HOUSE OF WAX (1953) Commentary Track

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(01:32):
You know, we started this solong ago. We were still in a free
country when we started this series.
I too remember 1994.
Wait, what movies came out in 1994?
Cody Candyman. I'm notactually sure if that's true.
But you said it with such gravitas.
I knew I had to commit. Thatwas. That was all I knew. I'm looking

(01:57):
this up. Hold on, please.
Jurassic Park.
Damn it. I missed both candymen. Candyman came out 1992. Candyman
2. Farewell to the Flesh cameout in 1995.
So you picked the one yearthere could be no candy man.
Yeah, yeah. When was the firstleprechaun? When? Please save me,
leprechaun.
When was the first leprechaun?

(02:19):
The first leprechaun was like89, man.
1993.
Really?
1993 was the very first leprechaun.
Seems too late to be tryingout the leprechaun. Yeah, and we
should have known better.
But it kind of makes sensethat they went to the hood so fast.
Right? Because that seems likea very 90s way of handling your franchise.
But that's speed. Running inspace so quickly.

(02:40):
But wasn't in space. Was the fourth.
Okay, so it was Leprechaun 2.94, Leprechaun 3, 95, Leprechaun
4 in space 97. And then theywent to the hood. I thought was the
other way around. They went tothe hood in 2000 and then 2003, they
went back to the hood.
Oh yeah, Leprechaun. And thehood was the soft reboot because

(03:01):
technically that does not takeplace in the same continuity as the
other ones because theleprechaun has been imprisoned in
the hood for like 100 years.
Yeah, it's a different leprechaun.
You could make the argumentall leprechauns in that universe
are look exactly the same.
So they're all work Davis and they're.
All assholes for some reason.My. As soon as you said all leprechauns,
my mind auto filled that toall leprechauns go to heaven. And

(03:23):
I'm just imagining thecrossover of all dogs and all leprechauns
going to heaven.
If Box Office Pulp has anofficial stance we want to take,
it's all vampires go to hell.All leprechauns go to heaven.
Yeah.
Would Roddy Dangerfield stillstar in All Leprechauns Go to Heaven?
I think he was just in Rover Dangerfield.
Incidental character though.

(03:44):
Like I said, you're thinkingof Rover Dangerfield. Yeah, that's.
Yeah, I was, I was. I couldpicture him as a dog. That's the
problem.
Thank God you made thatmistake, Mike. So everyone's gonna
be thinking that you're anidiot instead of me for saying that
Candyman came out in 94.
Woo.
Really saved my ass.
Get your together, Mike.
Oh, I know man. Ah, anyways, Iknew he was gonna.
Be R rated once I had a.

(04:04):
Really good intro there. Damnit, Jamie.
Yes.
Stop me. Welcome to Box OfficePulp. What if we just got sadder
every time we introduced the show?
I mean, I think we do getsadder, but just it's eternalized.
Anyways, welcome to Box OfficePulp, your one stop podcast for movies,
madness, moxie, and tonight,the Wax shenanigans return in one
of the finest moments in waxhistory, in my opinion. Here I'm

(04:27):
your host, Cody. Joining metoday for this bop in a movie are
my co host, Mike. Say hello, Mike.
One of my favorite pieces oftrivia from this film is is that
the first person to ever dieby the electric chair did not actually
look at all like CharlesBronson and actually had a very big
bushy beard. Which means itwas decided that no, Charles Bronson

(04:47):
definitely looks like somebodywho would have died by the electric
chair.
More so than the person who actually.
Died by the electric chair.
I mean, that's just the wayhistory rules. We don't know what
anyone historically reallylooks like. Abraham Lincoln.
No.
That guy, five foot three, Cody.
Yeah.
Now, are you saying that evenif there are pictures of the person,
we still don't know what theylook like historically?

(05:07):
Oh, you believe in photos.That's cute.
Oh, no. Well, you've been on4chan again, haven't you?
Also joining me today, Jamie.Tell me, Jamie, you don't believe
in the conspiracy that is bigphotograph, do you?
Well, I don't really know whatI believe in anymore, considering
since the last time werecorded a commentary, I was caught

(05:30):
up in a tragic fire which hasnow prevented me from the use of
my podcasting hands.
No, it's a tragedy.
I can't even hold themicrophone anymore.
What a world. What a cruel world.
It doesn't explain thewheelchair, though. I think you just
don't want to walk.
It's going to make it verydifficult whenever I get down the
stairs. I'll figure that out later.

(05:51):
I'm going to save my rantsabout Mike disrespecting people in
wheelchairs for later.
I'm saying Jamie has the useof her legs.
The wheelchair remains Mike.
Also, this is going back tothe photograph thing, but you think
we could try to make a rightwing person have the crazy argument
that photographs are too woke?
Right wing people believe thatTom Hanks is a pedophile who drinks

(06:14):
the blood of children to stayeternally young. They'll believe
anything.
Wait, that's not true.
I mean, have you looked at TomHanks? It's not like he looks like
he's 30 years old.
Have you seen Colin?
Is this like a Dorian Graysituation? What are you implying?
I don't know. I just reallywanted to bring up the existence
of Colin Hanks.
I'd like to imagine that youjust have a little notebook that
you're drawing a heart overhis face on right now.

(06:35):
No one does that.
Mike Harts, Fargo and thenjust a lot of pink hearts.
Well, that's just true.
It's a good show. It's a goodshow. Great cast, Irwin.
They always do it. Corruptedby the wickedness of the world.
Are you talking about Chet, Chad?
What was the other one is evertalking about Chet?
I was.
He's dead.
I'm glad that we're recordingthis in the same room for the first

(06:57):
time so Mike can finally seethe unnecessary physicality I bring
into any kind of funny voice I do.
Oh, you're going to be. You'regoing to have to unfortunately witness
the same. Hopefully I don't dostart doing Palpatine.
Both of you have to snitch oneach other to me, if I'm talking
and you're doing jerk offmotions because that's going to hurt
my self esteem.
I think it's assumed forpeople listening to this podcast

(07:20):
what a horrible opening this is.
I had a good one and weweren't recording. So now it's just
this that every.
Joke we do involves a jerk off motion.
I'm still just bummed that yourevealed the curtain that this is
a bad intro. Maybe we couldhave tricked him into thinking this
was an okay one. Oh, well.
Oh, no.
Oh, well.
The precious Bop confidenceshattered our sponsors.

(07:44):
Yeah.
All right, let's just get intoit tonight. It's been a while, I
know, but we're finally backwith more wax. I feel like I say
this every two months and justsurprise people with more wax movies.
People are gonna be reallyconfused because we haven't released
any of the episodes we recordbecause we're banking them, but for
us, there's like three monthsbetween recordings. Dude, God are
gonna hear them like a weekapart eventually.

(08:06):
And yeah, just know you'regonna see us change. Completely old
and wizened throughout therecording of this. It's been years
talking about wax.
I feel like this is howrecording a season of the Last Drive
in is like.
Yeah, probably. But tonightwe're back with what I kind of think
is the crown jewel of waxmovies. 1953's House of Wax. So I'm

(08:27):
very excited to talk aboutthis one. We planned on doing this
literally two and a halfmonths ago. And I know this because
tonight's drink I startedmaking two and a half months ago.
So I'm very curious to seewhat all that extra time has done
to my concoction. Folks, ifyou want to drink along with me,
you don't actually have towait that long. This was a choice
on my part. So if you want todrink, it's called the Joan of Arc.

(08:50):
The ingredients you're goingto need is 1.5 ounces of chamomile
infused Irish whiskey. You'regoing to need a half ounce of honey
liqueur. You're going to needa half ounce of lemon juice, a quarter
ounce of cucumber juice, threequarters of an ounce of rich honey
syrup. If you haven't madehoney syrup before or rich honey
syrup before. You take twoparts honey to one part water. You

(09:10):
heat up that water to like, aboiling point, put it into the honey
honey, stir it around, It'lldissolve the honey and make it, you
know, a nice, easy mix to dumpin Anything. Mix all of those ingredients.
I put mine into a liter bottlethat was coated with wax and then
sealed it and left it for twoand a half months so it would pick
up characters of the wax. WhenI drink this thing normally, I do

(09:31):
it for a week. So I'm curiousto see what impact over two months
has on this stuff. It's goingto be exciting.
Cody, that was a bad idea. Iusually don't interrupt these, but
that was a bad idea.
Maybe. Maybe this is why. Thisis food grade wax. This is food grade
wax. It comes directly from bees.
Anyways, I like the term foodgrade wax. It seems like an oxymoron
to me.

(09:51):
I mean, I don't think there'sa lot of people out there eating
whole wax or anything, butthis should not kill me.
They are now.
Anyways, folks, the wax part'soptional. I just like it for the
mouthfeel. Once you've got allthose things mixed together, you're
gonna top that off with 2ounces of champagne. So I have this
in my hands now. It's been alittle bit. I'm gonna top this off
a little bit more champagne.Also, wish I had popped the cork

(10:12):
inside the room whilerecording. Could add some great asmr.
Also, that's a lie. I didn'tget one of the bottles that has the
pop top. This is just a screwtop. I cheaped out on the champagne.
We wouldn't have known eitherdisappointments without you, Cody.
I have to be honest. Allright, let's give this a sip. Roo.
The problem here is since Ihave topped this with champagne,
that long sip was nothing butchampagne. So I'm going to get to

(10:33):
the bottom of this drinkhalfway through the commentary, and
all of a sudden it's going tobe like, what have I done?
You'll hear it. I am now drunk.
It'll be the intermission whenthe ping pong balls are going. All
of a sudden you'll just hear achange in the timbre of my voice.
All right, so theoretically,that's not poison, folks. If you
want to drink along, maybeit's good. I don't know, maybe you
just like champagne. That'sgood to drink, too. But go ahead
and make that drink and comeback, continue the show, and then

(10:56):
we leave for another threemonths and come back to finish the
podcast.
No, we're doing it. We'redoing it.
We're making progress. It'shappening. I don't think completing
a podcast makes us good peopleor not in this day and age.
I Think so? No, the bar isvery low.
That means Joe Rogan's greatGod, he.
Doesn'T do a podcast. He doesa radio show he calls a podcast.

(11:17):
I feel. I have felt verybitter about that point for the past
decade.
Oh, my God. I'm gonna move uspast this because I feel like we're
getting to a semantics battlethat's gonna take 40 minutes.
Good only for House of Wax.
All right, folks, do you have1953's House of Wax queued up on
your end? We're going to bedoing this as a commentary. You can
watch along with us, or youcan just listen to us as a podcast.

(11:39):
Again, I am not your father. Iwill not be disappointed if you just
listen to our voices withoutVincent Price on your screen. It
will be better if you can seethat handsome, handsome man, though.
And the commentary will be alot better than this opening, we
hope.
I mean, there's no promises in life.
We got to believe. Trust the wax.
All right, Mike, would you dous the honors and count us down?

