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Wallace Worsley, Universal Super Jewel, 1923, from Hugo. Lon Chaney is Quasimodo; Patsy Ruth Miller is Esmeralda. Chaney built the face in Room 5, about three and a half hours, plaster hump of some twenty pounds. The cathedral façade went up on the back lot. Irving Thalberg pushed Carl Laemmle into the $1.25 million, second only to Uncle Tom’s Cabin among Universal silents. Chaney later said the role was the one he had wanted. The crowd scenes are the money. The tenderness is the makeup not quite hiding the eyes.
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Universal put up the cathedral façade on the back lot and Chaney put twenty pounds of plaster on his back. Three and a half hours in the chair every day. The mob is where the budget went. Watch the eyes under the makeup.
Lon Chaney: The Man of a Thousand Faces
The hump was plaster, about twenty pounds, and the face took three and a half hours in Room 5. Thalberg pushed Laemmle to the budget; Chaney said it was the part he wanted. Watch the eyes after Esmeralda gives him water. The makeup stops hiding them.
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