Like fellow Hungarian Michael Curtiz twenty years earlier, Andre De Toth also tackled Charles Bledden's stage play The Wax Works. His treatment differed from the 1933 version in emphasizing horror rather than mystery. The legendary Vincent Price plays Professor Henry Jarrod, a master wax sculptor whose studio is burnt down by his greedy business partner to collect the insurance money. Vincent Price is excellent as usual and of course his presence can only add to the film. The script is more lucid and in fact the complaint that there is no mystery left is correct, but that is the way it was intended.
The Technicolor photography is good but certainly not as unique as those of the once lost masterpiece, Mystery of the Wax Museum. The same is true for the sets (at least the early London portion). There is a small role for a deaf mute played by one Charles Buchinsky, who later changed his surname to Bronson. He is virtually unrecognizable in this early role. In comparing House of Wax and Mystery of the Wax Museum, I would say House of Wax has a better script and star-performer in Vincent Price but Mystery has a more beautiful visual look and the 'scream queen' of the 30's Fay Wray as Jarrod's Marie Antoinette.
The Technicolor photography is good but certainly not as unique as those of the once lost masterpiece, Mystery of the Wax Museum. The same is true for the sets (at least the early London portion). There is a small role for a deaf mute played by one Charles Buchinsky, who later changed his surname to Bronson. He is virtually unrecognizable in this early role. In comparing House of Wax and Mystery of the Wax Museum, I would say House of Wax has a better script and star-performer in Vincent Price but Mystery has a more beautiful visual look and the 'scream queen' of the 30's Fay Wray as Jarrod's Marie Antoinette.