Jack Pierce - The Man Behind the Monsters

Jack Pierce - The Man Behind the Monsters Read Free Page B

Book: Jack Pierce - The Man Behind the Monsters Read Free
Author: Scott Essman
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Son of Frankenstein , the new
Universal regime, headed by Cliff Work, saw fit to engage in a series
of sequels to the classic Universal monster franchise films in the
early 1940s, although most were crafted as B-pictures. Of course,
Work called on the skills of longtime head of makeup Jack Pierce to
work his magic on the new slate of film characters. First on the
boards was a Mummy sequel, not starring Karloff or Lon Chaney
Jr. — though the latter would play the lead in the final three
Mummy sequels. Tom Tyler was cast in The Mummy’s Hand
(above), and for him, Pierce designed a facial makeup application
akin to that used on Boris Karloff in the original film. In a similar
makeup conception, Pierce made actor David Bruce (right) into The
Mad Ghoul , (1943) an original film from the same period. It took
John Carradine until 1944 to play Count Dracula, and he did so
working with Pierce in House of Frankenstein and again in 1945 in
House of Dracula (above right).

    If the new Universal was making horror pictures which lacked the care and attention to detail of similar films under the Laemmle era, Jack Pierce still strove for greatness. In succession, Pierce was able to ply his trade on a series of new Frankenstein Monsters in the early 1940s. First, Lon Chaney, Jr. portrayed the monster in Ghost of Frankenstein (1942), bottom left, followed by Béla Lugosi in Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943), top left, and Glenn Strange in both House of Frankenstein (1944) and House of Dracula (1945), above. With Strange, Pierce surprised both the actor and House of Frankenstein producer Paul Malverne with his rendering of the character—without telling Strange what makeup he was going to test on the actor, he put paper over the mirrors, led Strange into his makeup room, and did the complete Monster makeup. To Strange and Malverne’s shock and delight, Pierce had created the most unique Frankenstein Monster since the Karloff years. In House of Dracula , Pierce also demonstrated his hair work abilities, making a mad scientist of actor Onslow Stevens (opposite bottom).
    For Jack Pierce, other highlights in the 1940s included a scaled-down version of Claude Rains’ makeup in Phantom of the Opera (1943), opposite top left, the lone Jack Pierce horror character that was filmed in color. Pierce also honed his beauty makeup skills on such stars as Susanna Foster for Phantom (opposite top left inset), while adding Vicki Lane in Jungle Captive (opposite top right), plus its ‘glamourous’ sequels to his beauty makeup résumé.

the wolf man
    “I don’t use masks or any appliances whatsoever,” proclaimed Jack Pierce about the development of his famous monster characters. The one exception to Pierce’s rule occurred with his striking initial realization of The Wolf Man in 1941. “The only appliances I used was the nose that looks like a wolf[‘s nose]. There you either put on a rubber nose or model the nose every day, which would have taken too long.”
    The idea of Jack Pierce re-creating a wolf character from scratch every day of principal photography may seem daunting, but — as with the Frankenstein Monster and the Mummy before — Pierce prided himself on doing things from the bottom up with each new makeup application. When Lon Chaney, Jr. was cast as the title character in George Waggner’s film, Pierce resurrected the conception of a man-wolf that he had originally conceived for Boris Karloff in the early 1930s. Though Henry Hull became Pierce’s Werewolf of London in 1935, that was a scaled down version of the makeup intended for Karloff in the same role.
    For the Waggner film, slated as a B-picture by the Universal brass, Pierce and special effects supervisor John P. Fulton knew that they had an opportunity to create a unique project that would harken back to the old Laemmle years at the studio. In Chaney, they had the hulking physical actor who could be used to realize their ideas. The Wolf Man appeared in

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