Movies - House of Wax

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	Movies - House of Wax

House of Wax is a 1953 American horror film starring Vincent Price. Director André De Toth’s remake of Mystery of the Wax Museum
(1933) is one of the first 3-D films. MPAA Rating: PG.

Plot

Professor Henry Jarrod (Vincent Price) is a devoted wax figure sculptor for his museum in 1910s NYC. When his financial partner, Sidney Wallace (Paul Cavanagh), demands more sensational exhibits to increase profits, Jarrod refuses. Jarrod's greedy business partner Matthew Burke (Roy Roberts) torches the museum for the insurance money, leaving Jarrod for dead. Miraculously, Jarrod survives (though his hands and legs are rendered useless) and builds a new House of Wax with help from threatening deaf-mute sculptor, Igor (Charles Bronson).

The museum’s popular "Chamber of Horrors" showcases both famous crimes and more recent ones, like the murder of Wallace, a victim of a cloaked, disfigured killer. Wallace's fiancée, Cathy Gray (Carolyn Jones), is also attacked. 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. That is is full of murdered people coated in wax.

3D

Stereoscopic 3D was an alternative technology (like Cinemascope, Cinerama) used by 1950s studios attempting to compete with the new threat of television. Just over 50 titles were release in the 3D process during its 2 1/2 year heyday. House of Wax was always shown in dual interlocked 35 mm projection with polarized glasses. The film was re-released in the period of 1975 through 1980 in both single strip 35mm Stereoevision 3D and in Stereovision's pioneering 70mm 3D process, where it played in major venues like Mann's Chinese Theater, in Hollywood, and the huge Boston Music Hall (seating 4300 patrons).

Among the 3-D scenes featured in the film are a museum fire, a paddleball man, and can-can girls. Ironically the director De Toth was blind in one eye, and unable to experience stereo vision or the 3-D effects.

Impact

Many people have reported their memories of the film to be extra vivid, as compared to other films of the same period. One theory holds that scary 3D movies are saved in a special "experiencial memory", that is, where you store actual experiences, as opposed to artificial film experience . Some researchers think that what you see with "your own two eyes, in stereo 3D" is more likely to leave a powerful memory.

The title was borrowed for a very different story line, as a modern film remake starring Elisha Cuthbert and Chad Michael Murray, released in 2005.

Main cast

Vincent Price
-- Professor Henry Jarrod
Frank Lovejoy
-- Lt. Tom Brennan
Phyllis Kirk
-- Sue Allen
Carolyn Jones
-- Cathy Gray
Roy Roberts
-- Matthew Burke
Paul Picerni
-- Scott Andrews
Paul Cavanagh -- Sidney Wallace
Charles Bronson
(as Charles Buchinsky) -- Igor

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Movies - House of Wax

Plot

3D

Impact

Main cast

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