House of Wax is a 1953 American horror film starring Vincent Price and is largely responsible for him becoming a horror icon. It is a remake of Warners’ Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933) without the comic relief featured in the earlier film, and was directed by André de Toth from a screenplay by Crane Wilbur (The Bat).
House of Wax was an example of the 3D film craze of the early 1950s and was the first 3D film with stereophonic sound. It was successfully re-released in the US in 1971 and loosely remade in 1966 as Chamber of Horrors.
Plot teaser:
Professor Henry Jarrod (Vincent Price) is a devoted wax figure sculptor with a museum in 1910s New York. When his financial partner Matthew Burke (Roy Roberts) demands more sensational exhibits to increase profits, Jarrod refuses. Unwilling to wait to be bought out, Burke deliberately sets the museum on fire, intending to claim the insurance money. He fights off Jarrod in the process, who is desperately attempting to save his precious sculptures, and splashes kerosene over his body, leaving him to die in the fire. Miraculously, Jarrod survives with severe injuries, and builds a new House of Wax with help from threatening deaf-mute sculptor, Igor (an early role for Charles Bronson).
The museum’s popular “Chamber of Horrors” showcases both notable crimes and more recent ones, including the murder of Jarrod’s former business partner by a cloaked, disfigured killer. Burke’s fiancée, Cathy Gray (Carolyn Jones) is also killed. But when Cathy’s friend, Sue Allen (Phyllis Kirk), visits the museum, she makes a discovery that leads to the horrifying truth behind the House of Wax…
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Reviews:
“There is a certain amount of fun to be had with the 3-D, which thrusts legs, spears and even lines of can-can dancers swinging their legs out of the screen – indeed, House of Wax must hold some type of curiosity value for being the first 3-D film to wave a female derriere out of the screen into its audience’s face. In the same scene, a barker bats a ping-pong ball on a string out of the audience while telling us he is aiming for the popcorn not the person.” Moria
“Price is both fearfully loathsome and brilliantly passionate as Jarrod, and it is this well-rounded performance that operates the moral complexity of House of Wax. At the beginning of the film, we observe Jarrod speaking of his sculptures as if they’re human beings; of Marie Antoinette he comments, “People say they can see [her] breathe.” In the hands of another actor this might come across as forceful foreshadowing to Jarrod’s impending madness, but Price’s speech is so impassioned that Jarrod is seen as much as a martyr as the sculptures he surrounds himself with… ” John Dubrawa, Classic-Horror.com
“Although entertaining and lavishly produced, House of Wax is no masterpiece; if anything, its glossy beauty undermines the horror. A reasonably close remake of 1933’s Mystery in the Wax Museum (starring Lionel Atwill), the film is less creaky than its source, but less atmospheric as well, failing to establish the sense of mystery and suspense necessary for genuine thrills. On the plus side, Vincent Price delivers a good performance in the starring role, and there is a very effective “unmasking” scene at the climax. Otherwise, director André de Toth relies on stereoscopic visuals to maintain interest.” Steve Biodrowski, Hollywood Gothique
“House of Wax is as handsomely mounted as anything from a major Hollywood studio of the time, but the rush to production (the film was shot in just four weeks after only three months of preparation) was in evidence both behind the scenes and in front of the camera.” Denis Meikle, Vincent Price: The Art of Fear
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Wikipedia | IMDb | 3D | 1950s | remake | Vincent Price | Related: The Wax Mask
Posted by Adrian J. Smith
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