The House of Wax
by Larry Miller
I admit it. Being "self-quarantined" during the Covid19 Coronavirus pandemic gives us all way too much time getting way too immersed in way too many things that make way too little sense. And this is one such diversion.
It was 67 years ago today that the infamous 3-D horror film House of Wax premiered at New York's Paramount Theater.
Okay, but that was a motion picture – not a radio or television broadcast, so why is it taking up space here? Well, like I said, way too much time on my hands. Besides, Dawes County, Nebraska, had no television station in 1953. Heck, we didn't even have a radio station until the fledgling "Tri-State Voice by Listener Choice" – KCSR – took to the airwaves the following May.
So if you think of radio and television as "entertainment" media, it's not a big stretch to spill over into the motion picture industry. And Chadron had the Pace Theatre, where teenagers would fork out 40 cents for a movie. We teen wannabes got in for just 14 cents.
But House of Wax wasn't just any old movie. It was....well....good! The characterization "good" might be considered heresy by some, after all, this is Good Friday.
But I was a wannabe teenager in 1953, and I thought the House of Wax was really cool. It wasn't the first movie from a major motion-picture studio (Warner Bros.) to be shot in color. However, its real claim to fame was that it was the first 3-Dimensional color movie. And that's what made it memorable. Plus I think we had to pay extra for the movie, so it had to be special!
There are likely a few folks who've never seen a 3-D movie, and I admit to seeing only a few. But for me, this was like a first date. You just never forget it. My first 3-D movie!
While I won't give away the plot (which, as I remember wasn't all that great) it had an under appreciated cast. Vincent Price was again typecast as a really weird dude inclined to the macabre'. There were stars like Frank Lovejoy, Carolyn Jones, Charles Bronson, and Phyllis Kirk. I'll bet those names already conjure up images for you – even without seeing their photos (if you're 70 years of age or older).
But the supporting cast really was phenomenal.
They included the familiar faces above.
Okay, those are not exactly household names. They weren't "sexy," "powerful" or even particularly "memorable." So why do we remember them? They were skilled. They were available. They were believable. And boy were they busy! I'll wager most of them spent as much time in front of movie and television cameras as most stars. You can still see any one of them almost daily on MeTV.
Frank Ferguson, like all these actors, chalked up hundreds of performances in films and television, most of them westerns. A native Californian, he was educated at UC and Cornell and also taught acting.
Dabbs Greer was a product of Missouri and his prolific career covered some five decades. Like Ferguson, Greer also spent considerable time helping aspiring actors. He was an administrator and instructor at the famed Pasadena Playhouse. Roy Roberts, a Floridian by birth, was first a stage actor and reached broadway before switching to film and television. We best remember him as the cruise boat captain on the Gale Storm "Oh, Susannah!" TV series in the late 1950s. Oliver Blake's nearly two decades in the movies made him a familiar face, too, from his 1942 appearance in the classic Casablanca to a recurring role in the Ma and Pa Kettle movies of the 1950s. He, too, was reportedly "a fixture" at the Pasadena Playhouse.
Sadly, these talented character actors are all deceased.
Before ending this missive, perhaps I should confess exactly why the House of Wax was so memorable for me.
It wasn't the story. Horror movies like Bride of Frankenstein and Creature from the Black Lagoon were okay, but not nearly as fun as science fiction thrillers like The Day the Earth Stood Still (which could well be a title idea someday for a movie about a quarantined society during the Covid-19 outbreak "back" in 2020.)
Nor was I excited about the movie because it was in color.
Even the impressive cast of character actors wasn't the reason. Heck, I didn't remember any of these folks being in the film until I Googled "House of Wax" – and readily recognized them from their long and impressive careers.
Nope, not even the evil Vincent Price character or the alluring Phyllis Kirk.
It was that barker guy! The guy with the bolo bat, aiming to hit me in the nose with that ball!
Alas, the above non-3-D video just doesn't capture the thrill of a popcorn-chewing 10-year-old ducking behind a seat at the Pace Theatre, trying to avoid that cottin'-pickin' ball!
(Sigh...) Like I said – way too much time on my hands these days.
No comments:
Post a Comment