House of Wax

House of Wax is a 1953 American horror film starring Vincent Price. It is a remake of 1933′s Mystery of the Wax Museum without the comic relief featured in the earlier film, and was directed by André de Toth. The 1953 House of Wax was an early example of the 3-D film craze of the early 1950s.

The film was the first 3-D color feature from a major American studio, and premiered just two days after Columbia Pictures’s Man in the Dark, the first 3-D feature released by a major studio. It followed the very successful premiere months earlier of the independent production, Bwana Devil, both sparking the 3-D film boom of the 1950s. House of Wax premiered nationwide on April 10, 1953 and went out for a general release on April 25, 1953.

Trivia:

Warner Bros.’ first 3-D movie, filmed by director André De Toth – who was blind in one eye and hence could not see the effect.

The scene where Paul Picerni is rescued from the guillotine by Frank Lovejoy seconds before the blade came down was filmed in one take, using a real guillotine blade. Picerni and director André De Toth got into a heated argument when Picerni, on advice from the film’s stuntmen, refused to do the scene as too dangerous (a prop man was to hold up the blade off camera and tell the actors when he dropped it so they could yank Picerni away). De Toth threw him off the picture, but several days later, on orders from studio head Jack L. Warner, De Toth recalled him, and had the prop department modify the guillotine to make it less dangerous. After examining the guillotine, Picerni said he would do one take and no more, which is exactly what happened.

Nedrick Young, who plays the alcoholic assistant Leon, was uncredited because he had been blacklisted during the McCarthy “Red scare” era in Hollywood.

According to the “Guinness Book of World Records”, while this film is far from being the first 3-D film, nor the first in sound or color, it IS the first 3-D film released with a stereophonic soundtrack.

This was reportedly Warner Brothers’ biggest success since Life with Father (1947).

When Vincent Price is showing the wax sculpture of his former business partner, he says, “Foul deeds will rise, though all the world o’erwhelm them, to men’s eyes.” This is a quote from “Hamlet”, Act I, Scene 2.

The name of Vincent Price’s character was changed to Henry Jarrod from Ivan Igor to avoid alienating Russian viewers.

The trailer was scored by Max Steiner.

Filed under: GoreMaster 100 Films

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