10 Memorable Vincent Price Characters

7. Professor Henry Jarrod - House Of Wax

Vincent Price Theatre Of Blood
Warner Bros. Pictures

Just like Ivan Igor, the character played by Lionel Atwill (another horror icon with a moustache) in Mystery Of The Wax Museum, Professor Jarrod reacts badly when his partner burns down their business in order to claim the insurance.

Tracking down his former friend, the Professor stages his death to look like a suicide, then murders his fiancée, steals her body from the morgue and uses her for his strangely lifelike wax model of Joan Of Arc.

With his basement lair and mute henchman (played by Charles Bronson, no less), it’s only Jarrod’s lack of ambition that separates him from a Bond Villain. Not for him wild schemes involving Fort Knox – he’s perfectly content to kidnap a young woman and leave her under a stream of boiling wax in order to recreate his prized statue of Marie Antoinette. 

Contributor

Ian Watson is the author of 'Midnight Movie Madness', a 600+ page guide to "bad" movies from 'Reefer Madness' to 'Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead.'