(12:00):
Yes.
All right. One, two, three.
Waxening. Go. All right,folks, I have a lot of movie facts,
and normally I just runthrough them as fast as I can the
first five minutes of themovie. But a majority of my notes
now are just tied up into thepeople that made this film. So I'm

(12:21):
going to spread them out alittle bit.
Tied up in wax, you might say.
Ah, clever. Let's start withthe basics. This was directed by
Andre De Toth. Toth lost aneye during a childhood accident,
which makes this movie'saccomplishments in 3D amazing to
me. They took a guy who couldnot see 3D and told him, hey, do

(12:42):
you want to make one of thefirst 3D movies? And he actually
was the guy who wanted to dothat. He volunteered for the position
because he viewed it as amathematical challenge. He had a
strong understanding of howthe human eye worked and perceived
depth, and he was able tocalculate all the shots to give optimal
3D effects, mixing depth offield and more gimmicky actions like

(13:04):
the paddle ball section at theintermission. Again, this guy did
it without depth perception.He just knew the math so well. He's
like, yep, that one's good.Put in the can.
And in the years after, heactually spoke at length about it,
his feelings on 3D and whereit went wrong, which I think are
very prescient, becauseeverything he said, you could say

(13:27):
about the 3D resurrection thatwe lived through after Avatar, which
is because he couldn't see the3D he was only doing it when it was
necessary to sell the gimmickor to create depth of field, to get
you pulled into the movie andfeel like the movie was this, like

(13:48):
entire living world in frontof you you could walk into. And he
swears that, like Beethovennot being able to hear his own music,
he somehow was able to makethe 3D better not knowing it was
there.
Something I learned aboutBeethoven recently was he was using
an early version of boneconduction to actually hear the music

(14:09):
as he played. He had a metalwire that went from the piano to
his mouth that he would bitedown onto, and the vibrations from
the piano would basically tellhim if he was hitting the right notes.
Fun fact and an aside. I don'tthink there's a Beethoven wax figure
inside of this place at all.
There should be. So.
Toth was primarily known fordirecting western and film noir films

(14:32):
like Crime Wave and Pitfall,and he was nominated for a best writing
Academy Award for co writingthe 1950 Western the Gunfighter.
It's also worth noting De Tothwas an uncredited second unit director
for Lawrence of Arabia. Andget this, the movie. Talk about a
career. Just those two creditsalone would make you, you know, Hollywood

(14:53):
royalty.
It's wild.
Also, and this is not relatedto anything at all, but it's just
such a weird fact I wanted tomention. He was married seven times,
including an eight year stintwith Veronica Lake. So that this
guy, he. He had a crazy life.
Well, that's a fascinatingdetail I found out from actually

(15:14):
an old Fangoria interview fromthe 80s that I found archived on
their website. The topactually got his. His start as a
teenager in the art worlddoing a one man sculpture and painting
show, which was apparentlybooed out of town the first night.

(15:40):
And he was so upset that hedestroyed all of his own creations
and never sculpted or paintedprofessionally again. I wonder why
Mr. Of the Wax Museum spoke tohim so much. Because remaking that
was entirely his idea.
Yeah, I'm torn. I want to keepgoing into the screenplay stuff.

(16:03):
Oh, go ahead.
Oh. I was just gonna say theonly reason he was in a position
to request a movie of WarnerBrothers is he was about to walk
away from them when he wasdirecting a movie, I believe, called
Springfield Rifle with GaryCooper, where they wanted Cooper
to play the first everundercover agent in a Western because

(16:25):
people were already gettingbored with westerns and the studio
said, no, that's weird. You'renot doing this. So he was going to
walk, and if he walked, GaryCooper would walk. So to get Them
on everybody back down to thetable. They say, okay, pick your
next movie. And he said, Iwant to remake Mystery of the Wax
Museum.
And I want to get into thattoo. Because if you looked at Warner

(16:48):
brothers in the 40s and thefirst half of the 50s, they were
very opposed to making horrorfilms. They did not make many at
all. And that, that kind ofexplains how we got here. I always
kind of wonder that, like, whythe hell were they making House of
Wax? That is completelyagainst grain for them. Anyways,
we've got Vincent Price onscreen right now. I'm sure we'll

(17:10):
be talking about him very muchthroughout the entire thing. Just
great role from him too. Youfeel like he is actually in love
with each one of these thingshe has sculpted, which sells the
entire premise of the movie.If he was callous about his own artwork
or you didn't buy thechemistry between him and a lump
of wax, this wouldn't goanywhere. To get back to our credits

(17:34):
here, we've got a screenplayby Crane Wilbur. Wilbur's career
stretched from the silent eraup into the 60s with titles such
as Mysterious island, the MadMagician, also with Vincent Price,
Crimewave that I mentionedearlier with the Tothe, He Walked
by Night. And he also did amodernization of the stage play the

(17:55):
Bat, which proved to be sopopular that it was readapted for
film in 1959 with VincentPrice. I think the Bat has been done
a whole bunch of differenttimes. So that was probably huge
money in the bank for CraneWilbur. Back to Price for a second.

(18:15):
Here we have him as HenryJared. This movie would really lead
to a career resurgence as ahorror icon for Price. After this,
he would go on to make the MadMagician, the Fly House on Haunted
Hill, the Tingler, the Bat,House of Usher, Pit and the Pendulum,
Tales of Terror, the Raven,Diary of a Madman, the Haunted Palace,
Twice Told Tales, LastMountain, Earth, the Mask of the
Red Death, and more. I mean,there's a reason why when you go

(18:38):
into Target right now, you canbuy a Vincent Price action figure
from Nika. The guy is kind ofhorror royalty, Right. And I would
say deservedly so. Every timehe is in a movie, it's just an absolute
treat. I want more Price ineverything I'm watching, even when
he is the main character.
And we were very close to notgetting him as a horror actor or

(18:59):
really a name actor ingeneral. It's. He really had a choice
between this and a particularplay that he wanted to do. Yeah.
And he chose this even thoughhe kind of wanted to do the play
more. And he still. And Ithink he spoke on kind of, he had

(19:20):
regrets for not doing theplay, but at the same time he said
like other actors did and dida great job, but it meant absolutely
nothing for their overallcareers. It was just a thing they
did once.
Right.
Meanwhile, I owe literallyeverything to doing House of Wax.
And yeah, it's a solid pointtoo, because if you look at Price's

(19:42):
early career, throughout the30s and 40s, it was a lot of serious
dramatic roles. He did a lotof stage work. He was more of a serious
actor than Paul Poorer. Icon.So lucky you asked for career changes.
Well, it's weird seeing him inmovie, in like proto horror films
like Leave her to Heaven,where it's like, very easily Vincent

(20:05):
Price could have been therespectable, older, safe man in a
horror movie. Not the horroricon, not the boogeyman. It's like
even imagining a world withVincent Price as a slightly different
horror icon is very interesting.
Yeah. Plus, I love old schoolhorror where it's, hey, this is a

(20:29):
famous actor. Let's put him ineverything we possibly can. You know,
Vincent Price or any of thehorror Hammer stars, you know, Christopher
Lee, those kind of guys,obviously they got iconic roles that
they came back to over andover again. Christopher Lee had his
whole Dracula thing, he didthe Mummy. But Vincent Price doesn't
have a huge number of sequelsthroughout his career. I'm struggling
to think of any really,besides Phibes.

(20:51):
Technically, he played theInvisible man twice.
Yeah, there we go. But that'sactually kind of wild to me because
he. I mean, Visible man wasyears and years before this. Yeah.
But it didn't result becominga horror actor.
He's also like good guy,Invisible man and that. So it's still
not quite the same. Yeah.Which again, for a while, it's like

(21:14):
it was in the cards for Priceto be in horror, but as the guy fighting
the monster, not the monster itself.
Yeah, it's like a heel change,which works out for us. But the larger
point was, this is justfascinating to me because his charisma
was so good in these rolesthat he became iconic in the genre
itself just by being throwninto everything because the studio
knew he was a bankable star.Not really the same way you'd see

(21:37):
it done now. So much like, youknow, think of Freddy Krueger, you
know, Robert Englund, greatactor, obviously, and we all love
him as Freddy and he's cameoedin a lot of things. He's had small
roles in a lot of things. Butthat Freddy role is just so iconic
that that's basically hiswhole career. That's what you think
of first and last. Bryce getsto be like a hundred different guys.

(22:03):
I think a key factor in thatso many of those later roles were
really building on thearchetype he discovered in this movie,
which is just beingduplicitous and charming.
Yeah.
Nobody can play the dude whois obviously the villain, who. You
don't want to be the villainbecause he's so much fun. Quite like

(22:23):
Vincent Price.
He can have a little bit ofmurder as a treat. He's earned it.
You. You kind of were glad hewas murdering you in the middle of
it. Like, oh, it's good forhim that he's me. To me, like, that's
why he. Him and Corman work sowell together in those type of roles,
because if you look atsomething like House of Usher, you

(22:46):
couldn't imagine another actorportraying that particular role in
that particular movie and inthat adaptation, because it takes
what Price has to do it whereyou don't know where the character
is coming from at any given moment.
I would say with Corman, heknew exactly the tone to strike.
With Price, that's whysomething like the Mask of the Red

(23:08):
Death, where he's a verysadistic character, still works for
me. Like, it's. It's sadistic,but it's fun. Pryce seems like he's
having a fun time and kind ofwinking at the camera slightly, whereas
something like WitchfinderGeneral is a little bit more meaner
spirited in my mind. And thatone I don't enjoy as much.
Yeah, that stuff's interestingjust to see Price go, like, because

(23:31):
Price did play a lot ofheavies before House of Wax. They're
just more traditional heavies,I think, probably just because of
his height, honestly.
Yeah. It's amazing watchinghim in this movie around everyone
else and they play up the factthat he looks like he's, you know,
8 inches taller than everybodyaround him.
But, like, the fact he couldkind of turn that on and be very

(23:52):
vicious. But he didn't reallygo for it for every role. He only
did it here and there inlittle bits.
Yeah. To interrupt fromVincent Price, I would just want
to focus on the fire happeningright now, which is one happening
in beautiful Technicolor, andtwo is probably the more realistic
portrayal of burning wax thatwe've seen out of all the wax movies

(24:14):
so far.
And all the other ones, likeprecious moment figurines going up.
Yeah, all the other ones, theyhave to really speed up the footage
or have, like, heat guns inthere. This. I'm pretty sure they
basically lit a set on fireand filmed it.
Yeah, this was one of the lastthings they did because they pretty
much reused all the waxfigures from the later House of Wax

(24:36):
in the film. And this was alsoa thing where the fire immediately
got out of control. They hadtwo small fires, and, yeah, it got
a little unwieldy and thencombined and then pretty much the
set caught fire. A lot of thisis actually being filmed while the
fire department's arriving toput out the fire. Price almost had,

(25:00):
like, his eyebrows and job andlike that.
You can watch this and watchVincent Price almost die.
But they knew that. But thetall knew if he didn't film anything,
they were fucked. Like, theamount of money it would take to
redo every single wax figurewould. Would pretty much put the

(25:21):
movie out of production. So hejust filmed all of them melting.
I'm gonna.
I'm gonna get to the budget ofthe movie in a second here. But that's
actually a huge factor in thisfilm. It was incredibly expensive
to make, but I'll get to thatlater. Sorry to cut you off.
Because of the need for allthe deep focus they were doing for
the 3D. There are no stuntpeople in this film. So, yeah, everyone

(25:45):
who nearly dies are just thevery expensive actors. They pay.
Like that moment there wherePrice walks off screen to go get
a bucket of water. Again, thisis all on fire in real time. So they
probably had an actual bucketof water out there and some makeup
applied to his face while he'soff camera so he could run back in
and finish the scene. Itwasn't like they're swapping him
for a stuntman right there.Stuff that could probably not happen

(26:08):
again because it'd be toodangerous for anybody.
I mean, this is insane shit tohave your, like, lead actors doing.
No, you wouldn't be able toinsure someone to do this now. Like,
unless you're Tom Cruise andyou can just pay for your own insurance
while you're jumping off theRoll Solace building. It's not happening.
You're basically droppingVincent Price in the middle of a

(26:31):
Japanese wrestling show.Survive the electric electrified
pool, Vince.
I mean, even in older films,they could cheat a little bit because
they would have, you know,like, the little gas burners underneath
the camera to give theimpression that the flames are coming
from everywhere. This isliterally a house fire. They just
stuck the guys in and let themhave a fist fight.
Look at how close Price is toactual burning furniture.

