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Like Mystery of the Wax Museum a conscious elucubration of art, from one Hungarian connoisseur to another. "There are people in the world who love beauty." "But more who want sensation. Shock." To the sculptor (Vincent Price) the collection of historical effigies is a vision of artisanal splendor, to his business partner (Roy Roberts) it is no different from a factory to be burned for insurance money. Out of the great conflagration emerges the macabre impresario who "surely knows his anatomy," Lincoln and Cleopatra give way to Bluebeards and guillotines in his new exhibition as cadavers vanish from the morgue. Grand Guignol jolts in fin de siècle New York, just the stage for André De Toth to explore 3-D not as a kitschy gimmick but a compositional instrument. Protruding credits, shadows and mirrors and mist in multiple planes, the leggy sprawl of music-hall dancers and the brash carny's ping-pong orbs—everything is designed to emphasize the distance between eye and screen. Carolyn Jones is a giggling blonde coquette until her lifeless figure turns up, dark and impassive, as Joan of Arc with cross and stake. Her roommate (Phyllis Kirk) investigates the atelier and becomes unwilling model to replace the madman's beloved Marie Antoinette. "Dimensional paintings of old masters" (cf. Godard's Passion), a question of imagination attempting to improve on nature, says Price. The mordant comedy of the aesthete who embraces exploitation, with a giant cauldron of bubbling pink lava and Charles Bronson's jagged mug amid its hearty divertissements. (The society ladies peeking at Marat's tub and fainting on cue are of course the audience, "good theater" is the verdict.) Corman expands the proposition with A Bucket of Blood. Cinematography by Bert Glennon and J. Peverell Marley. With Frank Lovejoy, Paul Picerni, Dabbs Greer, Paul Cavanagh, and Nedrick Young.
--- Fernando F. Croce |