When it comes to wax museums, people typically love 'em or hate 'em. I’m in the former camp, as I believe they are (if done properly) an art form. Creating a life-like representation of someone in wax is not easily done, and includes not only the face, but body, hands, clothing, and setting. Overall, the now defunct Movieland Wax Museum in Buena Park did a damn good job. This batch of November 1976 images show you some of their finer work. Here is their depiction of W.C. Fields as he looked in the movie “Poppy.”
Good job on the face!
Look at the detail on the bottle which also includes a poppy:
Even the clapboard is accurate in the information that it provides:
The Marilyn Monroe figure isn’t too bad; definitely successful with the hair, costume, and the body:
The face is just a bit off though; I can’t quite put my finger on it but her face looks a little manly to me.
“The Beverly Hillbillies” tableau is a complete winner:
Granny (Irene Ryan) was captured to perfection!
Last but not least is the Shirley Temple area of the museum. The scenery provides a whimsical background for the most popular child star ever with a nod to her hit song “On the Good Ship Lollipop.” Maybe someone should have told the set designers that the ship was referring to an airplane.
As far as Shirley herself goes, they truly did an outstanding job with the face, body, hair (and that’s not an easy hairdo to successfully recreate!), and clothes:
See more vintage Movieland Wax Museum photos at my main website.
3 comments:
I always thought this Marilyn looked really off. Put your finger over her mouth and also narrow the face along the sides and it starts to look more like her. I seem to remember she was close to the end of the displays and it was a downer way to go out of there. I used to like Vincent Price in House of Wax because it had a pool of what looked like real bubbling wax below the lady. It added motion to the otherwise still life. I never went there after the mid 60s so I never saw the newer statues.
I still have yet to visit a wax museum, but I really want to. I'm sad I never got the chance to go to Movieland before it closed.
It's so funny you shared this today and that the previous commenter mentioned House of Wax, because I just watched it the other day and it's making a small appearance in my blog post scheduled for Wednesday!
Always loved this place, as a kid I felt like I was the only one who did. I admired how much work went into the sets, never mind the wax figures such as monsignor Monroe. They tried to up their game at the end by introducing Halloween and Aliens walk through exhibits where you're attacked by things. The best story ( IMHO ) will be the one where Vincent Price traded places with his wax figure for the day. "He looks so lifelike..." "Yes, so do YOU!"
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