(26:55):
Yeah.
It makes me scared for him.Like nearly 100 years later.
It's got to be like a thousanddegrees inside of this place. I'm
getting sucked into this. I'mgoing to keep giving off some of
our movie facts.
And there's like, this, like,stunt coming up. I think it's. It's

(27:16):
insane to watch him, like,just walk around looking at things.
This. Fires that are gettingbigger as you're watching him walk
around and all this coverageout of goddamn control.
It works so well too, becausethey managed to get solo shots. You
know, basically every one ofthe mannequins falling apart. And
from the little bit of intro.
We got up and this right here,like, he goes through there and then

(27:39):
that thing falls over. Like.
Yeah, that's an insane stunt.That's wild. That's a crazy gag.
But I was gonna say too. Itsells the emotional impact of the
film so much. Two, that we getso many great shots of all of these
wax figures melting awaybecause they're basically friends
and, you know, romanticfigures to Vincent Price in this

(28:01):
film. So he has just watchedall of his friends die for the sake
of a greedy partner who wasn'twilling to wait an extra month so
they could sell the place andhe could get a share back.
Honestly, it's wild sayingthis after we've seen a couple of
these things burned to theground. But this is the best wax
museum burning in any of thesemovies, I think, because you have

(28:24):
an actual emotionalattachment, if not to the figures
themselves, into what theymean for.
For a price here.
In any other wax museum movie,the museum burns at the end and it
feels like a moral judgmenton. On the sculpture, there's something

(28:46):
both more. More interestingand also, like, just more up. And
how in the realistic burningof the figures.
Yeah, I mean, there's some.There's some amazing shots in there.
Like Joan of Arc, pretty muchher eyes hollow out at a certain
point. I. I mean, that you.You couldn't have planned it to melt

(29:09):
that way. It's so perfect tojump to the.
Action on screen for a second,though. I want to introduce. We've
got Carolyn Jones right hereas Kathy Gray. You all know Carolyn
Jones as Morticia addams fromthe 1960s version of the Addams Family
TV show. This was one of herearliest roles, and she was just
really building steam as astar, which is honestly probably

(29:31):
why her character isn't thatcentral to the movie. Anyways, little
fun fact for you at home.Enjoy that. There you go.
That's so fun seeing hercharacter in this movie, which kind
of feels like a primordialproto slasher, being an extremely

(29:52):
early version of the blondeparty girl archetype that we'd see
cut to ribbons by slashers ahundred times in the 80s.
It's funny you mentioned thisis a proto slasher, though, because
I was just thinking yesterday,this is, in my mind, very reminiscent
of early Giallos. Yeah, I'mjust thinking of it because of the

(30:12):
colors. Because you watchsomething like Blood and Black Lace,
visually that movie'sarresting. You can't take your eyes
off it. It's so slick. And,you know, this was 1953. There were
still a lot of movies thatwere coming out that were not in
color. So this was a prettybold choice by Warner Brothers. Be
like, we want this to be amarquee movie. We want it being 3D.

(30:33):
We want it to be in color,which was.
It looks shocking toaudiences. I mean, a lot of stuff
in House of Wax does not lookparticularly startling or scary to
modern audiences. Even to,like, people in, like, the 70s and
80s. This seemed to be veryold hat to them by some of the older

(30:56):
coverage I've seen. But like Imentioned Lever to Heaven earlier,
that movie being a thrillerwhere people die in it in color freaked
people out the year it cameout. So imagine just the fact that
they made a horror movie withthis much capital H, you know, horror
imagery. Like a guy, adeformed dude, stalking around people

(31:21):
being boiled in wax inbeautiful Technicolor. That had to
be disturbing.
Yeah.
Even to the crowds that werejust going for a fun popcorn movie.
And this is such a wonderfulmakeup, too. I mean, we would get
more realistic burns, I guess,later on with. You have various things,
Freddy Krueger whatnot. Butthis is still a horrifying look.
Yeah. Complete disfigurement.I mean, we're not supposed to know

(31:42):
it's Vincent Price, but it'svery obvious. It's pretty obvious.
The revenge plot makes totalsense. So why would it be anyone
else?
Yeah, I mean, it's one ofthose things where if you wish they
didn't show him and just. Itwas more like Jalo, where you see
his hands, you see him frombehind or something.
Yeah, Just the black cloak andthe hat.
Yeah.
Shadows.
But, you know, you kind of.You also kind of want the monster

(32:05):
guy walking around.
But it gets a great earlyscare. I mean, because we are. It
took a while to get this muchsetup done. We're 20 minutes in.
We got an hour 10 left. So Iunderstand why they're like, okay,
let's put a jolt in here.
Yeah. Also, this really. Thisentire movie, but this scene in particular,
this. This is post code, butit really, like, stretches it.

(32:30):
Yeah.
So as long as we're talkingabout the look of the film, I'm going
to jump over to thecinematography. So this was filmed
by two different DPs. We hadBert Glennon and Peverell Marley.
And that wasn't actuallybecause of the complexity of the
3D, but Marley became sickafter the first week of filming and

(32:50):
Glennon had to step in to keepproduction on time. This was such
a big and expensive project.They could not afford to wait for
the first DP to get healthyagain, again for 1950. That's pretty
gnarly. We just saw that guyactually thrown down and, you know,
Pantomima hanging. The whole,you know, it's not totally in shadow.
It's not just hinted at. Weget to see his corpse right here.

(33:11):
Yeah.
Fairly bold stuff. Anyway,sorry, back to Peverell. He was Cecil
B. DeMille's cameraman for themost part, and he was nominated for
two Academy Awards. Suez in1938 and Life with Father in 1948.
And he's one of only sixcinematographers with a star on the
Hollywood Walk of Fame thatincludes Hal Moore, Ray Renehan,

(33:35):
Leon Shamroy, Pascal Wexlerand Conrad Hall. There will be a
test at the end of theepisode, so make sure you remember
those. So Bert Glennonsimilarly was also nominated for
two Academy Awards, 1939Stagecoach, which is phenomenal,
and 1941's Dive Bomb, which Ihaven't seen. Didn't even know it
existed until I was doingresearch on this. But Glennon worked

(33:57):
with a whole bunch of famousdirectors, including John ford, Cecil
B. DeMille and Raw Walsh. Hisson, James Glennon, would grow up
to be an accomplishedcinematographer in his own right,
filming the forest scenes forReturn of the Jedi, assisting with
RoboCop. And he was the DP forelection and About Schmidt. Oh, and
he also earned an epi. An Emmyfor lensing Deadwood.

(34:20):
Oh, wow.
Yeah. So I. I don't know whichparts he filmed. Most of the movie
was filmed chronologically,which is weird. I'll get into that
later when we talk about theediting. So I'm assuming most of
the stuff we are watching nowis. Is probably already moving into

(34:42):
Marley's work, But I'm not100% sure on that, so don't quote
me. Either way, they wereblessed to have two of the greatest
cinematographiescinematographers of their era working
on this film. Which again justadds to how prestige this picture
was viewed within WarnerBrothers. Just a weird, weird thing.
It's just like a big lavishgothic production that is very old

(35:08):
Hollywood, but also somethingthat Hollywood will always kind of
return to as being doing somekind of big lavish production.
And I do want to point out,it's kind of funny to me that this
is set in the past. It's maybeeasy for people to ignore because
this movie is again old 1953,but clearly it's not set in contemporary
times. You know, the firemencome in there with like water on

(35:30):
a horse and I like that. Whenyou're doing modern horror, it's
just not as scary to dosomething in a contemporary setting.
Like it's hard to make peoplethink like a modern day wax museum
or convenience store is scaryor if you have a cell phone, you
know, any of that. It's justharder to make people think it's
scary. Whereas if you removeyourself and put it a couple years
in the past, automatically itbecomes easier to sell terror. I

(35:55):
think psychologically for meit's probably because I look at this
and I go, well, every yearwe're inventing more ways for people
to connect. Right now ifsomeone broke into my house, the
neighbors would probably hearit. I've got smoke detectors. If
there's a fire, I could callthem on my cell phone for help. I
could go on my computer andlike IM someone for help. In the
future, there's probably evenmore ways for you to get help in

(36:16):
a bad situation. 1800, whatare you going to do? You're probably
not surrounded by people. Ifyou're not in the city, you don't
have a cell phone. If someoneattacks you, you just got to handle
it yourself or die.
Also I, I going into like alittle bit more about like why this

(36:38):
production was madespecifically. This was a time where
the suburbs were filling up alot more. There was a less vested
interest probably in likeurban environments and theater going
had really started to slip inthe early 50s, especially as TV became

(37:02):
more prevalent. There neededto be a reason for getting people
to not just watch things onthe screen at home and actually get
out back to the theater, goback to the cities and stuff. And
it's oh, interesting that it'spretty much an eternal rule that

(37:22):
Hollywood will jumpimmediately to 3D to get people to
go back to the theater.
They had a couple differentthings. There was 3D, obviously we'll
get More into that. But aroundthis time too, we had Cinemascope
and the idea of, well, ifyou're watching on a little tiny
square tv, wouldn't be cool ifwe had a theater that was gigantic
and wrapped all the way aroundyou. It feels innovative.

