Films involving General Conditions

General: Minor Films no photo.

Title	House of Wax (1953)
Alternative/Original Title
Disability	General
Country	USA
Length	88
Genre	Horror
Rating	2
Director	Andre De Toth
Cast	Vincent Price Frank Lovejoy Phyllis Kirk Carolyn Jones Paul Picerni
Notes	A madman imprisons people and then pours wax over them while still alive to exhibit as sculpture. In April, 1998 an English aristocratic artist used body parts (stolen from hospital) as moulds for his sculpture. Remake of the Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933) Was shown in 3D version. I've listed this under General since unlike the 1933 version I don't know whether the assistant in this version is deaf or not. It could also be categorised under Mental. Florence writes to say that a young actor Charly Buchinski, later Charles Bronson, plays Igor. Her father did the make-up and she says that Vincent Price wouldn't let Phyllis Kirk see the face under the mask til the day of shooting the scene. When he tore away the wax mask she actually fainted. Florence also writes: As the irrepressible young Mosco stated before about the lower the budget the more scary the movie, I have to agree. The old A.I.P. films (except when the tried to do Lovecraft) and Bill Castle shockers (and Tinglers, and Emerg-O ) were great fun. Part of the reason was they managed to get some damn good actors. Look at the cast of HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL- Vinny, Elisha Cook Jr's floating head to set the mood (Cookie as we called him was a fine actor who was so good in his meaty nutcase roles that nobody thought he was acting!). In other films they had Nicholson, Karloff, Mike Pate, Gig (sometimes sober) Young and others. Most of these guys and some of the gals (Who were mostly there for cleavage, in more ways than one) were stage trained and better than their material. They were so much better than the material that they could lift to a level that worked. Today we have actors and actresses that are pretty much one note. They look real good and can cry if they have enough takes and some glycerine and menthol blowers. But to bring a script, good or bad, to LIFE you have to have a certain breed of actor and director. All the EFX in the world might only startle an audience but it takes talent to make a character believable enough that you care what happens to them and are frightened for them. Dad also did another couple of films that made the Halloween trek across TV this weekend. He designed the ghosts for 13 GHOSTS (and was head make-up artist) and he worked on building the ants for THEM (which is still one of my favorites). The most horrible things I got to work with in my career were Eva Gabor and The Hulk."

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