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In the 1890s, in New York City, Matthew
Burke, part-owner of a wax museum, needs money and is impatient over
his partner's, the refined and eccentric wax sculptor, Prof.
Henry Jarrod's, insistence that the museum avoid lucrative
sensationalism. For the insurance money, Burke sets fire to
the museum. Jarrod, horrified to see his exquisite wax figures
of famous historical people, which he considers "friends," melt
away, fights Burke and tries to put out the flames, until gas fumes
unite with the fire and the building explodes.
Later, Burke receives all of the insurance
money, as Jarrod is believed to be dead, but Burke is then killed and
left dangling in an elevator shaft. At a boardinghouse, a giddy,
promiscuous blonde, Cathy Gray, who was dating Burke, is found dead in
her room by her friend and fellow boarder, Sue Allen. Sue is
chased out the window and through the streets by a man in black, until
she takes refuge with friends of her family, Mrs. Andrews and her son
Scott.
The next day, when the Andrewses and Sue
visit the police, Lieutenant Tom Brennan mentions that Cathy's body, as
well as several others, have disappeared from the morgue.
Meanwhile, Sidney Wallace, a wealthy financier, is contacted by a
wheelchair bound Jarrod, who has survived the fire, but claims that he
suffered permanent loss of his hands and legs. As he can no longer
sculpt, Jarrod has hired assistants, the deaf-mute Igor and talented
sculptor Leon Averill, to help him recreate his wax figures, and using a
new procedure he has devised, build another museum. Jarrod says
that, as he can no longer create beauty, he plans to make a horror
museum and expects that the museum will be profitable.
After being shown Jarrod's basement
laboratory, where plaster-of-paris figures are dipped in a vat of
boiling wax, Wallace agrees to finance the museum. Scott, who has
grown fond of Sue, takes her on opening day to the Grand Wax Museum and
Chamber of Horrors, where they wander through recreations of executions
by electrocution, torture and guillotine, as well as recent events, such
as the mysterious hanging of Burke. When Sue sees the figure of
Joan of Arc, she is shocked by its likeness to Cathy, which, except for
its dark hair, is exact, even to its pierced ears. After Wallace
introduces Scott and Sue to Jarrod, the sculptor remarks that Sue
resembles his favorite creation, Marie Antoinette, who was destroyed in
the fire, and offers Scott, who is also a sculptor, work in the museum.
Sue's concern about the wax Joan of Arc's
likeness to Cathy prompts Scott to take her to visit Brennan, who
promises to investigate further. Brennan and his men check out the
museum and find that the wax figure of John Wilkes Booth bears striking
resemblance to a murdered city official, whose body recently
disappeared. Brennan and Sergeant Jim Shane interview Wallace
about Jarrod and his assistants, and later Shane remembers that an
alcoholic prisoner in Sing Sing, who painted a recreation of "The Last
Supper" in his cell, was recently paroled. They pick up Leon for
questioning and after finding on him an inscribed watch belonging to the
missing man, continue the interrogation.
At dusk, Sue goes to the museum to meet
Scott for a date and enters the darkened establishment. She again
approaches the figure of Joan of Arc and, still troubled by it, climbs
up for a closer look. When she inadvertently knocks off the brown
wig, she finds blonde hair underneath and exclaims to herself that it is
Cathy's body. Jarrod, whose dependence on a wheelchair was
feigned, sneaks up behind her and, after confirming her suspicion,
chases her around the museum. When her struggling causes a plaster
mask to break off from his disfigured face, she faints.
Meanwhile, at the police station, after
being plied with drinks, Leon confesses that Jarrod uses real corpses
dipped in wax for his exhibits and that the body of the missing city
official is on exhibit as Booth. Leon goes on to confess that
Cathy was killed for her resemblance to Jarrod's vision of Joan of Arc
and that Burke was killed in revenge for setting fire to the original
wax museum.
When Leon informs them that Jarrod wants Sue
as his Marie Antoinette, the police race to the museum. Scott, who
is waiting outside the museum for Sue, goes in and is confronted by
Igor, who wants to behead him with the guillotine. The police
arrive in time to save Scott, then break down the laboratory door.
Inside they find that Jarrod is preparing to dip the drugged and naked
Sue into a vat of wax. Just before her body is lowered into the
cauldron, Brennan turns off the control switch and covers Sue with his
jacket. While trying to escape the police, Jarrod falls into the
vat and dies.
Later, at the station, Scott and Sue thank
Brennan for his help and Sue expresses an additional thanks for the use
of his coat. |
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