(37:46):
Imax. Yeah.
I'm just, I'm disappointed nowbecause we're in the streaming era,
which is essentially the sameproblem. Right. People just want
to stay at home instead of goto the theater. And theaters have
not responded with the sameenthusiasm that they had in the 50s
for reviving the theatricalexperience. The most you could say
is, okay, well, now you couldorder a beer and a chicken sandwich
at your theater. That's cool.But most people don't want to spend

(38:08):
the extra money for that. Andsure, we have recliners, those are
nice and comfy. But theyhaven't done anything about people
being rude in theaters. Theyhaven't done anything to combat spoilers
in theaters. The releasewindows are now so small that people
just go, well, fuck it, I'llwait a month and I'll just watch
this on digital.
Yeah, They've done nothing toactually improve the theater going

(38:32):
experience because back then,honestly, the. As cliche as it sounds,
there really weren't the samesort of problems people had going
to the theater that we allhave now of rude assholes and bad,
you know, the screens, bad,the sounds crackling. Theaters were

(38:55):
upkept at the time and now Ican't even get my theater to put
in a new bulb in the projector.
I also feel like studios takeway more of a bite out of local theaters
than they did back then. Sothat kind of, that kind of maintenance
and upkeep and giving a shitof a local theater chain, you're

(39:16):
just not going to see that anymore.
I want to drink for just asecond. I just love what we're watching
right now.
This is incredible.
These, these foggy streets.There's a disfigured, cloaked man
kind of limp chasing afteryou. It's such a nightmare thing.
And it's. You don't see inHollywood productions around that
time at all, really. Stuff youwouldn't see until like in probably

(39:38):
the 60s with a lot of Europeanand Italian cinema.
Yeah, this is just beautiful.
I love it.
You know, Hollywood had prettymuch abandoned gothic at this point,
like gothic romances andgothic horror because we were entering
the age of big bug movies andsci fi kind of taking up the real

(40:02):
estate that horror did. Sothis must have felt, this must have
felt in a weird way, like the1953 version of an 80s slasher movie.
Throwback to a lot ofaudiences. Like. Oh yeah, I remember
when, when scary movies lookedlike this. Now the, the depth of

(40:24):
field they are able to pulloff in this sequence is so breathtaking.
Oh yeah. I can only imaginewhat this is like in a 3D theater
and just thinking like, wow,you could probably actually feel
how long the street is. Also,I just love this little visual repeated
pattern as they're runningpast all of these windows that have
lights within them. So you getflick of darkness, flick of light

(40:47):
and the person kind of beingsilhouetted as they cross each part
of the building. It's a neat visual.
Also a lot of like, neat, Idon't know, storytelling things that
you probably. Honestly, if youwatch a lot of old horror movies
like this, you don't reallysee characters do smart characters
like she takes her shoes offso she doesn't make sounds on the
cobblestone street.

(41:07):
Yeah.
You know, like they're littledetails but they add so much. Especially
for what audiences were usedto and used to. The way characters
would be like a chase scenewould literally. Well, the only thing
that's going to happen is twocharacters chase each other until
the sequence is over.
They call somebody, callssomebody's name over and over again.

(41:28):
This is excellent. Cat andmouse. All right, going through my
list of credits because boy,we're really stretching this one
out. The editing was done hereby Rudy Fair. Now that's a big name,
not necessarily one thatyou're going to recognize, but his
impact on film is undeniable.So I want to get into him more than

(41:49):
I typically do most editors.Fair was nominated for an Academy
Award along with his daughteron the film Prizzy's honor in 1985.
He was the editor on Key Largoalong with Dial M for murder, and
was WB's head of postproduction from 1955 through 1976.
So he was a power player in WBfor decades and he held kind of an

(42:12):
odd amount of power on thisproduction. Jack Warner himself put
Fehr on the job and told Fairthe project needed to be finished
five weeks after shooting wascompleted. Fair agreed that that
was possible, but told Warnerthat the movie would need to be shot
in the same sequence as thescript so he could edit the movie
as the sequences were comingin. Not necessarily a revolutionary

(42:37):
idea in modern think becauselook at all the Saw movies. That's
essentially how they're done.They're being edited as their film
because they had a year longschedule for all of those. But in
1953, that was still kind ofviewed as a crazy idea because movies
aren't made that way. If youknow anything about films, you know
they're not filmed in the sameorder as the script because it'd

(42:58):
be prohibitedly expensive.Right. You film in the availability
of your actors, you film wherethe sets are available and you clump
those things in the best waypossible to save you money. Not the
case here. Jack Warner agreedwith fair and accepted that it would
be an expensive adjustment,which is an understatement. The budget
for this film was $1 millionin 1953 money. I'm not sure what

(43:24):
that is, inflation wise. I'msure I could look it up in a calculator.
But it was not a tiny sum.That's an expensive film.
Yeah, the top said. Apparentlyhe was called into a round table
meeting with the brass ofWarner Brothers at one point. And
Jack Warner called him ablackmailing bastard for trying to

(43:46):
weasel out of getting themovie made in that exact time frame
for that exact budget. Andwhen the movie came in under what
Jack Warner had thought andcosting less money, Warner was so
furious that he could notmeddle with the production because
it was already over. Hebegrudgingly sent to Toth a bottle

(44:09):
of Jack Daniels with a notethat said, you one eyed son of a.
Get drunk and go totally blind.
Oh, that's an old timer.
That's beautiful. I didn'tknow that story. That's fantastic.
But it paid off. I mean, asmuch as Jack Warner probably wanted

(44:31):
to fuck with it, the movietopped the box office for five straight
weeks and became the fourthhighest grossing film of the year.
It made about $24 million. Nota bad return. So Made for a million
gave you 24. And this is justfun for me. But here's the top 10
for 1953. Peter Pan. That was$60 million. Let's call that an animated

(44:56):
fantasy. Then we had the Robe,which is a movie I don't know anything
about that made $36 million.
It was a bible epic, abiblical epic.
Yeah.
I have not thought about theRobe in 100 years.
Second highest grossing filmof 53. It's also amazing to me that
Peter Pan kicked that muchass. Like it basically doubled second
place. Then there was FromHere to Eternity in third place.

(45:18):
That made $30 million. Thatwas obviously a romance war drama.
I'm sure people are aware ofthat one. Then we had House of Wax,
$23.8 million and horror film.Then it was Shane. $20 million. Classic
Western. Gentlemen PreferBlondes, $12 million musical Hondo,
8.2 million. Another Western,how to Marry a Millionaire, $7.3

(45:39):
million romantic comedy. Thisis exciting to me. In ninth place,
the Beast from 20,000 Fathoms.$5 million. Another horror film.
We got two in the top 10 in 53.
Imagine having being able torest on your laurels having ousted
Shane at the boss box office.You get to say that for the rest
of your life.

(46:00):
Right?
Ooh, and a classic Scare the Morgue.
And it's so good that you havethe. The corpse that actually sits
up. No, that. That is just theembalming fluid.
That's just a corpse.
Like, that guy was completelyright. That. That's not the. That's
not actually the killer. Andwhat a movie for the time to have
a scene that takes place.Like, for a. What is a big budget

(46:24):
main release movie to have ascene that takes place in a morgue.
There's also very scandalous.Like, I mean, we can all see which
ones. Carolyn Jones for otherreasons, but like that. That's. I'm
bringing out my kidnappingcode can do and, and stuff that you

(46:45):
don't like. Yes, there werescenes like that in a lot of movies
back then, but not stuff youwould see from major studios. Not
stuff you would see in color, definitely.
Yeah.
Well, hell, even the. Thedressing scene we. We saw earlier
had to be like Fairlyscandalous for 1953. I mean, that's

(47:08):
like several uninterruptedminutes of a curvy woman in her underwear
being dressed by anotherbeautiful woman. A Friday the 13th
TNA scene, like 53 style.
I just want to point out here,little fun twist because now we see

(47:29):
that the killer hasaccomplices who are dressed the same
as him.
The Children of Wax.
I mean, like, we.
It's strange because weunderstand the mystery immediately.
Like, we know it's VincentPrice, but this enriches things like,
okay, he's got extra guys and,you know, we're eventually going
to meet Price and realize he'sin a wheelchair. And they keep really

(47:50):
trying to build this mysteryout, even though we have the solution.
But it still works for me. Ithink it's because the characters
don't understand what'shappening and it's okay that they
trust the audience knows morethan them. Oh, this is like that
ironic tie.
Outside the police officer.There's the Bobby that's hanging
out. If you. This is somethingI. I noticed after a couple of viewings.

(48:13):
If you notice in the House ofWax, the horror version of House
of Wax, that Jared builds heright inside. He actually has a Bobby
standing guard the exact sameway, which feels very mocking and
I like that little detail.But. But yeah, like Mystery of the

(48:34):
Wax Museum has very similarproblem where for the most part you
get it. But I think it kind ofis able to drag it out in a more
this because it is played aslike a straight on this. Like a reporter
is trying to get to the bottomof something. The reveal feels a

(48:56):
little bit more earned andisn't like, so, oh, so that's how
he did it. Which is how thiskind of comes across. How, how he
is both the deformed personand I don't know if they were. They
were thinking like, oh, maybeBron, you know, Igor is the deformed

(49:17):
one and has like a wax face orsomething like that, you know, but
there wasn't a lot of build to that.
Yeah, I guess the first time Iwatched the movie as a kid, I wasn't
necessarily trying to solvethe movie or just along for the ride.
So it didn't occur to me untilthe face is revealed that, oh, Vincent
Price is the killer. So it, Idon't know, it was probably more
engaging for children, buteven as an adult, I still really

(49:39):
enjoy it. I don't mind thatthe mystery is pretty obvious. So
just. Hey, actually, I'm goingto change points again here. We'll
come back to the box office ina second. But lookie, lookie who
we have here. This is CharlesBronson. As eager. Bronson was such
an unknown at this point, hewas still being credited with his
birth name, Charles Buchinsky.So in the 60s, his career would really

(50:04):
pop off with roles in theMagnificent Seven, the Great Escape,
Dirty Dozen, Once Upon a Timein the west side note. One of my
absolute favorite westerns. Ifyou have not seen Once Upon a Time
the west, you're reallymissing out. Spectacular movie.
Absolutely keen.
Then by the 70s, he was theworld's top box office star, being
paid $1 million per film. Andhere he is in the Wax Museum as a

(50:29):
mute. Heavy, but man, look atthat jawline.
It seems like they've usedmakeup to make him uglier somehow.
He just has a very definedface. He looks like he's chiseled
out of rock. He's perfect fora role like this.
Gold miner. Apparently he wasan asshole.

(50:50):
No, Bronson.
Yeah.
Even on this set he wasapparently an.
Oh, but he doesn't have any lines.
He just kept sculpting his ownface over and over every time somebody
tried to Talk to him. Very standoffish.
Feels like it's. It feels likethe fact he sculpt, he makes all

(51:12):
of his sculpts look like himis supposed to be a plot point, but
it never really comes up now.
Well, it plays later on.Right. Because we have the gag where
you see his head on the shelfwith all the other heads and turns
out it's his actual face.
But you know, I think, I don't.
Think you actually need thismuch lead up for that, but I think

(51:32):
that's a connecting point.
Yeah, I think, you know, ifthey had done a thing where they
put a little bit of makeup on,on Price to give him a little bit
of the same features and likevery subtle ways would have been
interesting.
But yeah, I will say forBronson, for mute acting, I, I love

(51:53):
the stuff he's doing with hishands. Like this is very nice hand
acting, very expressive.
Doing a lot of great stuff.Like the character, considering the
character has nothing to do,really like you feel like he's in
a large portion of the moviemore than he even is.
Yeah, he finds a lot of busywork to do in the background. So
it feels like this is atalented actor. Obviously I'm saying

(52:14):
that because I know what hewould come become later on, but for
a kind of thankless role, he'sreally given it his all. I want to
jump back and finish off ourbox office conversation here. So
the tenth one, if youremember, I was going through the
list of top 10 of 1953. Thelast one was Niagara at 2.5 million,
which was a thriller. And Ilove the variety we have in that

(52:37):
top 10. Again, reading throughit, we don't have. I don't think
there's any sequels.Definitely no sequels in here. The
only remake really be House ofWax because Mystery of the Wax Museum
is essentially the protoversion of this film. These are essentially
all original films. I don'tknow if any of these were. Some of

(53:00):
them were obviously based onbooks like Peter Pan, the Robes,
based on the Bible. Butthere's a lot of originality in this
collection compared tosomething you would see later on
where it's, you know, a top 10of 200 million dollar giant action
movies that are all sequels toone another.
Yeah, I think the bigdifference there is so many of those

(53:21):
movies had names to draw themin, either, either established names
or up and coming. So like,like Marilyn Monroe and Gentlemen
Prefer Blondes. So I had acompletely different landscape there
where you're not so much goingto movies because of the premise

(53:41):
or what you necessarily arebeing promised. You just want to
see those people again.
There was that, and some of itwas pure spectacle too.
Right.
Like the beast from 20,000fathoms. People were going to that
so they could see like thegiant stop motion dinosaur destroy
a city. Which, I mean, yeah, Istill go to theaters when they're
promising a giant monsterdestroying cities. So that's universal.

