Museu de Cera

I saw the remake recently of House of Wax and mainly that was because I just wanted to see Paris Hilton die once and for all! I was a satisfied customer, but the movie actually turned out to be pretty good, so I was very curious to see the original, especially since I love Vincent Price. Who wouldn't love him? He's the king of B-Horror Movies. He has brought us House of Wax, the original haunting tale of an artist who went too far to create his works of art.

Henry Jarrod is an artist who has devoted his life to his wax museum, but when his partner is upset with the investment and wishing it had better success, he offers to burn the place down and split the insurance money with Henry. But Henry refuses, his partner goes through with it by burning the place down and knocking Henry unconscious and leaving him for dead. But a little while later, his partner convinces the insurance company that Henry is dead and collects the insurance money, but things start to happen like the partner dies but it looks like suicide and Cathy's, our leading lady, best friend is murdered by a horribly disfigured man and her best friend's body disappears only to happen to look like a figure of Henry's new exhibit.

House of Wax maybe be tame by today's standards, but just think of the time, no one ever thought in a million years of something this horrific. A sick artist taking our corpses or killing us just because we would inspire him, it's a scary thought. Vincent Price added so much horror and beauty to this picture that will never be forgotten once you have seen it.

8/10

I love Vincent Price, my all time favourite horror actor. 'House Of Wax' is an important movie in his career, because it was his first legitimate horror film, after thirty something pictures in a variety of genres. This really is where the Price persona fans know and love began. He made non-horror pictures after this, it was a few years later that he made 'The Fly' and the William Castle movies which made him a horror star, something cemented later in the 60s with Roger Corman's Poe movies. But you can see Vincent Price horror icon right here. He's terrific as Jarrod and he would draw upon this role for 'The Mad Magician', and later, the Phibes movies and 'Theatre Of Blood'. 'House Of Wax' is a remake of 'Mystery Of The Wax Museum' made twenty years earlier. In that one Lionel Atwill played the Price role (different name, but same character). Atwill was great but Price is even better, as is the movie overall. 'House Of Wax' sticks pretty much to the earlier movie, but with a few changes, most notably the absence of the girl reporter character that Fay Wray played in the original. In this, the policeman played by Frank Lovejoy ('In A Lonely Place') takes on a similar role. Phyllis Kirk is good as the female lead, better in my opinion than Glenda Farrell in the earlier picture. The supporting cast also includes Carolyn "Morticia Addams" Jones, and an early appearance by Charles Bronson, who plays a deaf mute named Igor. 'House Of Wax' was made specifically for 3D, so there's a few gimmicky shots, but that doesn't spoil the movie, which to me is a horror classic that every fan of the genre should see.

"Professor" Henry Jarrod (Vincent Price) is a sculptor who works in wax. He's living in New York City in the late 19th Century, and he's displaying his handiwork in a wax museum. When his partner, Matthew Burke (Roy Robert)--really his primary investor--balks at Jarrod's receipts and tries to talk him into moving in a more commercial direction, perhaps with a "Chamber of Horrors", Jarrod protests that he's creating meticulous works of art, not cheap sensationalism. Jarrod tries to interest a new investor, but when the prospect says he can't make a decision for a few months, Burke says he can't wait. He suggests torching the place and collecting the insurance money. When Jarrod refuses, Burke torches the museum anyway, and the two fight. Jarrod supposedly dies in the fire, leaving Burke to collect. However, when a mysterious, disfigured stranger shows up, the resolution may not be so simple.

The debate that Jarrod and Burke have in the opening scene of this remake of Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933) is particularly ironic in light of the film's history. House of Wax was made as a 3D film--a fact made more than obvious from the film's opening credits, which are presented in a font made to look like it is bursting forth from the screen.

In the early 1950s, movie theater box office receipts were down because of television. Film studios and movie theaters were looking for gimmicks that would make films seem more special. They were looking to do things that television couldn't do. According to film editor Rudi Fehr, "The House of Wax was made because the theaters were empty, people were staying home to watch television. In order to lure the audiences back to the theaters, Warner's came out with 3D." While this wasn't the first commercial 3D film--1952's Bwana Devil holds that honor, this was certainly one of the more popular ones.

Studio head Jack Warner told Fehr that he would have five weeks to edit the film after shooting was done. Fehr said they could get it done even quicker if director Andre De Toth would shoot the film in sequence. So Warner demanded just that, despite De Toth's protests. Shooting in sequence is unusual and can make the on-set crew's job much more difficult. But it certainly didn't negatively affect the performances or De Toth's direction, which are both outstanding despite a couple strangely truncated bits of exposition.

