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No one's ever said the Laemmles, father or son, disapproved of the make-up. Further, this is actually unlikely, given the sequence of known events. There would have been preliminatary discussions and sketches done; if Pierce was doing it (likely), he would have sculpted a half-size maquette (a little bust) for everyone to see and give their OK. That's all S.O.P., for Pierce or anyone else. And since we know the project got REALLY far along-- all the way to shooting a two-reel test, which is pretty damnnnd elaborate-- there doesn't seem to be a question of anyone disliking the make-up (except maybe Whle, when he insinuated himself into the project).

Nor did Pierce ever say anything on the record (or off, as far as anyone knows) about either what the Lugosi test make-up looked like, or that he didn't like it-- or, really, for that matter, that he (Pierce) didn't design the damn thing himself. The only ambiguous clue is Pierece's comment on Bela: "He thought his ideas were better than everybody else's." But Pierce never specifically linked that comment to a 1931 Golem-oid test make-up. He could've been talking about the mustache in THE WOLF MAN. He could've been complaining about Lugosi doing his own make-up in DRACULA. He could've been half-recalling a morning arguement over Brillianteen in Bela's hair on POSTAL INSPECTOR, we don't know.

Pierce's many statements about the classic monster image over the years also imply he was the primary source of design, that he, Pierce, was Da Man. On these boards here, we've seen evidence to the contrary. For instance, Pierce's comments about shortening the coat sleeves to make the arms appear longer-- all well and good, but someone here posted a character watercolor done by Whale in the 1920s for a play he directed that looks like an exact prototype of the Monster, complete with "lengthened" arms (via short sleeves), heavy shoes, and a canted, 45 degree forward slant to the posture.

Further, if that series of "Monster" drawings is legit (Oh, somebody find these & post them)-- then at least one of the concepts mooted before the classic Karloffian look was an out-and-out robot, along with the Noble Johnson style semi-human brute version I mentioned above. So the metalic & robot-oid imagery eventually absorbed into the design was there before the Golem/test (the clamps on the forehead and wrist, the electrodes in the neck). I say if-- I don't have any clue as to their legitimacy, but also have no reason that they weren't generated in Spring/Summer 1931-- then since Pierce was in charge of make-up, ALL the versions would have come through his department one way or the other.

So we shouldn't assume Pierce was unhappy with the Lugosi make-up concept, any more than he was less pleased with the Hull werewolf not looking like the classic Talbot version.

Unfortunately, Pierce never gave really lengthy interviews to people who'd be able to challenge assertations. I mean, come on, on Boris' THIS IS YOUR LIFE show, Pierece says FRANKENSTEIN shot for something like 6 months, which was nonsense; it was about 6-8 weeks.

As for van Slaon or Pierece knowing that any (presumed) make-up designs from the aborted Florey FRANKENSTEIN made their way into RUE MORGUE, no, van Sloan may not have ever have seen the film, and Pierce never commented on it -- but this is such a piece of esoterica, who ever would have asked him? He also never mentioned (as far as I know) that his Wolf Man make-up on Chaney was a total leftover, that all the essentials were already there during the shootingof WEREWOLF OF LONDON until the concept was altered (during shooting, I'd venture to guess-- ANOTHER little tidbit we seem to have shown on CFHB). (Nobody ever challenged him on recyclying, hair for hair, The Wolf Man in BEAUTY AND THE BEAST either... it would probably be like asking Bernard Herrmann about re-using his own scores. "WHADDYA MEAN?!?!?")

As for Karloff-- very late in life (some time in the 60s), someone asked him and he reply (I paraphrase) was, "I was told Bela did this great, hairy thing, nothing at all like our Monster." Pretty vague, but the "hairy" part could, conceivably, be applied to the bushy-haired concept we're toying with here.

It's all pretty ephemeral, but that curly-haired guy on the FRANKENSTEIN pre-production poster always did perplex me. Nothing about the hair smacks of Lugosi's previous screen looks-- but, yeah, it does visually link FRANKENSTEIN to RUE MORGUE. And elsewhere here on CHFB, there's a mid-1931 interview with Junior Laemmle saying that there were 3 horror films in development post-DRACULA, so MORGUE and FRANK were both bubbling in the kettle at the same time.

Theak-- no such character exists in the Poe story. His MORGUE is a Dupin mystery: a young woman and her mother murdered by an unknown assailant, the mom stuffed up the chimney. The "witnesses" have only heard the voice of the killer, identify the voice variously as Russian, French, German, etc., etc. It turns out that the killer was an escaped orangutan (his "grunting" was the "voice" everyone misinterpreted), a pet of a sailor who'd lost track of it when he came ashore.

No mad doctors need apply.

But the interpretation of the role doesn't mean the make-up was similar. Given the story and the character's place in it, you can pretty much guess the elements: confusion, wonder, anger, fury, etc. You can find those elements in Christopher Lee's interpretation, deNiro's, and Charles Ogle's...

Ah, excellent points as always.

Just re-read the "Lugosi Scrapbook" page on the late Joe Meadows' site. Clipping referred to Lugosi wearing 12" boots and being 8' tall, for what it's worth. There's also another clipping referring to multi-color make-up with stripes, stirations, etc.

A brief make-up test of a couple minutes' duration sounds more likely than the oft-offered "two reels." What did they do for the rest of the time, throw pies?

I seem to remember some reference-- van Sloan?-- saying "his head was twice normal size." Well, I dunno... what, he looked like he was bloated on steroids, like Jerry Lewis? The Monster as Pumpkinhead?

Pierce also seemed to take the credit for the coat-shortening business (supposedly because the Egyptians buried their dead hanging up or something, and all the fluid drains to the hands and lower arms... wtf?)-- but since we can see this aspect clearly came from Whale 11 years before, I wonder how much else might have.