(54:05):
Considering how well theMonsterverse movies are going, I
think that's just a consistentthing throughout. Throughout cinema,
people will always go for bigmonster crush Building it speaks
to.
Me deep within my lizard brain.
So. God, this is the mostbubble gum wax I've ever seen in

(54:25):
these waxes.
It looks delicious.
Like, I kind of want to swimaround in it.
Yeah.
So this film obviously wasreally successful when it first came
out, but then it was alsoreleased in 1971 and again in the
80s to capitalize on various3D crazes. And it was a huge hit

(54:47):
for both of those re releasesas well. So this movie just kept
making money. Years afteryears drew in, you know, new generations
of fans because we had fansfrom the 50s, the 70s and the 80s
who all kind of grew up withthis movie. And then it was remade
in 2005 very loosely as Houseof Wax. We've already covered that

(55:07):
episode by this point, but nota lot of relation to this movie,
but, you know, kind ofinspired by it and it probably fans
into it.
Yeah. It's also worth bringingup that because of the success of
this, there was an attempt topretty much immediately create a
television show based off ofit that did not get far. But the

(55:29):
footage from it would later beexpanded upon and released as Chamber
of Horrors, which weconsidered doing commentary for.
I do love that movie.
It is actually. It is actuallyreally good. We did consider doing
commentary for that.
That one's fun.
I have not seen that movieyet. Mike, is there anything in there

(55:50):
conducive to a House of Waxtelevision series? I don't know how
that would exist.
So what it was going to be waspretty much. It was like. It was
similar to Friday the 13th,the series, actually, in a lot of
ways, except, like, they ownedHouse of Wax. And I think it was
like detective characters orsomething. Right. I can't quite remember.

(56:13):
And they would investigatevarious, like, crimes, like killers,
you know, serial killersbefore that was coined and stuff
like. Which is pretty muchwhat Chamber of Horrors is. It was
what the pilot more or lesswas, which was going after this one
particular killer. So a lotof, like, crime stories and Macabre
stuff. And that's how it wouldsort of like how exactly it played

(56:37):
into everything and what ithas to necessarily do with the plot
of House of Wax, that'sdebatable. But there is a House of
Wax there.
Speaking of plot, Mike, we'reat the most important part of the
movie, the Ping Pong Ball Man.
So it seems those weren'tinvented yet. I just want to point
that out.
Yeah, it seems weird, right?To have an intermission 45 minutes

(57:00):
into an hour and a half longmovie. But because this was filmed
in 3D, essentially they'reusing twice as much film to make
this thing. And the projectorsrunning it used twice as much film.
So they had to put a break inhere because it was the equivalent
of like, you know, a fullmovie happening at this point, film
wise.
They were also very worriedthat a full color 3D movie would

(57:21):
just hurt people's eyes ifthey had to watch it the entire time.
So this has an old fashioned10 minute break which has been mercifully
cut from home video releases.Although I'm curious what the overture
would have been that theyplayed while this was happening.
I say leave it in.
You can always scene skip me,that alternate cut. But I know I'm

(57:43):
kind of torn on the idea ofthe Ping Pong Ball man because it
seems so gimmicky compared tomost of the other things that are
happening.
Jenny has a great anecdoteabout the Ping Pong Ball man, his
official name, by the way.
Yeah. When asked about ityears after the fact to like totally
double down, the fact that,oh, yeah, it's incredibly silly,

(58:04):
it's stupid. It stops themovie dead in its tracks. He swears
that was on purpose. Yes. Hewas very against doing Gimmicks for
the 3D. He only wanted to useit for filmmaking purposes. But Warner
Brothers was footing the billfor a 3D extravaganza. So they needed

(58:25):
at least one big showy gimmickmoment. So one of the producers,
Brian Foy, had the idea of,oh, let's just make it a vaudeville
thing and have like an oldtimey entertainment man come out
and show off this gimmicky newfeature, kind of winking at the,

(58:47):
at the audience a little bit,that this is for fun and games. The
reason he went that way withit is Brian Foy was one of the younger
sons of Eddie Foy, vaudevillelegend and leader of Eddie and the
Seven Foys, of which Brian wasone of the members.

(59:08):
It's a lot of foys.
So an old. The Son of an oldtimey vaudeville man, who himself
was a vaudeville child star,used vaudeville to sell a gimmick
in a movie.
I just want to point out here,I love the switch that people can

(59:31):
see in the mentality of Jaredhere. In the first House of Wax he
had, it was mostly beautifulwomen, right? I guess he had Edgar
Allen Poe and some other stufflike that. But now it's an actual
property House of horrors. Youknow, we've got the guillotine coming
down, chopping off heads andscaring the audience. We have torture
racks.
It's.

(59:51):
It's a much darker thing thathe swore up and down in the opening
segment that he was notinterested in doing. And now it seems
like that's the only thing hewants to make.
Well, that's something thatreally struck me whenever I was watching
this for the commentary. Itwas actually my first time ever viewing
it. We've seen so many storieslike this with this basic setup.

(01:00:16):
You know, there's a sensitiveartist who's, you know, his work
is turned cruel by an a miss,a careless and fickle public. But
there's such an interestingpsychology to how he operates in
the Prelude and how heoperates in the rest of the film.

(01:00:40):
It would be one thing for amuch more simplistic movie to just
say, oh, well, he paint likehe sculpts beautiful women now and
now he sculpts killers. But inthat monologue that Price gives,
you see, he is specificallysculpting people who are famous for
either either being dead orbeing violently murdered at the height

(01:01:05):
of their lives. Like even inthat monologue he gives about John
Wilkes Booth, you see, he'snot capturing the murder of Lincoln
to capture a murder. He'scapturing that because in the mind
of John Wilkes Booth, that washis happiest moment. That was when
he was most alive. Cleopatrameeting with Mark Anthony before

(01:01:26):
their death is when those twoare the most alive. Marie Antoinette
before facing the guillotinewas when she was the most alive.
And to see that then invertedto, to here, where. No, I just do
executions specifically with alot of imagery from the French Revolution

(01:01:48):
where, where death was madesuch a glorious spectacle in, in
such a grand way. It feelslike it's doing more than just shaking
its fist at the audience andsaying like, yeah, you like dark
things, huh? It feels likemore like it's speaking to the fact

(01:02:11):
that you, you can only, youcan only stare at the beauty of something
ugly before, for so longbefore that beauty loses its look.
Stir. And you're just leftwith the cold, scary reality of it.
And you can see that like themost with like Joan of Arc here and
the two different versions ofher. We see one that feels like a

(01:02:34):
celebration of life and onethat's is just a dead lady who's
about to be burned at the stake.
I also really appreciate thatthey, they include the bits where
Vincent Price is showing offhis former partner as kind of the
cap of the tour. And he has tomention too, it's a new mystery.

(01:02:56):
Was he killed or was itsuicide? Only time will tell. Like,
I just love the psychologythere of not only does he have to
show his murder off, but hehas to kind of hint that, who knows,
maybe it wasn't suicide andit's just a murder that happened
in the city. It wasn't anyoneparticularly important. It wasn't
a particularly graphic murderor anything. But it's important to

(01:03:17):
him and he gets to show offhis revenge. So he finds a way to
work in this rather mundanepiece of history to a collection
of some of history's biggest characters.
We talked a little bit aboutit in some of the previous ones,
sort of knowing we eventuallyget to this in mystery to really
like delve into this topic.But to me, what really separates

(01:03:40):
stuff like the classic Houseof Wax style store of story is it's
the metatextual stuff. It'sthe fact that, I mean, the fact it's
executions. You know, what,what, what g. What do people gather
around in those times towatch? They watched executions, so
it's him recreating that. Butit's also not only that, not only

(01:04:04):
am I kind of mocking you bygiving you what you want, you're
part of it. Like, I'm turningyou into the exhibits. Like you are
obsessed with the macabre.Like, it's. I try to give you beauty
and you had no interest in it.I give you this and it's all you
want to see. You know, it's,it's very damning and it's, it's

(01:04:29):
very meta towards the horroraudience itself and just people in
general. Because as I said,you know, that's. That was a fun
night. It was a fun day outfor the family when you'd go to see
the hangings at the, at thegallows or when the guillotine was
invented and you get to go seethat those things attracted a crowd.

(01:04:51):
Like, oh yeah, if it had goneon longer, they would have started
selling tickets.
People, people used to takelike the organs from dead children
who were killed in likeexplosions and stuff. As Souvenirs,
like, he. If you can believethat we had less tact about this
stuff a few hundred years ago.True crime culture in the 1800s was

(01:05:12):
a.
It's interesting because. Oh,go ahead.
No, and then I just want tosay, like, on top of that, you also
have this veneer of seeingwomen as pretty much purely objects.
Something to, you know,essentially, like, freeze an amber

(01:05:37):
to. To hold and utilize forsome purpose. You know, that's what
his mind is at at this point.Like, that's all he can see. I think
that's even kind ofheightened, this joke about, like,
the. The caveman dragging offthe cave woman. You know, he kind
of just makes a chuckling jokeabout it, but it's almost highlighting
the fact that, like, that'show he's, at this point, kind of

(01:05:59):
utilizing women. He's sort ofstealing them and. And utilizing
them in this very macabre way.And all he sees when he looks at
her is Marie Antoinette. Like,she's just a thing to take and mold
and freeze in place and posethe exact way he wants it.
But I think for his character,too, at the start of the movie, he

(01:06:22):
is a creator. He gets to doeverything by himself with his own
hands. And he's been renderedkind of impotent at this point.
Right.
He's mentioned he still hashis limbs, but they can't support
the weight of his body. He hasto have assistance now because he
can't do all the sculptinghimself. He doesn't have the fine
motor materials to actuallysculpt these things like he used
to. How much of that is true?I don't know. They kind of leave

(01:06:43):
that a little vague. But thereis the idea that he's been robbed
of his own agency to a certaindegree. And psychologically, I think
he's turning it around andgoing, okay, well, then I will possess
these women if I can't possessmy own faculties. All this is interesting
to me because we see this isone of the earlier wax movies. Obviously,

(01:07:04):
we had Mystery of the Waxmuseum in the 30s, but as movies
would go on, we would findmore and more ways to motivate evil.
Wax museum ownership in WaxWork is just basically a mad scientist
movie. You don't really getthe sense that he deeply cares about
his art. In House of Wax, theremake, the killer is inherited the

