assaulted and murdered by rope-strangulation, and his wallet was stolen; then, Burke's body (with the rope wrapped around his head) was thrown down the building's elevator shaft to hang there (to make it look like a suicide); the scrubwoman (Ruth Warren) on a lower floor screamed when she saw the hanging corpse

• Cathy lived in Ma Flannigan's boarding house (with rooms to let) where her pretty and supportive dark-haired friend Sue Allen (Phyllis Kirk) also lived in separate but connected rooms; Cathy expressed no regrets or remorse following the news of Burke's sudden death, now that she had found a new, older sugar daddy - a "friend" and "free-spender"; as she was dressing up for her high society date for the evening with him, with Sue helping, she claimed that he was "a real gentleman, except when he's had a couple of drinks in him"; the two were contrasting individuals - Sue was a nice and respectable young female, while Cathy regarded herself a manipulative, up-and-coming floozy:
  • "You're not like me, Sue. You never could be. You got all the brains and all I've got is what I got"
• later that night after a disappointing job interview (for a job as a hat-check girl at the Silver Slipper), Sue returned to the rooming house, where she was accosted by their demanding landlady Ma Flannigan (Riza Royce) for her overdue rent payment; as Sue entered Cathy's separate bedroom to borrow money from her, she came upon Cathy's body on the bed - strangled; she interrupted the same black-garbed killer who suddenly appeared from behind a curtain; he obviously didn't have time to arrange the scene as another suicide; Sue fled the scene by escaping through an open window onto the rooftop, but the killer - in a lengthy chase scene - followed and pursued her as she climbed down to the fog-shrouded street level and fled through dark alleyways; she cleverly removed her shoes so he couldn't track her running noisily on cobblestones; she was able to escape and evade the killer when she was taken into the Lafayette Street home of some friends: talented sculptor Scott Andrews (Paul Picerni) and his mother Mrs. Andrews (Angela Clarke)
• homicide Detective Lt. Tom Brennan (Frank Lovejoy) and his assistant Sgt. Jim Shane (Dabbs Greer) were immediately called upon to investigate the recent murder of Cathy; they arrived at the rooming house to take statements from the Flannigans; afterwards at the New York City Morgue where Cathy's body had been autopsied, the medical examiner/Coroner (Frank Ferguson) confirmed to them that Cathy had been dead for several hours after being strangled with a cord, while the white-cloaked Surgeon (Grandon Rhodes) also described that she had possibly been drugged with Veronal
• meanwhile, in the morgue body storage room, the black-garbed killer sat up, and emerged from his hiding place under a sheet on one of the slabs; he and two shadowy assistants were there to steal Cathy's body; her sheet-wrapped corpse was lowered from a window by a rope and loaded into an awaiting horse-drawn delivery wagon parked in the alleyway beneath; the monstrous figure climbed down to the street level and joined them

• the next morning in the NYC Police Department building on Mulberry Street in the Homicide Division Office of Lieut. Brennan, Mrs. Andrews, Sue, and Scott reported Cathy's murder from the night before; they were informed that Cathy's corpse had been stolen from the morgue; in addition, several others, including Burke's body a few weeks earlier, and the body of deputy city attorney Patterson, were also missing
• in the next sequence set in the city's Business District, financier Sidney Wallace inquired at the door of an address written to him in a letter that he had allegedly received from the deceased Professor Jarrod - at 149 Madison Lane; the door was answered by ugly, deaf-mute Igor (Charles Buchinsky/aka Charles Bronson), and Wallace was let in; he was introduced to a very much-alive Professor Jarrod; his face appeared normal, but he had scarred and useless hands and he was wheelchair-bound; he explained that due to his disability, Igor had been hired to provide sculpting assistance
• it was now revealed months later that Jarrod had somehow survived the fiery blaze; he reappeared about a year and a half later, although he claimed he was reincarnated: ("Jarrod is dead. I am a reincarnation"); his most recent mission was to rebuild and create a new House of Wax exhibition museum; he explained that the new museum would showcase a "Chamber of Horrors" to meet the popular demand - commemorating famous and fresh "crimes of violence" through wax figures to give the people what they wanted: "Sensation, horror, shock," in order to scare the people to death; Jarrod also expressed how his next wax figure would be the beautiful Marie Antoinette, but that he needed a model for his "leading lady"
• Jarrod further explained his new technique - "Each subject must be taken from life. How can I convince my audience they're alive, if I don't believe it myself?"; to do so, he had Igor lead Wallace to the basement to show off how his plaster-of-paris figures were dipped in a vat of boiling pinkish hot wax to create the new exhibits; he also introduced another of his student-artists assisting him in dipping the carefully-constructed bodies into the wax bath - a bearded man named Leon Averill (Nedrick Young)
• the new museum was under construction and would comprise the upper level of the building, while the cellar would then be used as a workshop; Jarrod again urged Wallace to invest in his new venture with 30,000ドル dollars of financial support; he also described an additional feature of his new Chamber of Horrors - it would highlight recreations of scenes of violence or death; one of his latest exhibit constructions was of Burke's recent hanging-suicide: (Jarrod: "He hanged himself in an elevator shaft"); a vertical wooden coffin marked # 27 was opened by Leon, revealing inside a likeness of Burke's corpse with a twisted head; the body fell face-forward onto the floor
  • [Note: The film's obvious twist was that the vengeful Jarrod (in the disguise of the cloaked, face-disfigured killer and later wearing a facial mask to hide his melted face) had been committing the many murders; he then stole their corpses from the New York City Morgue and coated them with molten wax using wax body dip machinery to produce very life-like statues for his new waxworks exhibits.]
• at this point in the original film, a 10-minute INTERMISSION was inserted

• during the museum's debut - in front of the newly-opened House of Wax (Chamber of Horrors), a carnival barker-huckster (Reggie Rymal) kept swatting at a ball attached by a string to a paddle (showing off an amazing 3-D "trick effect"); he admonished the crowd and broke "the fourth wall":
  • "Come in, come in, come in, ladies and gentlemen. See the House of Wax. See the Chamber of Horrors. Here's three lovely little ladies right over here. Would you like to see Little Egypt? Here she is, ladies and gentlemen, Little Egypt, Queen of the Harem, who danced at the Colombian Exhibition in Chicago in 1893. Is she wax, or is she flesh and blood. See the world in wax, the Hall of Fame, the Chamber of Horrors. A cultural exhibition that'll enlighten you, amaze you...Watch it, young lady. Careful, sir, keep your head down or I'll tap you on the chin. Look out! Duck. (He turned to other customers behind him) Wow, that's a becoming hat you're wearing, madam. I wonder if I can clip the flower off it. Hold steady now, don't move your head, or you'll lose the powder off your nose. Wow, there's someone with a bag of popcorn. Close your mouth. It's the bag I'm aiming at, not your tonsils. Here she comes. Well, look at that, it's in the bag. See the lovely centers of ancient times, ladies and gentlemen. Beauties who died and tortured out on the block. Visit our 'Chamber of Horrors' and pass the time of day with notorious murderers who killed with the rope, the knife, and the axe. Thrills, chills, a lot of dirt for a price within the reach of all."
• Jarrod was centrally involved in leading customers (and Sidney Wallace) through the museum on a personal tour; he took delight in showing off Charlotte Corday knifing Marat during a bath, the beheading of a wax figure with a French Revolution guillotine, the first use of the electric chair in NY state to execute William Kemmler on August 3rd, 1890, the rack-torture of English noblewoman Lady Anne Askew to admit to treason; and Bluebeard who did away with his eight wives; he also showed off the most recent death ("Was it murder or suicide?") of businessman Matthew Burke
• afterwards, as Sue wandered around the museum's exhibits with her talented sculptor-friend Scott Andrews, she was suspiciously amazed by the likeness of the wax figure of Joan of Arc to Cathy; she climbed up partway on the platform to examine it more closely; she was disturbed and told Scott:
  • "That's Cathy's face, Scott. I know every line of it...It's more than a resemblance...Why should it be so much like Cathy?"
• Jarrod approached in his wheelchair after overhearing their conversation and explained that he had copied her face from newspaper pictures; when she reacted about how it looked so accurate: "I just don't understand how it can seem so real," Jarrod took her comment as a compliment

