Reel Classics: ‘House of Wax’ (1953)

Were you aware that April marks a his­toric anniver­sary for Hollywood? I was­n’t aware until I received an email from a friend ear­li­er this month inform­ing me that it was the 73^rd anniver­sary of the release of the film House of Wax. So why is that his­toric, you might ask? 

In April 1953, House of Wax was the first major stu­dio release of a film in 3D, col­or, and stereo sound — a tru­ly immer­sive expe­ri­ence for the view­er.  It was also a career-chang­ing role for its star, Vincent Price.

The sto­ry is set in the ear­ly 1900s in New York City.  Professor Henry Jarrod (Vincent Price) is a very tal­ent­ed sculp­tor who runs a wax muse­um fea­tur­ing his­tor­i­cal fig­ures.  He has a busi­ness part­ner, Matthew Burke (Roy Roberts), who feels he is not mak­ing enough mon­ey on the ven­ture.  His efforts to get Jarrod to change the exhibits to some­thing more sen­sa­tion­al that would draw big­ger crowds is met with resis­tance.  Burke has received an offer from a wealthy art crit­ic, Sidney Wallace, to buy his share of the busi­ness, but Wallace is cur­rent­ly out of the coun­try and won’t be back for months. 

Burke decides to burn down the muse­um to col­lect the insur­ance mon­ey.  Professor Jarrod attempts to stop him but is knocked down and left for dead.

Some time lat­er, after Burke has received the pay­ment from the insur­ance com­pa­ny, he is approached by a dis­fig­ured man in a long black cloak and is stran­gled.  The mur­der is arranged to appear as a sui­cide. This mys­te­ri­ous fig­ure also man­ages to mur­der Burke’s fiancée, Cathy Gray (Carolyn Jones). But before he can fin­ish the arrange­ments to make it appear as a sui­cide, he is dis­cov­ered by Gray’s room­mate Sue Allen (Phyllis Kirk).   She escapes to the home of her friend Scott Andrews.  They lat­er learn that the body of Cathy Gray has been stolen from the morgue. 

We learn that some­how Professor Jarrod sur­vived the fire but is per­ma­nent­ly crip­pled.  He is now in a wheel­chair and is no longer able to sculpt, as his hands were bad­ly dam­aged in the fire.  Jarrod meets up with Sidney Wallace and asks Wallace to invest in a new wax muse­um.  Unable to sculpt him­self, he would over­see two assis­tants.  His assis­tants are Igor (a deaf-mute) and Leon Averill (an alco­holic).  To make the muse­um more crowd-pleas­ing, he agrees to include a cham­ber of hor­rors that dis­plays acts of vio­lence as well as the his­tor­i­cal fig­ures he prefers. 

Wallace agrees to the ven­ture, and we wit­ness the grand re-open­ing of the wax muse­um. As it hap­pens, Sue Allen is attend­ing the open­ing with her friend Scott Andrews.  She is quite tak­en and dis­turbed by the resem­blance of the Joan of Arc fig­ure to her for­mer room­mate and friend, Cathy Gray.  Professor Jarrod states that the fig­ure was based on news­pa­per pho­tos he had seen after Gray’s death. 

Jarrod then hires Scott Andrews as an assis­tant and asks Sue Allen to agree to pose for the sculp­ture of Marie Antoinette as he sees a resem­blance to his most favored sculp­ture lost in the fire. Sue agrees and, in explor­ing the fig­ure of Joan of Arc, becomes even more dis­turbed by see­ing a very dis­tinc­tive ear pierc­ing on the fig­ure — one that would not have been eas­i­ly dis­tin­guished in a news­pa­per pho­to. She shares this infor­ma­tion with police detec­tive Tom Brennan (Frank Lovejoy), who agrees to investigate. 

Meanwhile, Sue con­tin­ues her own inves­ti­ga­tion and dis­cov­ers that her friend Cathy’s corpse is indeed in the wax fig­ure.  Jarrod sees her, ris­es from his wheel­chair, and walks toward her.  Frightened, she strikes him in the face, and a wax mask cracks, reveal­ing a dis­fig­ured face.  He sub­dues her with the plan to make her into his new Marie Antoinette. 

I will stop the sto­ry­line here, as I do not wish to spoil it for you.

House of Wax was actu­al­ly a remake of a 1933 film titled Mystery of the Wax Museum.  It starred Lionel Atwill (who appeared in many Universal stu­dio’s hor­ror films) and Fay Wray (best known for her role in King Kong).  The direc­tor was the famous Michael Curtiz of Casablanca fame. 

The remake opened in New York City in April 1953 and was a tremen­dous box-office suc­cess.  The stu­dio went all out in pro­mot­ing the film, includ­ing a con­tin­u­ous “round-the clock” show­ing in Los Angeles. It was shown 12 times con­sec­u­tive­ly start­ing at midnight. 

The mid­night fea­ture includ­ed Hollywood celebri­ty atten­dees such as Judy Garland, Rock Hudson, Ginger Rogers, and Shelley Winters.  In the lob­by, Bela Lugosi appeared in his Dracula attire, hold­ing a leash attached to an actor in a goril­la cos­tume.  This was a ref­er­ence to Lugosi’s film from the year before, Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla. He was paid by the stu­dio for the pub­lic­i­ty stunt (and, at this stage of his career, Lugosi need­ed the money). 