(01:07:32):
wax. Right. It's not like theynecessarily love the wax in the same
way. It's something that'sfoisted upon them.
Inherited the wax, by the way.
For this one, it's a creatorwho's built his own friends. These
are all people he loves. Buthe's not trying to necessarily assert

(01:07:53):
himself as God originally overthem. Whereas to Mike's point, in
this section, after he's beendisfigured and torn down, that's
all he's really going after.He's creating these wax figures to
dominate and control hisvictims. You know, he freezes them
in wax, he puts them ondisplay so he can hold their beauty
forever. I think it's a. It'skind of the purest distillation of

(01:08:19):
that idea. I think we've seenderivative versions of it later on
or ones that aren't asinspired. I think just a generic
mad scientist isn't asinspiring as someone who is deeply
in love with his creations.
Yeah.
What's funny is, at leastaccording to Detolf, they really
didn't adhere that closely tothe screenplay, which was pretty

(01:08:44):
much a faithful remake ofMystery of the Wax Museum. And he
seemed to work a lot withPrice, particularly on this character.
So I'm very curious how muchof Price's dialogue in this movie
is just him going off.
I am curious about that too.I've heard from the other side that

(01:09:06):
Detal's claims on that mightbe a little bit of ego fueled. Not
necessarily narcissism, buthim maybe exaggerating how important
he was the story. But again,that's from the writer's point of
view where he's like, no, no,no, no. A lot of my stuff was still
there. They didn't make it allup. I'm sure there was probably some
improv and some adjustments.There always are. But it also feels

(01:09:29):
like detoth was big on kind ofbuilding up his own stories too,
when he tells them.
Oh, of course. I do think thespeeches are very Price.
I'm curious, does anyone knowif the actual screenplay is out there
for review? Because that seemslike it should be an easy mystery.
You just read the original andthen watch the movie.
Are you saying we didn't doour research first?

(01:09:51):
It's not like we had twomonths to do this. Also, this was
according to the commentarytrack. That's on the WB release of
the movie on Blu Ray. Anotherkind of scandalous moment. I mean,
the can can, when it firstcame out was incredibly risque. But
even in the 50s, to have amovie where you're kind of showing

(01:10:11):
these girls, you know, hintingat their underwear was still kind
of shocking coming off of the code.
Well, what the camera doeshold. Hold on. A woman's Ass for
shockingly long in this sequence.
That's the weird thing aboutthis movie because we have some kind
of shocking grotesqueries.We've got, obviously not a huge amount

(01:10:32):
of gore, but it is stillviolent. But it's wrapped up in prestige
period drama. Like, we have1800s characters, nice costumes.
It's in Technicolor. It's sucha weird mishmash of me, of high and
low culture of the 50s,especially Hollywood culture. Like,

(01:10:53):
hey, what if we took theveneer of a very prestigious Pride
and Prejudice kind of film,but then also included a giallo on
the side, Which I like. Ithink it makes it even more subversive
having those two odds thrown together.
It's a movie I kept having toremind myself was made in 1953 and

(01:11:16):
not 1963, where this wouldmake sense.
Yes. Yeah. Again, watchingthis, I really. I keep going back
to Blood and Black Lace. Itfeels like the direction processor
of that movie. And it's wildto think that it's, you know, like
a decade between the two or.As we know, I'm not great with dates,

(01:11:37):
so I'm gonna. I'm gonna lookup. When Blood and Black Lace came
out, confirmed that wasn't,like, a 1952 production.
I also think, like, stuff likethis scene are kind of interesting.
The fact we. We just came fromthe chamber of horrors and we see
that this is something thatpeople go for is death. And then
on the other side, youessentially see everybody congregating

(01:11:58):
to go see sex.
Both ends of the spectrum.
Yeah. It's like. And they're.And they're. And you have pretty
much our main character kindof weirded out by both equally. And
the fact that people go to seeany of this stuff. Once again, very
interesting. Like little metallook at things. I. I do think maybe

(01:12:19):
the main character's prettyweak. You know, she. She's not.
She's okay.
It's the leading hero. The.The dude who is freaking real bad.
Yeah. He could finish in themovie and no one notice.
It's. It.
What's.
What's tragic to me, though,is in Mystery of the Wax Museum,
you. We have Fay Ray's character.

(01:12:39):
Yeah.
Who's.
So. Who's great.
If I'm remembering, that'sthe. She's a newspaper reporter in
that one.
Right? Newspaper reporter.
Lois Lane kind of thing. Like,very, very assertive.
It's very. It's great. And shecarries the entire movie. And you're
really missing that here wherethe. Pretty much. I mean, Price is

(01:13:01):
the main character.
That's such a shame becauseyou watch Price and he is fun, he's
captivating. And then we go toour main characters and they're okay.
Our lead actress, she's. She'sfun to watch in the chase scene.
She really sells the fear andthe intelligence too. Like we talked
before, you know, taking hershoes off so the cobblestones don't
echo. The lead dude is justthere. He's very vanilla.

(01:13:25):
Honestly, they nearly killedthis dude while filming this movie.
And controversial take. Idon't think anyone would have noticed.
Ouch. They could have left itin the film, him dead.
I mean, they almost killedPrice with fire. Why not?
I mean, going back to what youwere saying about this character's

(01:13:46):
role, or at least the role ofthe female lead in this being kind
of diminished. From Mystery ofthe Wax Museum, one of my favorite
anecdotes I was able to findwas apparently Phyllis Kirk showed
up on set the first day offilming wearing fake boobs and a
top. Had to pull her aside andsay that it's not that kind of movie.

(01:14:08):
That's not why we hired you.
Seems very Babylon.
She was not particularly happyabout being in a horror movie at
all and seemed to have a. Avery uncharitable view of what kind
of movie they were making.
Yeah, she said she ended uphaving fun making it, but yeah, she.

(01:14:32):
The studio just had her undercontract and she just didn't want
to take a penalty. Yeah.
Basically got stuck in there.Also. I looked it up and I'm not
insane. Blood and black lacewas 1964.
So, yeah.
Decade later, which makes alot of sense. But it also feels like
these two movies could havecome out, like, two years apart.
Oh, yeah. It's crazy. Ihaven't really seen any Giallo directors

(01:14:57):
specifically reference this asan American influence, but there's
so much of not just giallo,but future slashers. In House of
Wax, there's kind of like awesterns become samurai movies, which
become Summer, which becomesspaghetti westerns. Kind of feedback

(01:15:20):
loop going on between Proto,then Giallo, then slashers.
Yeah, I. I think there's.
A lot.
Of borrowed history throughthere as the genre shifts. I. I don't
want to get too far into it,but my understanding of the evolution
was you really start off withthese kind of horror films in the

(01:15:40):
50s. A lot of the film noirsthat were happening in the 40s into
the 50s, then you had Germanydoing, like, their crimes, which
were more violent forms of thefilm noir, and then those kind of
morph into the jello of the,you know, 60s, 70s, 80s, the slasher
really takes off trying tosay, hey, what if we took some of

(01:16:01):
that Italian stuff and made itmake a little more sense and maybe
a little more graphic? Andthen eventually we shed the mystery
aspect for most of theseslashers because they were going
to franchise mode. Then Screamcomes along and changes the game
by saying, hey, what if wemake this kind of reflection on the
history of these movies? Andthen people never left that. It's

(01:16:22):
been 20 years of peoplebasically just getting more and more
meta with their movies, moreaware of what they're doing. There's
a lot more nuance there. Butin my mind, that's kind of the general
trajectory of the slasher partof the horror genre. I'm very excited.
Eureka is putting out a crimmyset next month, so it's gonna be

(01:16:43):
my first chance to see a lotof those movies. You read about them
in books, but it's gonna becool to actually see what that genre
actually is.
Yeah, it's crazy the amount oflike essential building blocks of
foreign cinema that just havenot been that easy to find over the

(01:17:03):
decades, even for cinephiles.
A little fun fact here. In2014, the Library of Congress added
this film to the National FilmRegistry where cultural, historical
and aesthetic significance.
So I fascinated. That tooktill 2014. That's very random.

(01:17:23):
I don't know how long it takesa movie to get like elected for the
National Film Registry. I feellike there's probably like a long
waiting period. They justadded Star Wars a couple years back.
I think that's true. So it'sprobably like, yeah, you got to wait
like 40 years before we evenconsider you.
Also, we're just on a lot ofclose ups of price. And I just want

(01:17:46):
to talk about something I'vealways loved about his performance
post accident. And I like tothink I'm not just reading into things,
but if you really payattention to his performance, especially
since there are a lot ofpretty amazing close ups in that
very first scene, he's lessanimated. Like there's a dullness

(01:18:09):
to him. Like there's a lot ofmouth movement, sure. But he's actually
a lot more still in the face.He's making a lot of body movements.
He's.
He's having a lot of fun withthe chair, getting to spin around
and do things and pushhimself. But there's actually not
a lot of facial movement. Andhe's essentially like teeing you

(01:18:29):
up for the false face thathe's wearing.
Through acting Well, I loveit, too, going off of all that. If
you rewind back to his firstwheelchair tour of this version of
the House of Horrors, it seemslike the tone has shifted from admiration
to sardonic. Now that he'stalking about this House of Horrors,

(01:18:51):
it's kind of like he's amusedby all the murders, but it. It's
more of an autopilotpresentation than the more enthusiastic
one he gives at the start ofthe film.
He's very mocking of thefigures as well. Like, he always
has jokes for all of them.
I was just laughing at thisdetective putting his finger across
the mustache. What a sillylittle bit.

(01:19:13):
Oh, and you know what? Leon'son screen. So Leon, played by Nedrick
Young, was uncredited. He didnot get a credit of any kind for
the release of this moviebecause he was on the blacklist at
the time. The Hollywoodblacklist for Communist ties. Alleged

(01:19:33):
Communist ties.
Yeah.
Which also, at the same time,this is something. This movie is
something that helped getPrice out of that, because Price
had been on the gray list,which is people who were opposed
to Nazis before the US enteredWorld War II, which meant he pretty
much was put directly on theblacklist as soon as soon as it opened,

(01:20:00):
because, you know, opposingNazis before America opposed Nazis
meant you were a Communist,more or less. And he had to work
very, very hard to get out ofthat. And this was actually pretty
much the thing that helped gethim get his career going, which he
didn't know would be overbecause of that blacklist.

(01:20:20):
Yeah. Price's associations PreWorld War II are a little dicey,
I guess. Problematic, maybe bethe right word. When Hitler was first
rising to power, he was proHitler. He came to realize that was
a mistake. Became vehementlyopposed to Hitler early on, before

(01:20:44):
America was even involved inthe war. So he was on both sides
of that fence, unfortunately.And when Hollywood came calling for
him, he had to basically swearoff and say, no, no, no, I don't
believe in Communism at all,and sign affidavits to that effect,
which maybe doesn't agree withthe fact that I think he was at several
meetings for Communism.
He very clearly was.

(01:21:06):
Yeah. So the guy bouncedaround politically a little bit there,
but I think he found his way,obviously towards the end of his
life. I would say my politicalviews line up fairly closely with
his. He did a lot to representthe arts. He was out there promoting,
like, LGBTQ rights of its time.

