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"The Waxwork" is a shadowy, frightening episode that was adapted for Alfred Hitchcock Presents from a well-known short story of the same title by A. M. Burrage.
The story begins as the manager of London's Marriner's Waxworks interviews Raymond Hewson, a journalist who wants to spend a night in the museum's Murderer's Den in order to write a newspaper story about the experience. The manager agrees and promises to pay Hewson five pounds if the story is printed; he also promises an uncomfortable night among the effigies of notorious killers.
Hewson is taken to the "eerie and uncomfortable chamber," where the wax figures of murderers stand on pedestals. The manager points out some of them, focusing on Dr. Bourdette, "'the only one of the bunch that hasn't been hanged.'" Bourdette was the terror of Paris, practicing mesmerism and cutting throats with a razor. He disappeared and was never found. Hewson remarks that he thought that he saw Bourdette's figure move, and the manager suggests that he will "'have more than one optical illusion before the night's out.'"
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"The Waxwork" was first published here |
The reporter is left alone in the gloomy, poorly lit room with only an armchair to sit in. He studies the wax figures, turning his back on the unsettling figure of Bourdette. Fighting his fear, Hewson turns to look at the statue, reassuring himself that it's only a waxwork. He soon begins to suspect that the figures are moving when he's not looking at them. Hewson considers leaving early but knows that the watchman would reveal his failure to spend the entire night among the wax murderers.
Thinking that he hears someone breathing, he looks around, but all he sees are still figures. He is compelled to turn around and look at the figure of Bourdette and he sits frozen in his chair as he watches Bourdette step carefully down from his pedestal. The figure explains that he's the real doctor, having fled from a policeman into the museum, where he took the place of his own wax figure to avoid detection. The murderer tells the reporter that he collects throats the way others collect matchboxes, and he advances on Hewson's neck, taking out a small razor.
In the morning, Hewson's dead body is found sitting in the chair, his chin tilted up but untouched, and the wax figure of Bourdette is back on its pedestal. Was Dr. Bourdette real or was he a figment of Hewson's imagination? The writer provides no answer.
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Barry Nelson as Hewson |
The story has been reprinted many times in the ensuing years, including in the 1957 volume, Alfred Hitchcock Presents Stories They Wouldn't Let Me Do On TV. It was adapted for radio several times, including three times on Suspense (listen to two versions here and here) and, when TV anthology shows begin to air and were looking for material, "The Waxwork" was a natural and was adapted for Lights Out on November 13, 1950, and for Suspense, as "The Return of Dr. Bourdette," on September 16, 1952. Neither show seems to have survived.
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Everett Sloane as Marriner |
Casey Robinson (1903-1979) adapted "The Waxwork" for Alfred Hitchcock Presents and the episode aired in CBS on Sunday, April 12, 1959. Robinson was called "the master of the art--or craft--of adaptation" by Richard Corliss and counted Casablanca as one of the films he co-wrote, even though he was not credited onscreen. Other screenplays included Captain Blood (1935), Dark Victory (1939), and Fritz Lang's While the City Sleeps (1956). He wrote one other episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, "Poison."
The Hitchcock adaptation of "The Waxwork" is directed by Robert Stevens, and Robinson's teleplay follows the basic outline of the short story while adding new scenes, changing important details, and strengthening the character of the museum manager. For no particular reason that I can see, it opens with a title card setting the place and time as "London 1954," though neither of the two main characters has a British accent and the year seems irrelevant. One might think that it was set then because of a comment by the museum manager in the episode about the impending end of capital punishment in England, which was a topic of discussion throughout the decade, but when the show aired in 1959, capital punishment was still legal, and it was not banned until 1965.
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Shai K. Ophir as Bourdette |
Unlike the short story, where Hewson is a freelance writer hoping to get an exclusive, in the TV version he introduces himself as a reporter with "'the illustrated weekly, This World.'" Marriner fusses with various wax appendages while Hewson asks to spend the night; Marriner's role is significantly larger in the TV version than in the short story and he is quite serious about his wax creations, going so far as to destroy a wax head by submerging it in a vat of hot oil. Hewson refers to having lost a good deal of money at cards to an Englishman (one can infer that Hewson is not English) and admits that he paid his debt with a bad check and needs money to cover it.
