Make-up in Movies
A selection of examples of unusual uses of make-up in films.
Dark Passage (1947)
In Dark Passage, Humphrey Bogart plays Vincent Parry, a man wrongly convicted of his wife’s murder. At the start of the movie, he escapes from prison, and halfway through he gets plastic surgery to enable him to search for his wife’s killer without detection.
This gave the studio the problem of what to do about Humphrey Bogart in the early part of the film. (more…)
Frankenstein (1931)
Those metal studs in the creature’s neck, much beloved by the makers of horror parodies and Halloween costumes, aren’t bolts at all. (more…)
The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)
When French spy Louis Bernard (Daniel Gélin) is stabbed in the back in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1956 remake of The Man Who Knew Too Much, he uses the last of his energy to seek out American tourist Dr. Ben McKenna (Jimmy Stewart). McKenna doesn’t recognise him immediately because he’s disguised as a native Moroccan, complete with a blacked up face. It’s only when Bernard’s make-up comes off on McKenna’s fingers that his identity is revealed…
…so the story has it, anyway. The actual process of filming the scene was a tad more complicated. (more…)