(01:21:27):
Yeah. He was one of the firstcelebrities to donate serious money
to AIDS research.
Yeah. So it's one of the.It's, it's tough if you look at his
early history where heactually had a part where he's like,
no, I think the Nazi party isdoing the right thing. And where
he ended up at completelydifferent viewpoints. But at least
it showed that he was willingto reflect and change his opinion

(01:21:48):
based on evidence. Which isnot to disparage the man either,
because we know all the thingsthat he did later in his life. There's
all sorts of feel good storiesabout Vincent Price. It's just kind
of surprising if you go backand read about his early history
and kind of go, oh, I didn'texpect to see that in there.
It's shocking to look atAmerican culture in general back

(01:22:11):
then and see how, Oh, how muchof a hands off approach people seem
to take to what was going onin foreign countries. Just, well,
they have a strong man, Iguess that's okay. That's what some
countries need. It's, it's a,a terrifying, it's terrifying to

(01:22:35):
be reminded that that has notchanged that much with how a lot
of people look, look at very,very clearly disturbing things happening
outside their borders.
Well, you can see the paralleltoo of people before World War II
saying, hey, America should beisolated. We don't want to get ourselves
involved in another world war.That'd be awful. And you look at

(01:22:56):
the current temperament of thenation and people are saying, we
don't need trade deals withChina, we don't need to work with
other countries, we don't haveto give a shit about Canada. We're
America, America first. And itseems like a thing we keep coming
back to and it bites us in the ass.
Yep, that's all the top of the.

(01:23:16):
Content I have today.
I was gonna say there's alsothe amount of people who thought
you were specifically antiAmerican. If you wanted us to get
involved in a war because ofhow bad World War I was, like, oh,
you want to fight the Nazis?Oh, you want America to take over
the world?
Which, that one I can be alittle sympathetic to. Because just

(01:23:38):
imagine after World War I, thenumber of people that are coming
home who have been shellshocked. The people that are missing
half their face, you know,legs, where we get.
20Th century horror from.
Yeah, like I could understandwhy a culture would look at the aftermath
of World War I and be like,yeah, count me out. I don't, I don't
want that again.
Actually, on that note, thatwas what a lot of the, what a lot

(01:24:06):
of the. The inspiration forPrice's makeup came from Was the
Toth and the makeup crewlooked at a ton of photos of victims
of the 1939 invasion ofPoland. Oh, yeah. I heard the top

(01:24:33):
said was, needless to say, avery sobering experience for all
of them. And left. Left all ofthem walking away thinking, yeah,
war is bad. War is very bad.Yeah, let's. Let's. Let's never look
at anything like that again.
I like that Tom Savinibasically did the same thing, but
his conclusion was, that'd becool. Makeup.

(01:24:57):
Also something Price was kindenough to point out when asked about
this movie years later. Eventhough the credited makeup artist
is Gordon Bao, who was head ofthe makeup department at Warner Brothers,
it was actually his brotherGeorge Bao, who did all the makeup.
It just. At the time, whoeverwas in charge of your makeup department

(01:25:23):
was the dude who did all ofyour makeup, as far as, you know,
crediting and accolades went.So Millicent Patrick got screwed
out of being credited for theCreature from the Black Lagoon design.
It's just. She wasn't the department.
Yeah. I was just about tomention that. That's the exact situation.
Creature from Black Lagoon.Well, there are some sexism there

(01:25:43):
too, Right?
Because a lot I didn't help, but.
Yeah, a lady making a monster.
Yeah.
Her not being credited wasregular studio politics. The head
of that makeup departmentdoing everything in his power to
destroy her career and makesure no one would have heard of her
years later. That was sexism.
Yeah.

(01:26:04):
We almost got a bride of theCreature touring a makeup show. Or
Millicent Patrick would teachkids just like you how to apply monster
makeup. And that got strangledin the crib by that dude.
Hold up. We're about to seethe most Scooby Doo gag of the movie.
That's where this. That'swhere the gag comes from. Let's face

(01:26:25):
it.
It really is. It's. It's theeyeballs moving in a painting kind
of joke, but it's framedperfectly. Like, even the little
shadow underneath his neck,like, they have some sort of disc
or something. I don't knowwhat that was because the shadow
goes away, too. I don't know.They just framed that perfectly,
so. Really looks like one ofthe fake heads.
That must have been a greatgag to see for the very first time

(01:26:46):
in a movie ever. Yeah.
I mean, it's brought downbecause we've seen it a million times
now, but at the time when itwas fresh, I bet that was very exciting.
I was like, there's a gaginvolving 3D coming later that I
didn't Even really notice wasmeant to be a moment where you just
see the silhouette of Bronsonrise up out of a chair and walk forward.

(01:27:10):
Which was supposed to be ajump scare. Because if you're watching
that in a theater with 3D fora split second, you think somebody
got up out of their chair andwalked into the movie. Something
completely lost in a modernaudience. But must.
And especially since we'rewatching in 2D too, you know, you
lose a lot of those bits.
Yeah.
Have you ever watched in 3D, Cody?

(01:27:31):
No, I. I have a 3D version ofthe movie on Blu Ray. WB put out
like a, you know, dual disc,but I don't have a 3D TV and they.
I don't think they even make3D TVs anymore. So I've been unfortunately
unable to exploit that disc's capabilities.
I don't know if I've askedthis before. Does your partial colorblindness

(01:27:54):
mean you can't use old school3D glasses?
I don't think so becausethey're operating on red and blue
and I'm pretty decent at blue.It's the overlap. It's purples that
give me a tough time.
So.
Yeah, like this also in 3D,just imagine, you know, the hand
kind of sweeps the audiencebefore going in the background and
you have all these kind offloating grotesqueries in the background.

(01:28:16):
This would be a much moreimpressive scene in 3D.
Yeah. I mean, this would beincredible. People who have seen
in 3D have talked about thedepth of this movie is something
to behold.
I could imagine you can get asense of it while you're watching
a scene like this. And onething I want to add, I've put this
way off here, but obviouslythe 3D visual impact was huge. But

(01:28:41):
we don't really consider thefact that this was also made with
stereophonic sound. This wasthe first 3D movie that also had
the feature, meaning therewere additional sound channels throughout
the theater presentingmultiple layers of sound to the audience.
So there was a back channelexclusively just for screams that
they would pump in to get theaudience kind of to jump at the right
points. So it was 3D in visualand 3D in sound. They had surround

(01:29:05):
sound before anyone else withthis picture.
And unfortunately, like bothof all, both of those things are
completely lost. Thestereophonic soundtrack is gone.
Yeah. And the original printswere, I think, damaged in a flood
or something like that. So forlike the 3D re release Warner Brothers

(01:29:25):
did do, it was like $300,000they spent to convert the movie to
3D. So it's still not quitethe same. It's impossible to watch
it the same way that it wasever actually intended to be watched,
unfortunately.
Yeah. And as long as we'retalking about 3D, so the first picture

(01:29:49):
to really kick off the craze,and I think the first one in color
that was in 3D, was a moviecalled Wanna Devil, which I haven't
actually watched. It's from1952. Just reading the plot, though,
it's like, wait a minute. Thisis the Ghost in the Darkness, but
in the 1950s. So it'sbasically like people are in Africa

(01:30:10):
trying to set up the firstrailroad system, and lions keep attacking
and killing people, so biggame hunters have to kill. Come in
and kill the lions. That's.That's basically the plot of the
Ghost in the Darkness. So thatwas a childhood favorite of mine.
So it's very exciting to seethat in there also. Oh, damn. It's
the reveal. Could you imaginethe impact if we hadn't gotten his

(01:30:32):
face earlier in the movie?
Yeah.
It's a shame, but it already,like we talked about, like, it gives
so many good jumps earlier inthe movie.
Yeah.
And to make people really waitan hour and 18 minutes into a movie
that's got nine minutes left,that'd be the typical form of it,
Right? I guess it's likeseeing the full shark in Jaws. You
really get that in the backhalf of the movie. You save that

(01:30:55):
jump.
Yeah, but I mean, just eventhe jump. The jump scare of him standing
from the chair is so wellshot. Like, I could see old audiences
losing their goddamn minds atthat. And that was the first time
you get to actually see the makeup.
It's a perfect Halloween clip.
It's one of the montage operaface reveal. Not in a Phantom of

(01:31:16):
the Opera movie.
Yeah.
Apropos of nothing, that'shalf a joke because he's currently
lifting a bottle of booze forthe people that are listening to
us. As a podcast. The drink Imade for this show, I finally have.
I've been topping it off withmore champagne, but I finally got
down to the actual cocktailbit of it, and I'm gonna say real
good. I think this might gointo my stable. This is a tasty drink.

(01:31:42):
If I die tomorrow from waxpoisoning, it was worth it. Well,
the thing about infusing acocktail with wax is you're not trying
to pick up a flavornecessarily, but the little bit of
wax particles that drop intothe alcohol give it a different mouthfeel.
It makes it a little Bit smoother.
A little bit.
Kind of smooth.

(01:32:02):
Silky.
It's the most pretentious wayto drink a cocktail, I'll admit.
But it does make a slightdifference to how a cocktail feels
in your mouth.
You can really feel the wax.Cody Alps 2025.
It'S true. It's true.

(01:32:23):
How's it? While we got a brieflull in the action, I just want to
point out one of my favoriteanecdotes I heard about this movie
and I couldn't really find anydocumentation on this having actually
happened. So this is entirelythe word of Vincent Price. But apparently
Bella Lugosi was hired to jointhem to promote the movie in Chicago

(01:32:47):
and got as far as hopping onthe plane with them. And then it
just didn't show up to any ofthe press events. So nobody actually
met Bela Lugosi, who that wasin the movie, except Price, who just
said hi to him briefly on the floor.
Yeah, they never really got achance to meet him. But no, Lugosi
was part. He was there at thepremiere. He came out of a limousine

(01:33:08):
wearing his Dracula cape andhe was holding a leash attached to
somebody in a gorilla costume,which is a deep cut Legosi reference,
honestly.
Yeah, he was having fun that day.
As long as we're talking aboutold Lugosi movies, it's a stretch.

