NIGHTMARE IN WAX (1969; d. Bud Townsend, w. Rex Carlton)

Literally told thru eye (in film’s opening non-sequitur process shot) of wax-museum artist (director – and unconscious – making idea[l]s flesh) Vincent Rinard, former makeup artist (function of dreaming mind, dressing up day-reality into iconic img + vice versa) disfigured (semi-disabled) as result of rivalry over star Marie Morgan (frmr ideal to which he aspired, relocated onto wax figures: materialism [cf similar Female Jungle scenario]) w/ studio head Max Black (father-figure + similar img-maker, Rinard’s darkest-unconscious counterpart); "burned" both lit’y + figuratively (Face of Fire Cameron Mitchell) + missing one eye (dir’s inadequate vision + dreamer’s debilitated perception) due to unsuccessful oedipal ascendance (50-yr-old Mitchell vs 56 Barry Kroeger/Max Black + 30 Anne Helm/MM), retreats to fetishistic sculpture-world where he talks to figures as tho alive (as all but one, in fact, are: child’s animistic dream-reality, turned on ear), singling out one – modeled on go-go dancer – as his Helen-of-Troy avatar (degradation of ideals) à la Faustus’ same + Mad Love Gogol his Galatea.

At party (anarchic dream-revelry in which subconscious abandons repressions + yields up its dramatis personae) lauding Marie + her co-star/latest flame Tony Deen (in mirror behind emcee MB: figures in own subconsc) + announcing their engagement (pre-credits cameo of complex triggering later events, whose origin is in earlier, related, non-diegetic [archetypal] event: disrupted sexual union/ascent), Tony soon assaulted by shadowy figure (Self-img not yet formulated in dream: part of personality doing violence to idealized img) who hypos him in elevator doorway (own lover-img trapped on verge of transition, btwn developmental levels); next scene tour thru museum (icons frozen in subconsc) mixing trad wax imgs of real celebs w/ obviously human replicas of mysteriously vanished "Paragon Pictures" stars (nominal producers of film: misfired attempt to place self among pantheon) in murder scenario (in which "innocent" not-Vince oblivious while traitorous not-Marie stabs him in back [filmmaker betrayed by own muse], lorded over by dour not-Max) w/ imminent inclusion of newly disappeared Tony (never realized: failure to incorporate lover-img into iconic scenario + ascend to artwork status).

Enter bearish Detective Haskell (internal psychic investigator, whose job to make sense of unconscious activities) + comic-relief partner Sgt Carver (ineptitude attending Haskell’s/film’s performance, Carver parallel Rinard’s comic tour-guide Nick), interviewing Vince in backroom lab (unconsc itself, where dream-recreations formed: only products disembodied heads, as mind in sleep), prompting Rinard flashback to disfigurement at similar party to opener (2 scenes equivalent, both involving rivalry w/ father-figure over possession o/t eroticized [younger] mother, ending in tragedy); leave no further ahead (nothing profiting inquiry in seemingly arbitrary + improvised narrative) but inspiring renewed connection btwn Vince + Marie when latter, after similarly unrevealing visit by cops (psychic agitators stirring up unconsc associations), calls w/ intent to ask him for his "head" of Tony (à la Salome, she fused w/ go-go Theresa in dreamer’s muddled consciousness), Tony-head parroting his "Hello, Marie": diminished rationality replaying past like tape-loop.

Max arrives at Marie’s before Vince + begs her to return to films (3-month retirement following Tony’s disappearance seasonal cycle, she Persephone soon absconded into V’s underworld), Rinard granting her head-request on condition of "discretion," then visiting Theresa’s club (he Hermetic conduit btwn Upper + Lower Regions), where she pouts, "When’re ya gonna make it?" (i.e. put a body to her sculpted head: complex residing in inability to unite mental + physical/fantasy + reality, acknowledged double-entendre real issue surfacing in revelatory, uninhibited setting) + he similarly lures her to lab on same condition, accompanied by boyfriend Max (reiterating original oedipal challenge).

Nails Max (disempowering governing consciousness) + chases Theresa intermittently (point the pursuit: eliminating not-the-mother [psychological construction bridging development from mother-attachment to romantic love] false ideal – hers only completely fake sculpture – to lay ground for ascension) + leads long-unseen cops (re-engaging rationality for semi-conscious pursuit) on 2nd interminable chase, in Max’s guise (point of engagement to convince rational mind of his becoming not-the-father, in order to achieve ideal); quizzed by cops next day on Why Theresa’s Head? (recommended by unspecified "committee": the aggregate ego, directing psychic project) + on rumors (uncredited + un-attributable: separate hemispheres of mind all in colloquy w/ selves) that he making Max-head (forming adult self-img [+ inciting question, Does ego create unconscious, or vice versa?]), disproven by displaying not-Max-head (mockingly madeup Max ego subsumed in un-reality).

On her arrival, tricks Marie into scupting-box (separating head from body idolizing her, removing from the physical) + describes hypo fluid in masculine semen-fantasy terms (cf Nancy Friday, MEN IN LOVE: hypnotic quality, "full of vitamins + minerals," injection synthi-sex for stunted boy: "If I can’t have you the right way, then I shall have you another way"), then releases Tony to release Max (men acquiring bodies boy coming into puberty + achieving mastery once ideal put in box [cf Boxing Helena, et al]), latter ordered into harness to dangle over vat (ego in suspension at sleep-zenith, unexpectedly reasserting self as dream closes).

As reanimated Paragon stars aimlessly revived (dream going full-tilt), knife-wielding "Stella Costello" electrocutes self on hardware (which director/superego Alfred Herman [don’t they mean "Herrmann"?] sez will bring sleepers back to life, but which kills her: unreliable consciousness) + Max taunts Vince into immolating self in vat (voice of unconscious + self-doubt leading to destruction of middleground consc’ss), film doing same as life/highlights replay, climaxing w/ bandaged Vince (w/ cig hanging from mouth) clutching busted clay head: filmmakers clinging to ½-formed, ruined art piece that likely wd never've amounted to anything, anyway, Vince putative makeup man who never even tries to hide own disfigurement Vincent Price/House of Wax style, film parading own deficiencies to little affectionate effect.

Dir Townsend appeared in son-in-law Henry Jaglom’s 1985 Always.