'Eskimo' characters appear in this and other HPL stories, where they are presented as stereotypes. It need hardly be pointed out that no such ridiculous challenge was ever issued to the public, although the rumour has run for nearly twenty years, in spite of repeated contradictions.' Tussaud says: 'We have speculated much upon the origin of what has come to be called 'The Chamber of Horrors Rumour,' related to a popular delusion that Madame Tussaud's will pay a sum of money to any person who spends a night alone with the criminals assembled therein. In his 1920 memoir The Romance of Madame Tussaud's, John T. According to George Higham's book Wax Museum Movies: A Comprehensive Filmography, there are at least 127 movies set in wax museums, dating from as early as 1899! People have been creeped out by wax figures for a very long time. Belden that neither Hazel Heald nor HPL could presumably have read. This film also features a basement wax museum, but that appears to be a coincidence, since it was based on an unpublished story by Charles S. It doesn't appear to be streaming anywhere and is available to watch only on disc, but you can see the opening sequence and a few other clips on YouTube, including the 'unmasking' scene that HPL approved of. The same year HPL wrote this story, Warner Bros.

Everything by George Higham