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The wax figure of Bourdette |
Marriner must have decided to allow the reporter to spend the night, because in the next scene it is nighttime and Hewson is admitted to the closed museum and led into the Murderer's Den, a shadowy dungeon where wax figures of killers are posed. Marriner enters and welcomes Hewson, who resists being locked in due to a case of claustrophobia, another detail that is not in the short story. As a viewer, looking at the figures on display, some appear to be wax while others appear to be actors doing their best to stand still. Hewson is left alone and is visibly uncomfortable.
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Charles Davis |
When Hewson goes back down the stairs into the den, we see for the first time that the figure of Bourdette has joined a group of four other murderers. Hewson notices right away and revises his typed words; he tries to resume typing but each time he looks up, Bourdette's figure has moved closer to the reporter. Hewson is typing and not watching as the figure comes to life and approaches him. Bourdette hypnotizes Hewson and explains that he escaped execution, mingled with the crowd, and entered the museum, where he has been able to avoid capture.
The killer shows the reporter his razor, has Hewson lift his chin, and puts razor to throat as the camera pans down and the scene fades out. When it fades back in it's the next morning, and Mariner and the museum guard examine Hewson, who sits dead in his chair, his throat intact. Marriner pulls the sheet of paper out of the typewriter and reads a line about the figure of Bourdette seeming to move toward the reporter. Marriner credits Hewson with an overactive imagination and the guard points out that Bourdette's figure was not there the night before and is just now being brought in. Two men carry in the wax figure and set it in place, right where Bourdette was standing when Hewson appeared to see him. The camera pulls back to show the group of five murderers and the scene fades out.
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Starring as Hewson is Barry Nelson (1917-2007), a busy actor on the large and small screens from 1938 to 1990. He appeared on the Hitchcock show three times, including "Anyone for Murder," and was also seen on The Twilight Zone and in Stanley Kubrick's The Shining (1980). Nelson is convincing in "The Waxwork" as a man whose imagination scares him to death.
Everett Sloane (1909-1965) plays Marriner. He began his career on Broadway in 1935 and was busy on radio, working with Orson Welles's Mercury Theater. This led to his film debut in Citizen Kane (1941); he followed it with many roles, including The Lady From Shanghai (1947). He began TV work in 1951 and was on Alfred Hitchcock Presents three times, including "Place of Shadows." He also made a memorable appearance on The Twilight Zone. Sadly, he committed suicide in 1965. Sloane makes the most of his role as Marriner and is convincing as a man obsessed with making lifelike figures from wax.
Bourdette is played by Shai K. Ophir (1928-1987), an Israeli actor who was on screen from 1956 until his death. He is believable as the dapper French barber who kills people with a straight razor.
Finally, Charles Davis (1925-2009) plays the museum guard who locks Hewson in and then discovers his body with Marriner at the end. Born in Dublin, Ireland, Davis had a long career on stage in Ireland and on Broadway and appeared on large and small screens from 1951 to 1987. He was on Night Gallery twice and appeared in seven episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, including the three-part "I Killed the Count."
Read the short story here. Read the GenreSnaps review here. Watch the Alfred Hitchcock Presents version here or buy the DVD here.
Sources:
Burrage, Alfred. "The Waxwork." Alfred Hitchcock's Ghostly Gallery. NY: Random House, 1984, pp. 214-231.
The FICTIONMAGS Index, www.philsp.com/homeville/FMI/0start.htm.
Grams, Martin, and Patrik Wikstrom. The Alfred Hitchcock Presents Companion. OTR Pub., 2001.
IMDb, www.imdb.com.
Simmers, George. “Who Was A.M. Burrage?” Great War Fiction, 30 Mar. 2014, greatwarfiction.wordpress.com/who-was-amburrage/.
"The Waxwork." Alfred Hitchcock Presents, season 4, episode 27, CBS, 12 April 1959.
Wikipedia, www.wikipedia.org.
Listen to Annie and Kathryn discuss "The Waxwork" here!
In two weeks: "Appointment at Eleven," starring Clint Kimbrough!
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