Nicholas E. LauerMovie Fact #10 - August 27th, 2020
The opening scene of 1953's House of Wax features a fantastical sequence of Professor Henry Jarrod (Played by Vincent Price) trying to escape his wax museum as it burns down. Right before the shoot, director André De Toth's crew set three "spot fires" in strategic locations to create the illusion of an out-of-control fire...well it was intended to be an illusion, anyway. When the cameras started rolling, the team quickly lost control of their fires which merged into a massive inferno that put a hole in the sound stage roof and singed Price's eyebrows. De Toth kept on filming-even as firemen arrived to help extinguish the flames because the rapidly melting wax mannequins would've been very hard to replace if they had to reshoot the scene all over again. The things we do for art, right? Admittedly...
