Build a movie plot around this: Why does the mother slap her son? He knocks over the wax mask
The movie opens with title and credits over the streets of turn of the century New York City at night in the pouring rain. A solitary figure walks down the street holding an umbrella. We enter the Wax Museum with various tableaux of crimes of the past, and then enter the workshop where Prof. Henry Jarrod (Vincent Price) is working on a sculpture. His business partner, Matthew Burke (Roy Roberts) enters and walks partially upstairs when he is hailed by Jarrod. He tells Jarrod he's there to study the account books. They have a philosophical difference between their approaches to business. Jarrod proposes a buyout arrangement, and Burke either eager or desperate for the money agrees in principle. A potential investor is scheduled to see Jarrod that very evening.Bruce Allison (Phillip Tonge) and Sidney Wallace (Paul Cavanagh) arrive and are given a brief tour of the wax museum. Wallace is impressed, but Jarrod explains that he's never satisfied with certain aspects of the finished products. Wallace explains he's going to Egypt for three months, so no decision on investment can take place prior to his return. Allison and Wallace depart. Burke was eavesdropping from the upstairs room and heard everything. He is impatient for a financial settlement and proposes an insurance fire. The place is insured for $25,000--$12,500 each. Jarrod is horrified by the proposal, and opposes it categorically. Burke lights the Marie Antoinette wax figure's dress with a match. It starts a fire that Jarrod quickly extinguishes. Burke starts a few more fires, with Jarrod quickly working to save his wax figures. Burke and Jarrod fight, and at one point Jarrod is knocked out. Burke douses the workroom and display area with a flammable liquid and turns on the gas light spigots. He goes upstairs as the place begins to catch fire. He returns to the workroom and continues his fight with the now revived Jarrod. Jarrod works desperately with buckets of water to douse the fire, but it is a losing battle. He is knocked out again by Burke and left...