House of Wax, The [1953]

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The year 1953 was pretty scary for me. First, I was frightened by Martin and Lewis in "Scared Stiff," but only momentarily; and then I was frightened by "House of Wax," semi-permanently. I was in third grade.

The Martin and Lewis film was a comedy, and it was the only the last few minutes that startled me. But "House of Wax" terrified me all the way through, and I couldn't go into a wax museum for the next decade without wondering if there weren't dead bodies under the wax. In fact, I wouldn't go into a wax museum at all for the next decade. Even today the thought of a wax museum conjures up memories of that movie.

Of course, "House of Wax" being in 3-D helped, too. It was the first movie in three-dimension I ever saw, and it's still the biggest 3-D moneymaker of the period. My family drove all the way to Oakland, CA, to see it at the Paramount Theater, where we sat with the little cardboard glasses perched on our noses and watched as things almost literally flew out of the screen at us. Combine the horrors of a creepy old setting, a scarred and deformed maniac, and human bodies under wax, and I couldn't sleep by myself for days afterwards.

A couple of years ago I recommended to Warner Brothers that they might sell a ton of these things if they issued "House of Wax" on a double-sided disc with the 3-D version on one side and the regular 2-D version on the other. After all, it has been the relatively blurry state of normal television viewing that has prevented the old 3-D process from showing up well on the small screen. But I figured the better resolution of DVD would be a perfect medium for showing 3-D, and the disc case would be ideal for storing a few pairs of 3-D glasses. Warner Brothers politely acknowledged my recommendation and finally issued this double-sided disc with "House of Wax" on one side and the movie it was based on, "Mystery of the Wax Museum" from 1933, on the other. Well, at least the disc is two-sided.

"House of Wax":
After years of playing straight dramatic roles in Hollywood, Vincent Price started on his way to becoming a horror-movie legend with "House of Wax." Of course, it would still be a few more years until "The Fly," but "House of Wax" was his real start. In it, he plays a genius sculptor in wax, Professor Henry Jarrod, who is driven insane when his partner burns down their gallery of wax creations for the insurance money. Horribly disfigured in the blaze and mad for revenge, the professor sets up a new wax museum, this time using the dead bodies of his murder victims beneath the waxy glaze. Scenes of real-life crime and violence are exhibited while they're still fresh in the public mind.

Dressed in black with a hat pulled down over his face, it's easy to see where Sam Raimi got his "Darkman" inspiration. Also in the story are Phyllis Kirk as Sue Allen, a young woman who becomes suspicious of the professor when her roommate, Cathy Gray (Carolyn Jones), is murdered and then turns up as a wax figure in Jarrod's exhibition. Allen's boyfriend, a sculptor named Scott Andrews (Paul Picerni) helps with the investigation, as does a policeman, Lt. Tom Brennan (Frank Lovejoy). You'll even find a very young Charles Bronson (listed in the credits as Charles Buchinsky) as Igor, a deaf mute, one of the professor's ominous assistants.

The Warner Bros. movie was based on an earlier WB film, "Mystery of the Wax Museum" from 1933. But this time, WB wanted not only to one-up but two-up itself. First, they made the film in the brand-new 3-D process, dubbed "Natural Vision," and, second, they used stereo sound. If they waited another year, they could have done it in widescreen, too, which was just introduced about the time the film was in production. In any case, the evidences of 3-D are still prominent throughout the movie, although not in 3-D anymore. The most famous scene is one of a man advertising the opening of Jarrod's new House of Wax by banging away on elastic-tethered paddle balls in front of the building. Needless to say, the fellow would often aim the balls right at the movie audience, and in 3-D you'd see viewers actually duck their heads! There are also many other things flying through the air--falling bodies, kicking and dancing legs, and feet shooting out all over the place--as well as several young ladies in tight corsets whose upper torsos protrude invitingly outward.

As a whole, the film is still a crowd pleaser, its dusky shadows, turn-of-the-century setting, menacing villain, and bizarre museum as creepy as ever. And the film's climax in the bowels of the darkened House of Wax remains a fiendish delight. Expect no blood or gore, however, nor few outright shocks. The film relies largely on atmosphere for its frights.

"Mystery of the Wax Museum":
Controversy will always continue about which movie version of Charles Belden's play is more effective, the 1933 rendering or the later 3-D version. "Mystery of the Wax Museum" is set at the time of its making rather than at the turn-of-the-century, taking away a little of the period mood; but it has more strikingly frightening sets, many of them, especially those of the museum's basement, displaying marked elements of German Expressionism in their design.

Both films follow the same general outline, the opening sequence in the two films being almost identical. The professor this time is named Ivan Igor and played Lionel Atwell, who played a whole string of nefarious characters in the thirties and forties. Although Atwell doesn't seem quite as sinister as Price, he's got a great speaking voice. The biggest difference between the movies is in the lead female character. Instead of the relatively helpless young lady of the later film, this older one features a breezy, fast-talking, hard-drinking newspaperwoman named Flo Dempsey, played by Glenda Farrell. In this regard, the movie's quick-paced dialogue makes it a combination "Front Page" and "Frankenstein," representing two genres picking up steam in the early thirties.

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