House of wax cast1/23/2024 Both do well with their roles, and although this film isn't exactly an exhibition in acting (unlike Curtiz's masterpiece, Casablanca) the cast do well enough. Wray plays the girl that the unfortunate artist becomes obsessed with, and Farrell gives a slightly irritating, but very lively performance as a journalist. ![]() Joining him are Glenda Farrell and Fay Wray as the heroine's of the story. Lionel Atwill takes the lead role as the unfortunate victim of the flames, and while he's certainly no Vincent Price he does well with what he's got and helps to create a macabre surrounding around his character, which in turn helps the film in the atmosphere department. The plot line will be familiar to anyone who has seen the Vincent Price version, but here, aside from a museum proprietor that gets his life work melted away in an inferno we've got a press investigation into the affairs as well. The two-strip Technicolor style of the film gives it something of a unique feel and this again is to it's credit as the film has aged really, really well. Take the deformed face of the central character for example it won't keep you up all night, but considering the time when this was made the effects are good. The film is actually quite daring and inventive for the time when it was made and despite the fact that nothing too bad is graphically shown, for obvious reasons, some of the imagery on display does actually succeed in being quite disturbing. This is somewhat unfair, however, as although this film isn't a brilliant masterpiece, or even genre classic, it has a right to remembered in it's own right. These days, Mystery of the Wax Museum has become best known for the fact that it was the film that spawned the 1953 classic starring Vincent Price. That version is more well-known than this one but I like rewatching this one more. ![]() Remade in the '50s as House of Wax with Vincent Price. So it's not a straight horror movie from beginning to end but, so what, it's still a great film and worth a look. Some viewers might be put off by the fact that a large chunk of the middle of the picture is more like a crime story/newspaper movie but I was always entertained, particularly by the back & forth between Farrell and McHugh. It's a juicy Pre-Coder, as evidenced by the gruesome plot and the junkie character played by Arthur Edmund Carewe. The sets are great, especially Atwill's art deco laboratory. It's a good-looking movie, filmed in two-color Technicolor with nice atmospheric direction from Curtiz. A few years later she would star in the Torchy Blane series and play a character very similar to the one she plays here. The scene stealer of the movie is Glenda Farrell as the fast-talking reporter heroine. Nice support from Frank McHugh, Gavin Gordon, and Edwin Maxwell, among others. Atwill is fantastic here and Wray is, as always, delightful. The last (and best) of the three horror movies Lionel Atwill did with Fay Wray. The group must find a way out of Ambrose-or become permanent additions to the House of Wax.Classic horror movie directed by Michael Curtiz and starring Lionel Atwill as a deranged sculptor with an "interesting" method of making the statues on display at his wax museum. As the friends uncover the town's dark secrets, they are stalked by a mysterious killer and find themselves in a bloody battle for survival. ![]() But as they soon discover, there is a shocking reason the exhibits look so real. Once there, they are drawn to Ambrose's main attraction-Trudy's House of Wax, which is filled with remarkably life-like wax sculptures. At the risk of being stranded, they accept a local's invitation for a ride into Ambrose, the only town for miles. They wake up the next morning to find that their car might have been tampered with, preventing their departure. A confrontation with a mysterious trucker at the camp site leaves everyone unsettled, and Carly has her hands full trying to keep the peace between her boyfriend Wade and her hot-headed brother Nick. A road trip to the biggest college football championship of the year takes a turn for the worse for Carly, Paige and their friends, when they decide to camp out for the night before heading to the game.
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