In the early 1950's, studio heads at Warner Bros. decided a remake of Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933) was in order. The new film, House of Wax (1953), starred Vincent Price and was chosen as a vehicle to showcase and take advantage of the budding format of 3D, a cinematic technique devised to combat the threat of home television sets. House of Wax was the first color 3D film to be released by a major studio, but in an ironic twist, the director they hired, Andre de Toth, was blind in one eye... and could not see the result of the effects he was to create.
Professor Henry Jarrod (Vincent Price), co-owner of a Wax Museum in early 20th Century New York City, is a talented but uncompromising sculptor of beautiful wax figures. During an argument with his business partner about the direction of the Museum, the partner decides to burn it down for insurance money. The two fight and battle as Jarrod tries to save his beloved figures...
the partner comes out on top and leaves Jarrod to die in the inferno...
Some time later, bodies of murder victims are being stolen from the morgue by a disfigured man...
and miraculously, Professor Jarrod, thought to be dead, opens a new Wax Museum with startlingly lifelike figures, assisted by the mute Igor (Charles Bronson in an early role)...
Sue, a visitor and friend of one of the murder victims, makes a dangerous discovery...
that Jarrod is the murderer. The figures on display are his victims coated in wax...
Will she become the next exhibit in his macabre museum...
"House of Wax" (1953)- movie trailer