(01:33:30):
Forgive me, but I did want toget into the history of WB during
the 40s, because WB as astudio just didn't really respect
horror as a genre. I mean,even if you go back earlier to, like
the 1930s, they only made ahandful. There was the Gorilla Svengali,

(01:33:51):
the mad genius, Dr. X, mysteryof the wax museum, very early 30s.
They did a couple to kind ofkeep pace with what Universal was
doing. But then they had along gap and they did one or two.
The return of Dr. X, which hasnothing to do with Dr. X, don't get
it twisted. But through the40s, they basically made maybe one

(01:34:12):
a year, maybe two a year.There was the smiling ghost, 41,
the hidden hand, 42, catpeople, 42, the mysterious doctor,
43, leopard man, the BeastWith Five Fingers. And that was the
end of their horrorproductions. 1946, the Beast with
Five Fingers. Kind of a gothichorror movie about a man imagining

(01:34:36):
a phantom hand stranglingpeople in a mansion. This movie came
out seven years later. Theyhad that long of a gap where, like,
it doesn't pay to make horrorfilms. We don't want to make them.
We don't respect horror films,which is wild, because if you flash
Forward to even a few yearslater, they had some huge hits in

(01:34:57):
the horror realm. Them was1954. That was huge. I think they
distributed most of theGodzilla movies like they did Godzilla
raids. Again, obviously that'sa Toho production, but they had the
American rights. That had tomake a lot of money. They worked
with Hammer to release theCurse of Frankenstein statewide and
that was huge. Horror was agigantic deal for WB. But even in

(01:35:21):
the 50s, they only made a, youknow, two a year or something like
that. And most of them theydidn't even make, they just acquired
and threw out there. But ifyou jump forward to modern times,
it would be insane to look atW and B and say, yeah, you guys don't
do horror.
Right.
Because they have so manygiant horror franchises under their
belt. Fuck it. The IT movieshave made an astronomical amount

(01:35:44):
of money. WB is very much allabout horror in current days, but
in the 40s and the 50s, it wasan afterthought or derogatory. They
didn't want to be a horrorstudio like Universal.
But can't we make nicemusicals like mgm?
Right.
And it's so funny because youlook at something like this. The

(01:36:05):
times they did do horror, theyhad a huge return of investment.
This movie was gigantic. Likewe said, one of the biggest movies
of the year. And I think theywere also in on the beast from 20,000
fathoms. I think that was alsotheirs. Don't quote me on that. I'm
not 100% sure. I believe.
I'm pretty sure.
No, it was.
Yeah.
Because it was released in aBlu Ray pack as a WB Classics collection

(01:36:29):
entry.
Yeah, they did. They were so.
They had two within 19.
Yeah.
The same year that were a top10 hit. And even then they were so
hesitant they would get moreinto it later in the 50s with more,
you know, giant bug,radioactive monster type films. But
it's so strange. Just imaginea world where WB just embraced it.

(01:36:49):
They had the funds, they werebig, they were popular. They really
could have cranked out someamazing films like this. It makes
me really appreciate thisfilm. Though it was unlikely this
would ever happen, LuckilyToth really forced it in and because
of it. Wow. We got all theseamazing Vincent Price films through
the year. Who knows, Maybe wewouldn't have even had all the Bronson

(01:37:13):
films if he didn't have thisstepping stone.
I don't know.
It's true, honestly. I mean,what is like the greatest lesson
of pretty much any studioanywhere in Hollywood or. Because
it's really good for them andthey'll never actually appreciate
that fact.
So before we get too far awaywith it, I have got to tell this

(01:37:37):
story. So that was a realguillotine we just saw.
Why not? They already set theset on fire. Why not have a guillotine?
So on the day that actor PaulPicarney was told by Detath that
they were planning to do thatentire fist fight and near beheading

(01:38:00):
in one continuous shot with anactual guillotine blade that he would
have to be pulled out ofseconds before it decapitated him
while they were necessary.While they were setting up the shot,
McKerney talked to a stuntmanabout how he would do the shot. And

(01:38:23):
the stuntman said, I wouldn'tunless. And this is if you paid me
a lot of money. I had my handon the switch and I could activate
it the second I was pulling myhead away from it. Which he was not
going to have that privilegeon. So whenever they say everyone
in place, McKearney does notmove a muscle. He just kind of looks

(01:38:46):
at the director and says,dude, I don't want to make this movie.
The Toth calls him a chickencoward. So Bacarney threatens to
kill him and is suspended fromthe movie for several days.
Jesus.
A couple of days later, arepresentative from the studio goes

(01:39:09):
to Bacarni's house and says,you gotta get back on set. He says,
I'm only doing it if we can dothe shot a different way. And he
says, that's out of thequestion. So studio had to contact
him a second time saying,okay, there'll be a metal bar underneath

(01:39:30):
the guillotine blade to makeit slightly less likely you will
die. So after his head wasremoved from the block, the bar slid
out, allowing the blade todrop, which is the only reason that
actor is still alive.
Jesus.
That years later, Detothapparently got his revenge because

(01:39:54):
he hired Picardy in this bigbudget western he was doing and he
was so excited to get thesides for the day. And he looked
at it and it was a characterwho dies three pages in.
In a really, really dangerous stunt.
Yeah, he fell off of a cliffand a horse drawn carriage. Jesus.

(01:40:15):
And I want to point out thatthe way the, the blade was originally
being held was a guy who hadit between his thighs, squeezing
it, essentially. So if hedidn't have enough pressure on it,
it would have slid out this.
Oh, man, I got the one time.

(01:40:36):
Because if you watch that, if you.
Watch the movie right now, it would.
Never occur to you that, oh,this was even a dangerous stunt.
You just Assume like there'sprobably a foam blade or something
and there's a very fragilefake head underneath it.
And I feel like if you enteredthis story as an exhibit on the Rust
trial, things could haveturned out differently.

(01:41:00):
What I love is the bladedoesn't cut anything. So there's
no, no reason.
It's a real blade.
Actual murder and murder impost.
Not at all.
I think Detoth just wanted toseal the movie in blood for. For
success reasons.
That stunt Detot's wife there,that's. That's the story.

(01:41:25):
But he was fucking his wife.But over to the left. That's a one
eyed joke.
Yeah, no, I got you.
Because he only has one eye.
Yeah, yeah, the eye patchthing, it doesn't work in 3D is the
problem.
I just wanted a really goodone eye joke to end on.

(01:41:48):
That is a great way to end themovie. I am disappointed we didn't
get to talk about VincentPrice dying in a vat of bubblegum,
but.
No, bring it up, bring it up.
Come on. That's it. You. Ifyou watch the movie, you saw it.
I don't have anything else toadd to it.
It is. Look, there has beenpeople falling into vats of whack
hot wax in movies. None ofthem will ever top Vincent Price

(01:42:09):
falling into a hot vat of wax.
I love how after he dies theyjust matter of factly have like the
hero walk up and throw like ajacket over the woman who is still
strapped into the waxapplicator trade. No, bro, just take
her out. Like where's thehustle here?
Her shame had to be protected. Yes.

(01:42:34):
I just want to say nothing ismore arch than the police pulling
you away while you're tryingto kill a man on a guillotine in
a museum. And you're pullinglike, no, no, he has to die this
way.
It will be educational in this environment.

(01:42:55):
I really appreciate that.House of Wax 1 is the wax movie that
spends the most amount of timein an actual house of wax. Like they're
not joking. This is a movieabout a house of wax. It's about
70% of the movie. Which goodtruth in advertising. Two, in classic
House of Wax fashion, House ofanything fashion. The house needs

(01:43:16):
to burn down at the end.That's just how movies work. If you
name something House of itneeds to end in the house burning
down. House of Frankenstein,House of Dracula, don't care. Burn
down a mansion, Burn down a castle.
God, so many people werekilled on the set of House of Gucci.
I'm so happy I was trying tothink of a joke for House of Gucci

(01:43:36):
while I was saying that, and Ididn't have any.
Oh, the massacre. Poor God.
Jared Leto had that makeupburned into his face. 60 year old
man forever now.
Yeah, folks, as you can tell,the movie has ended. You can go home

(01:43:58):
now. But this has been Houseof Wax. Honestly, one of my favorite
horror films of the 1950s.Don't get it twisted. Creature from
Black Lagoon still number one.But this is right up there. I really
love this movie and it wasjust such a thrill to be able to
go through it again andactually kind of nitpick it. So thank
you so much for joining. Ourwax coverage is going to continue.
I think we have one more inthe lineup, right, Mike?

(01:44:19):
One more. Unless we go to thesilent film route and then we got
two more, but I don't think we are.
We've never done a silentfilm, have we?
No, we haven't. We talkedabout it a lot and.
It won't start now. So.
Fuck you folks at home, go.
Watch your own movies. Youdon't need us talking over them unless
they have sound. Anyways,thank you so much for joining us.

(01:44:42):
Last episode of Box Office. Wetell the audience that now they have
the tools to watch movies by themselves.
We've been training you sincePrometheus to be critical about films.
Go fuck your own shit.
The contract is complete.
We're free.
You know, Blu Rays have theirown commentaries made by the people
who made the films, right?

(01:45:03):
They're pretty educational.They're better than us. Honestly,
I don't know what you're doing here.
Why have you been wasting our.Wasting your time with Box Office
Pulp, you fools.
But if you want to find moreof us. Now that we buttered you up
to listening to Box OfficePulp, this was definitely a great
pep talk for that. You canfind us on box officepulp.com. we
are on pretty much any placethat has podcasts, so if you go to

(01:45:24):
an itunes or Spotify, we'll bethere. Look us up. We have other
content, we swear. And morewax before and after this moment.
It's all wax, baby. I didn'tknow what to say after that. That
was my smoothest outro I'veever done.
I kind of want to bite intowax. Yeah.
I'm gonna go melt some beeswaxright now.
Do it.
I got a bunch left over fromthe cocktail thing. It turns out

(01:45:44):
they just sell them in giantbags and I didn't need much. It's
in pellets too, so it keepsfalling all over my apartment. It's
a mess.
Wait, are you slowly entombingyourself in a wax just from runoff?
Let's put it this way. If youdon't hear from me for two weeks,
just assume I have beenabducted by bees.
I mean, I would have assumedthat anyway, Cody.

(01:46:05):
It makes the most sense.
Bees.
I assume you have many, manycandles in your house. We start burning
them tonight. We beginencasing our clothing in wax. That
white instant wax suit. And wejust take it off.
Oh, I like that idea. Thatwould be so fashionable.
Man, it's so fun to have a roommate.

(01:46:26):
Ah, you can come stay at WaxHouse, Cody.
Oh, you can hang out in thewax pool, baby.
I need solid wax. So you justkind of skid on it?
Yeah. No, no, I get you'resaying it was more fun when it was
molten. All right, folks,well, thank you so much for joining
us. I hope you come backagain. This has been box office pulp.

(01:46:46):
That's a wrap. I forgot mycatchphrase there. Panicked. I'm
out of shape.
How can the. This has beenBuck's office pull. Enjoy your burrito.
Get the hell out of here.That's the other part of it. I didn't
even do the normal bits.
You get more out of life when.
You go out to a movie. Wedidn't have enough of a lull for

(01:47:09):
me to go through this, but Iwant to read at least a portion of
this variety review from 1953I found in an archive. House of Wax
3D Sako B O via that newdimension and sight and sound. This
picture will knock em for agoo. Warner Brothers House of Wax

(01:47:30):
is the post mid century thejazz singer. What Al Jolson did to
sound the Warners haverepeated in three dimensions. Houses
playing wax in 3D will be BoCookay for beast is capital as the
number one menace. FrankLovejoy is authoritative as the lieutenant.

(01:47:51):
Phyllis Kirk is purity as theAngenou who looks fairly convincingly
scared. Barely convincingdream department. She needs a good
shrill piercing shrieker as avoice stand in. Paul Pekurney is
okay as the Trinity andCarolyn Jones makes her moments count
as the flighty kid who getsbumped off. Charles Bukins is the

(01:48:14):
number two menace as the deafmute. And Reggie Rhyme all as the
barker is also standout. Restof the cast is professionally competent.
Professionally competent.
What an amazing end for thatkind of. Everyone else showed up.
That black. That black facewas very important to moviegoers
at that point. I'm gonna besaying Sako bo for every movie I

(01:48:39):
see from now on Box OfficePulp that new dimension in sight
and sound.
Please remember to replace thespeaker on.
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(01:49:00):
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HOUSE OF WAX (1953) Commentary Track

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