This is probably my favorite Price boogieman film! It was also one of the first 3-D films in wide release, year 1953. It twas Warner Bros. very first 3-D's. Of course this is a remake of the famously the then lost Michael Curtiz The Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933). It was more of a "venture," a bit of an experiment, than it was a conceived as a great horror film. This was the first time that any major studio released on 3-D film, and it was a roaring success. Yet under the radar, the film is a really solid horror film with several very notable performances. Short, but memorable performances are turned in by Caroline Jones (aka Mortisia Adams), Angela Clarke and character actor Frank Lovejoy. Longer and very solid characters are assayed by: Phyllis Kirk as Cathy Gray, Paul Pecimi as Scott Andrews and, not to be missed, a youngish Charles Bronson as Igor, who plays the part like Vampira does in Ed Wood's Plan 9 From Outer Space...you know: mute. Finally there Nedrick Young as the boozing sculpture artist Leon. Young was not credited because he had been blacklisted during McCarthy's booze fueled fantasy known as the "Red Scare" in Hollywood.
The soundtrack was penned by David Buttolph. It is an complex score that swings wildly between the dramatic and sympathetic fully orchestrated moments and the just plain weird almost science fiction sounding strings. It is what most would consider a classic example of "horror music." Although, none of that would work, if it didn't also include appropriate dance hall music when it is called for, complete with burlesque choreography.
A few interesting points of trivia include that the film's trailer was scored by a completely different composer: Max Steiner. The director, Andre De Toth was blind in one eye and couldn't see the 3-d effect that he was filming. And the Guiness Book of World Records states that this was the first 3-D film released in stereoscopic sound (and it still sounds really good today!).
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