Anonymity

[homeguard]

Working until late last night so I thought I'd relax in front of the box by watching the advertised movie 'V for Vendetta'. I really enjoyed it! Apart from its spooky echoes of current concerns over totalitarianism in British society (which seems to be a common topic in drama these days), I wondered about the star, Hugo Weaving. How do you become more famous wearing a mask?

How many other actors would agree to that?



Regards,

HG

[Steve Crook]

name='homeguard']Working until late last night so I thought I'd relax in front of the box by watching the advertised movie 'V for Vendetta'. I really enjoyed it! Apart from its spooky echoes of current concerns over totalitarianism in British society (which seems to be a common topic in drama these days), I wondered about the star, Hugo Weaving. How do you become more famous wearing a mask?

How many other actors would agree to that?



Regards,

HG

I thought he wore it to protect his reputation, so that nobody would know he was associated with such tosh



I gave up on it after about 10 minutes (maybe half an hour)



Steve

[GRAEME]

Malachi Throne thought becoming a Batman villain would work the same magic it had on the careers of Burgess Meredith and Cesar Romero - until he realised that his turn as False Face would require him to be unrecognisable throughout.



Worse still, on the credits of the first episode he appeared in (part 1 of the 2 part adventure) he was credited only as "?". And he didn't know about that until broadcast!



He didn't return...

[CaptainWaggett]

Isn't the identity of the chap in the bandages in the 1958 Invisible Man series still a mystery? Though I think there was a midget for the scenes where he wore clothes but no bandages.



I always assume (perhaps wrongly) that with something like V for Vendetta, (or Edward Nortons's uncredited masked role in Kingdom of Heaven )the actor isn't actually going to be wearing the mask, just doing the voice. Is that actually the case?

[Steve Crook]

name='CaptainWaggett']Isn't the identity of the chap in the bandages in the 1958 Invisible Man series still a mystery?

Not according to the IMDb. They list one actor as "appearing" in the role and another for the voice although they do list them both as (uncredited)



Tim Turner, the British actor that did the voice, did really appear in one episode. As a villain, with a foreign accent



Steve

[homeguard]

name='Steve Crook']I thought he wore it to protect his reputation, so that nobody would know he was associated with such tosh



I gave up on it after about 10 minutes (maybe half an hour)



Steve

Must confess I did try to get up to reach the remote control after a quarter of an hour (thought it was going to be about Guido himself), but being too lazy paid off in the end. Somebody must have had faith in it. Think of the mask budget! There must have been thousands of them at the end!



Regards,

HG

[CaptainWaggett]

name='Steve Crook']Not according to the IMDb. They list one actor as "appearing" in the role and another for the voice although they do list them both as (uncredited)



Tim Turner, the British actor that did the voice, did really appear in one episode. As a villain, with a foreign accent



Steve

Johnny Scripps is, I think, the chap who played the Invisible Man when he didn't have bandages and they needed someone small who could look through the coat buttonholes. It's the chap in the bandages who nobody seems to know - at least I've read interviews with cast members who are slightly embarassed about not remembering him since presumably they did spend quite a lot of time with him.

[homeguard]

Found another. Our local actor hero, Oliver Smith, who not only had to play the anonymous monster, somebody else played the monster before he was anonymous!

As Frank The Monster

Oliver Smith's role in the original Hellraiser film is as Frank (the main villain in Hellraiser) after he is slain by Pinhead. Actor Sean Chapman plays Frank in his living state in the early stages of the movie.



Giz-a-job.

HG

[GRAEME]

Wasn't Karloff originally nameless in the credits of Frankenstein? Or did I just dream that?

[Steve Crook]

name='GRAEME']Wasn't Karloff originally nameless in the credits of Frankenstein? Or did I just dream that?

In the 1931 film he was just credited as

The Monster ... ?



Steve

[GRAEME]

name='Steve Crook']In the 1931 film he was just credited as

The Monster ... ?



Steve

Thanks Steve! Cor, he must have got a really rotten agent! Didn't seem to hold him back though, did it?

[Marky B]

name='GRAEME']Thanks Steve! Cor, he must have got a really rotten agent! Didn't seem to hold him back though, did it?

Producer Cael Laemmle Jnr on the casting of Karloff to play the creature:"His eyes mirrored the suffering we needed."



The world of film would have been the poorer if he had not become a star after Frankenstein - the greatest of all horror stars.

Ta Ta

Marky B

[christoph404]

name='homeguard']Working until late last night so I thought I'd relax in front of the box by watching the advertised movie 'V for Vendetta'. I really enjoyed it! Apart from its spooky echoes of current concerns over totalitarianism in British society (which seems to be a common topic in drama these days), I wondered about the star, Hugo Weaving. How do you become more famous wearing a mask?

How many other actors would agree to that?



Regards,

HG

I quite liked the film, like Steve Crook I almost switched off after 15 mins but if you stay with it, it becomes more watchable, Nathalie Portman is very good in it and worth watching for that reason alone, IMHO. I believe the film was based on a Graphic Novel that appeared at the height of Thatcherism so I guess its a little out of its timescale, enjoyable tosh though! On the subject of masked performances Dave Prowse is famous for playing Darth Vader yet surely the power of the performance comes from the dialogue as delivered by James Earl Jones!

[cinemal]

Claude Rains must hold the record for shortest screen 'appearance' of a principal character in Universal's 1933 'The Invisible Man'

[GRAEME]

Opera singer Claude Heater received no credit for his only film role as Jesus in the 50s version of Ben Hur.

[torinfan]

name='GRAEME']Malachi Throne thought becoming a Batman villain would work the same magic it had on the careers of Burgess Meredith and Cesar Romero - until he realised that his turn as False Face would require him to be unrecognisable throughout.



Worse still, on the credits of the first episode he appeared in (part 1 of the 2 part adventure) he was credited only as "?". And he didn't know about that until broadcast!



He didn't return...

To this day I still don't know what Throne looks like

[torinfan]

Skip it, I found some photos of him on his website:



The Official Malachi Throne Website

[wadsy]

Leonard Nimoy joined the cast of Mission Impossible with the idea of



showing his acting range after his years of playing Spock. His part of "Paris" was



a "Master of Disguise" but every time Nimoy donned a mask another actor



appeared on screen. He was only really seen at the start & end of each show.