Like many 3D films, there are a few shots in House of Wax that might otherwise be inexplicable. The most prominent example here is a huckster who stands in front of the revamped House of Wax doing tricks with three paddleballs. We linger on him much longer than we normally would so that he can bounce the ball into our face. This shows part of the difficulty of 3D--it's difficult to reconcile the most impressive effects from the audience's perspective with narrative needs. Viewed now, in simple 2D on a television screen, the obligatory 3D shots of House of Wax play as quirky, campy curios. For me, that adds to the charm of the film.

Price has an unusual role here in that he plays a good portion of the film with disfigurement makeup, half-limping, hunched over, covered in bulky black cloaks in a manner that somewhat prefigures John Hurt's turn as John Merrick in The Elephant Man (1980). De Toth is excellent at building atmosphere, especially in the "external" shots, which frequently feel more like we're watching a version of the Jack the Ripper story set in London.

Most of the script by Crane Wilbur, based on a play by Charles Belden (which also served as the basis for 1933's Mystery of the Wax Museum, of course), is deliciously flagitious--degenerate in a more over the top manner than was usual for the period. The conflagration at the end of the opening is particularly unexpected and twisted, as is Jarrod's modus operandi throughout the film. It's only too bad that the self-enforced Hollywood "moral code" at the time could not have allowed for a more nihilistic ending. I for one was cheering on Jarrod and his assistant Igor, played by none other than Charles Bronson in one of his earlier roles, when he was still using "Charles Buchinsky".

Although it's difficult to say whether Belden, Wilbur or De Toth intended a message or subtext, it's easy to read a number of interesting angles into the film. To begin, the use of the name "Igor" for the assistant suggests a number of twisted turnabouts on Dr. Frankenstein. Jarrod is even more depraved than the good doctor as he "creates death" out of life, in the service of art. At least it seems depraved if you're not an artist. If you are, you might simply note that one must suffer to be beautiful. That's more than just a flippant remark, as Jarrod suffers financially for beauty early in the film, and Cathy Gray (Carolyn Jones) suffers physically for beauty as she nearly suffocates herself to make herself thin. And of course there's the literal, sinister sense in which the artist makes others suffer to create his beauty. There are also very interesting subtexts available related to goals of realism in art, and of course, the ironic messages noted earlier in the beginning of the film, where we are debating aesthetics versus financial, or more material considerations.

Although House of Wax was popular at the box office in 1953, there was no shortage of critical devaluations of the film as a cheap gimmick, and no shortage of complaints about image quality and eyestrain when trying to view the film in 3D. 3D was only prominent for another year or so (to make periodic returns later, often for "number 3" films in series), but House of Wax is a much better film than it was given credit for at the time. It's not Vincent Price's best, but it's well worth viewing.

House of Wax is a decent film without the three-dimensional effects, but it is a complete riot when viewed in the original 3-D, especially when we get to see the emcee in front of the theater. Vincent Price is at his creepy best in this film about a man who opens up a wax museum that has a secret as to why the figures look so life-like. This was the second time I had seen it in its original format, and I enjoyed it just as much this time, including its over the top melodrama and unbelievably dated dialogue. Do not miss this film if you can find it showing at a classic movie house, because it is extremely entertaining to experience.

--Shelly

Perhaps I've been lucky. I've only seen this film twice in the past 15 years, but both times were in 3D, the second time last night. The crowd just loved it, with a big round of applause at the end.

The paddle ball scene is a highlight, but the reprise of the paddle ball is even more hilarious. It's completely over the top, and helps to create the carnival atmosphere that makes the film so effective in a large group.

The really dramatic 3D effects in this film are played for laughs, and I think that's one of the keys to its overall success. Director André De Toth treats the gimmick as a gimmick, and doesn't try to get more out of it than that. Hitchcock, in "Dial M For Murder", tried to use the technology for dramatic effect, but that was a complete failure. The gimmick gets in the way of real drama. The attempted murder of Grace Kelly in "Dial M" is more shocking in 2D. In 3D, you're completely jolted out of your involvement in the scene when Grace's grasping hand comes lunging halfway out into the audience at you.

In "House of Wax", the effect found its real home, a melodramatic thriller, played by everyone with tongue firmly in cheek.

De Toth composes his shots really nicely, I think. There's some foregrounding of chandeliers and other props, but never too much. He mostly holds back on the effect until he can make the best use of it -- the paddle ball, the can-can dancer's round bottom, the bust of Charles Bronson at the end. There is one great 3D thrill, the shot where Bronson, playing Vincent Price's evil mute assistant, has to grapple with policeman Frank Lovejoy. Bronson appears to leap out of the audience and onto the screen; it's an unexpected moment, and a real treat.