CineSavant Column

Tuesday April 9, 2024

 

Hello!

We have some interesting follow-up from correspondent Malcolm Alcala on the unproduced 1967 Dick Tracy TV show — Malcolm has found ‘a’ pilot for the series online.

It doesn’t feature ‘Pruneface’ or ‘Flattop’ in the cast line-up, just Victor Buono as a ‘Batman’- like villain. The rather tepid pilot was produced by Batman’s producer William Dozier, and its main theme is by The Ventures:

Dick Tracy unsold TV pilot 1967.
 

 Meanwhile, correspondent “E.” shows us that the ‘Pruneface’ prosthetic piece for Lon Chaney Jr.’s character makeup job still exists. He found it on display at a Propstore Auction page from 2023, with nice photos:

Lon Chaney Jr. Head Cast with Pruneface Prosthetic.
 


 

And Christopher Rywalt sends along this amusing, educational look at Zinc Oxide and You — no, no, it’s a look at the famed ‘Sodium Vapor’ automatic matting process used by Walt Disney in the 1960s.

The UCLA film school had a demo reel of the process and others with clips from Mary Poppins and The Brass Bottle, but the 35mm print had faded, and I thought I saw all kinds of matte lines and imperfections. Or maybe I was just an obnoxious film student who liked to point out things like matte lines.

The new video by Corridor crew is a demo-recreation, an attempt to reproduce the matting system with the reputation of being able to work with any color in front of the camera. It’s very detailed, and quite entertaining:

This Invention Made Disney Millions, but Then They Lost It!

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson