EARLY SPECIAL EFFECTS SECRETS

It's hard to imagine how special effects were created for vintage-era movies in the face of today's seemingly unlimited technology. For many of these effects, filmmakers relied on chemists and their laboratories to develop specific inventive "concoctions" that would work convincingly. For example, dry ice was often used to create steam, mist and the icy breath coming from an actor's mouth (by placing the ice in the actor's mouth inside a container!), silicate of soda to make icicles, Epsom salt solution to create frost on windows and hail from puffed rice! These and other techniques are explained in this article from MODERN MECHANIX (March 1936).

SEEING THROUGH THE INVISIBLE MAN

In numerous classic Universal horror films, shrouding the production under a veil of secrecy added to the mystique and built anticipation before the film's release. This is done a little less frequently today, but other marketing techniques have taken its place, such as the pre-release viral hype of movies like THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT and SNAKES ON A PLANE.

The April 1934 issue of MODERN MECHANIX "unofficially" reveals the secret techniques that were used in the filming of THE INVISIBLE MAN, released the previous November. The one-page feature describes the use of filters, film stains and optical printers that made the invisible man seem to "disappear" on screen. It was a fabulous effect that thrilled audiences around the world.

Conventional, or to use the more current term "practical" makeup may have also had a role in the invisible man's on-screen disappearing act. The article speculates that either blue or orange-red makeup would have been applied to actor Claude Rains, and by the use of filters, these colors would have been visible or invisible on film. If makeup was applied, then it would have most likely been done so by the uncredited head of Universal's makeup department, a certain Frankenstein monster maker by the name of Jack Pierce.