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''House of Wax'' is a 1953 American 3-D horror film about a disfigured sculptor who repopulates his destroyed wax museum by murdering people and using their wax-coated corpses as displays. It stars Vincent Price and was directed by André de Toth. It is a remake of Warner Bros.' ''Mystery of the Wax Museum'' (1933), without the comic relief featured in the earlier film. In 2005, Warner Bros. distributed a new film also called ''House of Wax'', but its plot is very different from the one used in the two earlier films. ''House of Wax'' was the first color 3-D feature from a major American studio and premiered just two days after the Columbia Pictures film ''Man in the Dark'', the first major-studio black-and-white 3-D feature. It was also the first 3-D film with stereophonic sound to be presented in a regular movie theater. It premiered nationwide on April 10, 1953 and went out for a general release on April 25, 1953. In 1971, ''House of Wax'' was widely re-released to theaters in 3-D, with a full advertising campaign. Newly-struck prints of the film in Chris Condon's single-strip StereoVision 3-D format were used. Another major re-release occurred during the 3-D boom of the early 1980s. In 2014, ''House of Wax'' was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=New Films Added to National Registry - News Releases - Library of Congress )〕 ==Plot summary== Professor Henry Jarrod (Vincent Price) is a talented wax figure sculptor with a museum in 1890s New York. He specializes in historical figures, featuring sculptures of John Wilkes Booth, Joan of Arc, and one of Marie Antoinette, which he considers his masterpiece. When his business partner Matthew Burke (Roy Roberts) demands more sensational exhibits to increase profits, Jarrod refuses. Jarrod then gives a private tour to renowned art critic Sidney Wallace. Wallace, deeply impressed with Jarrod's sculptures, agrees to buy Burke out but will not be able to do so until after he returns from a continental trip. That same night, Burke deliberately sets the museum on fire, intending to claim the insurance money. In the process, he fights off Jarrod, who is desperately attempting to save his precious sculptures. Burke splashes kerosene over Jarrod's body and leaves him to die in the fire. Miraculously, Jarrod survives, but with severe injuries including crippled hands. He builds a new House of Wax with help from deaf-mute sculptor Igor (Charles Bronson) and another assistant named Leon Averill. Jarrod now concedes to popular taste and includes a "Chamber of Horrors" that showcases both historical crimes and recent events, such as the apparent suicide of his former business partner Burke. In reality, Burke was murdered by a cloaked, disfigured killer who then staged the death as a suicide. Burke's fiancée, Cathy Gray (Carolyn Jones), is murdered soon afterward. Her body mysteriously disappears from the morgue. Cathy’s friend Sue Allen (Phyllis Kirk) visits the museum and is troubled by the strong resemblance of the Joan of Arc figure to her dead friend. Jarrod explains that Cathy was the model for the sculpture. Unsatisfied, Sue returns after hours and uncovers the horrifying truth behind the House of Wax: many of the figures are wax-coated corpses, including Cathy and Burke. Sue is confronted by Jarrod, who proclaims her his new "model" for a sculpture of Marie Antoinette (both Jarrod and Wallace had earlier noted Sue's striking resemblance to the original sculpture). She fights him off, striking his face, which is revealed to be a wax mask that shatters and exposes fire-scarred flesh beneath. He subdues her and nearly succeeds in making her into a wax figure. But the police, having learned the whole truth from Averill, arrive in time to save her. Jarrod tries to escape, but gets into a fight with a policeman who knocks him into a vat of molten wax. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「House of Wax (1953 film)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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