House of Wax was the num­ber one box-office hit for five weeks and was one of the biggest hits of the year.  Film reviews were pos­i­tive as well.  Recognizing the “rev­o­lu­tion­ary” impact of com­bin­ing 3D, col­or, and stereo sound, the crit­ic for Variety wrote, “This pic­ture will knock ’em dead for a ghoul.  Warners’ House of Wax is the post-mid­cen­tu­ry Jazz Singer.  What ... Al Jolson did to sound, the Warners have repeat­ed in third dimension.” 

The review in Hollywood Reporter stat­ed, “Warner Bros.’ House of Wax proves once and for all that true stereo com­bined with per­fect col­or and direc­tion­al sound is tru­ly a vision­ary new and excit­ing medi­um.... The result has a kind of spell­bind­ing effect on the audi­ence, giv­ing a feel­ing of real­ism to a com­plete­ly unre­al sto­ry as well as a sense of participation.” 

The Critics Consensus at Rotten Tomatoes states, “House of Wax is a 3‑D hor­ror delight that com­bines the atmos­pher­ic eeri­ness of the wax muse­um with the always chill­ing pres­ence of Vincent Price.”  In 2014, the Library of Congress select­ed the film for preser­va­tion in the National Film Registry.

This film was also a career chang­er for Vincent Price, who had been appear­ing in films since the 1930s, often in sec­ondary roles or occa­sion­al­ly as the lead.  He was seen in his­tor­i­cal and noir films such as Laura.  He was also very active on the stage and in var­i­ous radio pro­grams.  But the role in House of Wax set him off on a new path, for which most of us now know him.  He went on to embody the mad sci­en­tist, the fiendish vil­lain, and oth­er deranged char­ac­ters. Most know him today for his films in the 50s, 60s, and 70s that include House on Haunted Hill, The Tingler, Return of the Fly, The Pit and the Pendulum, and The Abominable Dr. Phibes. 

Price was often known to attend screen­ings of his films incog­ni­to.  In an inter­view with a biog­ra­ph­er, he recount­ed attend­ing a show­ing of House of Wax, where he had a seat near the back of the the­ater.  The 3D glass­es and the dim­ly lit the­ater kept his iden­ti­ty a secret from those around him.  He told of sit­ting behind two teenagers one evening, and after a fright­en­ing scene, he leaned for­ward and said, “Did you like it?” 

Price said, “They went right into orbit!” 

Nedrick Young por­trayed the alco­holic assis­tant to Professor Jarrod, but was not cred­it­ed.  He had been a vic­tim of the McCarthy era “red scare” and had been black­list­ed in Hollywood. 

The young actor who played Igor, Charles Buchinsky, went on to become famous in his own right.  He changed his name to Charles Bronson and went on to act in mul­ti­ple TV shows and movies until the 1990s. 

And you may rec­og­nize Carolyn Jones, who lat­er played Morticia in the TV series The Addams Family.

One of the more iron­ic facts involv­ing the mak­ing of the film is the choice of direc­tor.  Andre de Toth was the direc­tor, and unfor­tu­nate­ly, he was unable to see the fin­ished prod­uct of his efforts as oth­ers saw it. He was blind in one eye and there­fore could not see the 3D effects.  His focus was on cre­at­ing a thrilling story. 

It turned out the mak­ing of the film was more “thrilling” than expect­ed.  For the scene of the fire in the muse­um, de Toth had his crew set three fires before the cam­eras began rolling.  However, the crew mem­bers quick­ly lost con­trol of the fires, which burned a hole in the roof of the sound stage and even singed Vincent Price’s eye­brows.  The fire depart­ment was called, but de Toth kept the cam­eras rolling even after the fire­men arrived. 

The Internet Movie Database rates House of Wax at 7 of 10.  Rotten Tomatoes gives it a Critics Score of 93% and an Audience Score of 72% 

While search­ing my Roku device, I found the film avail­able for free on the Movie Vault site. The DVD is avail­able at the Clark County Public Library. Unfortunately, the expe­ri­ence in view­ing the film will not be quite the same as it was in the the­ater in 1953 with 3D and stereo sound. 

I men­tioned ear­li­er the film’s his­tor­i­cal sig­nif­i­cance. Though it was the first major stu­dio 3D pro­duc­tion in col­or and in stereo, it was not the first 3D pic­ture.  In 1952, an inde­pen­dent film titled Bwana Devil was released in col­or, which depict­ed lions jump­ing out at the audience. 

The suc­cess of that film is what moti­vat­ed Warner Bros. to invest in 3D.  However, report­ed­ly, the very first film in 3D was released in 1922, the silent film The Power of Love.   It was shown only twice to audi­ences wear­ing the spe­cial glass­es pro­vid­ed.  It was then bought by Selznick Distributing Corporation and released in 2D. Reportedly, there are no exist­ing copies of that film.

Information for this Reel Classic review was gath­ered from sources includ­ing the Internet Movie Database (IMDb), Rotten Tomatoes, Turner Classic Movies (TCM), and Wikipedia.