• Jarrod offered employment to Scott - to hire him as an assistant sculptor for some original models he had in mind, and Scott accepted the offer; and then Jarrod imagined how Sue was a great living likeness to Marie Antoinette; as he spoke, in his mind, her face morphed into the character of Marie Antoinette; he mentioned his previous love for "his" Marie Antoinette before it was destroyed in the fire:
  • "Once in his lifetime, every artist feels the hand of God and creates something that comes alive. So it was with my Marie Antoinette. And I loved her. But she's gone now. Horribly destroyed. Perhaps you will help me to bring her back"

• Jarrod requested that Sue model herself as Marie Antoinette for him, and she gladly accepted; however, she again mentioned privately to Scott: "Why should it seem so real?"
• shortly later, Jarrod (without his makeup) stalked after Sue as she stood in her bedroom window and then went to bed; the monstrous figure entered into her bedroom, but was forced to flee when she woke up and screamed; after he fled, Mrs. Andrews again comforted Sue, who thought that she was dreaming: ("I saw Cathy again. And the man who killed her was right in this room")
• another scene also took advantage of the 3-D effect - can-can dancers at the 14th Street Music Hall performed high-kicks during a Sunday matinee show, attended by Sue and her friend Scott; Sue expressed her suspicious concerns to Scott about the likeness of her deceased friend Cathy to Jarrod's waxed figure, even down to minute details such as a pierced right ear lobe: ("How could he see that in a photograph? How can he make it so real unless... unless it is Cathy"); the next day, they relayed their troubled feelings to Lt. Tom Brennan; Officer Brennan confirmed that an individual resembling Jarrod had asked to view photos of Cathy's body in the morgue; Brennan promised to investigate
• in the museum, Lt. Brennan and Sgt. Shane studied the figure of Joan of Arc and concluded that it was just wax:
  • "That's a copy of her face, all right....That's wax, how could it be anything else?"
• moments later, Sue entered the museum so that she could have a second, closer look at the Joan of Arc wax figure; as she again climbed up to the statue to investigate further and peel off some of the facial wax, she was confronted by Jarrod, who introduced his two sculptors to Sue: deaf-mute Igor and recently-hired Leon Averill (Nedrick Young), responsible for creating the figure of Joan of Arc; the creepy museum owner also showed Sue a waxed head likeness of herself (a wax replica of the cast that Scott had created of Sue's head); he then repeated his obsessive request to have her model herself for him as Marie Antoinette:
  • "What I need for my Marie Antoinette is you. The real you. Nothing less will satisfy me. Will you come to see me again, my dear?"
• before the two officers departed, they suspiciously mentioned how curious it was that Jarrod had chosen to display a wax figure of Matthew Burke (whose body was never found), and also of John Wilkes Booth who closely resembled a recently-murdered city official (whose body had disappeared) named Wilbur Patterson; Sgt. Shane was also suspicious that Jarrod's recently-hired assistant sculptor Leon Averill, known to be a drunken alcoholic according to Sidney Wallace, had created a sketch of Jesus with his disciples; Shane was positive that Leon resembled a genius artist-prisoner at Sing-Sing named Carl Hendricks, who had infamously painted a recreation of "The Last Supper" in his cell; Hendricks had broken parole about a year earlier and was on the loose
• after bringing Leon in to the statiion for questioning, the police discovered he was the alias for Carl Hendricks; he was booked for theft and suspicion of murder when he was found with a stolen item in his clothing - an inscribed gold pocket watch belonging to the missing attorney Patterson (one of the stolen corpses from the morgue)
• at the same time at dusk that evening, Sue had arranged to meet with Scott at the museum (after-hours) following after a work session with Jarrod; they had planned a dinner-date together for her birthday; she didn't know that Scott had deliberately been sent away on an errand by Jarrod to avoid being there when she arrived; she snuck into the museum through an unlocked door (Jarrod had noticed her standing outside and deliberately unlocked it)
• during her 3rd visit, she didn't know in the dark and eerie enclosure that she was being followed and watched by Igor (who relocked the door) - he hid amongst a group of wax heads on a shelf; she took advantage of the opportunity to again check out the wax figure of Joan of Arc; she removed the black wig on the figure and exposed Cathy's real blonde hair underneath; Sue made the shocking discovery that her friend Cathy's corpse had been dipped in wax to create the figure; from nearby, Jarrod snuck up on her and remarked: "You shouldn't have done that, my dear"; she responded with suspicions that Cathy's body had been used as a "model" for the figure of Joan of Arc:
  • "It is Cathy. It's Cathy's body under the wax! I knew it! I knew it all the time!"
• when she confronted Jarrod, he rose from his wheelchair (he had been feigning being crippled), and slowly walked after her throughout the museum; she was cornered when she ran into Igor guarding the door; Professor Jarrod admitted his hideous plan; Sue was to be his next "leading lady" for immortality - Marie Antoinette:
  • "Everything I ever loved has been taken away from me. Not you, my Marie Antoinette, for I will give you eternal life"
• in the film's most shocking moment, the Phantom-of-the-Opera-like Jarrod had his face beaten by Sue and his plaster-wax mask was broken off to reveal his hideously-burned and disfigured face below; she fainted upon learning he was Cathy's killer who had been rampaging through the city

• in the finale, set in the museum's cellar laboratory where Sue had been taken, she was strapped and naked in a box, and placed under a boiling vat of wax, where Jarrod lit up gas flames to heat the wax to prepare her as his next waxed exhibit victim - Marie Antoinette:
  • "This is where I recreated my Joan of Arc. It's an interesting process. If you have patience with me, my dear, I'll show you how it's done"
• as the film came to its climactic ending, back at the police station, Lt. Brennan and Sgt. Shane forced Leon to confess (by bribing him with drinks of alcohol); he admitted that his employer was the crazed, vengeful and murderous Jarrod who had torched his own museum, and was now coating the bodies of his victims with wax to exhibit in his new museum: ("His hands were no good. He had to take subjects from life"); the John Wilkes Booth figure was the wax-dipped corpse of the missing city official Wilbur Patterson, whom Jarrod had killed; he had also vengefully murdered Burke and Cathy, to make her his 'Joan of Arc' - "She's there with the rest of them. The whole place is a morgue"; Jarrod was also planning to make Sue Allen his 'Marie Antoinette'

• back in the cellar as the wax heated up, Jarrod continued to taunt Sue: "That look of horror spoils your lovely face. What if it should show, even through the wax?"; Scott re-entered the museum after his errand, and realized something was wrong when he found Joan of Arc's black wig on the floor and a locked cellar door; he was attacked, subdued and detained by the brutish Igor

• meanwhile, Jarrod prepared a hypodermic needle for Sue to render her unconscious so that he could sprinkling boiling hot wax over her entire naked body; she was encased in a wooden box with both of her hands and feet held down by metal clasps; as she screamed and attempted to scratch her way out of the way, he promised her "immortality":
  • "The end will come quickly, my love. There's a pain beyond pain, an agony so intense, it shocks the mind into instant oblivion. We'll find immortality together, for they'll remember me through you"
• the police arrived at the museum just in time to save Scott from being decapitated after Igor placed his head into the display guillotine; they also broke through the museum's cellar door to rescue Sue from having hot-wax dripped onto her body from the cauldron; during his struggle and escape attempt on an upper platform-bridge, the mad museum owner wound up falling into his own burning cauldron of tallow (at over 450 degrees F.) - it was his apt and richly-deserved fate; the hot-wax machine exploded; Lt. Brennan had pulled the box away holding Sue, and for modesty's sake, he covered her naked body with his coat
• in the film's epilogue set in Lt. Brennan's police station office the next morning, Sue and Scott thanked the police for their help; in the final frames, Brennan held up the waxed head of Igor and stated to the Sgt:
  • "You know, Shane, by the time this guy gets out of Sing Sing, this head will grow a long beard"