Paul Blaisdell, Monster Maker: A Biography of the B Movie Makeup and Special Effects Artist

by Randy Palmer

  Blaisdell postulated that a man undergoing rapid mutation would develop a protective hide against the elements. Since radiation permeates flesh so easily, Paul decided to give his creature a scaly, almost reptilian “skin”—what the characters in the film refer to as armor plating. In addition to the tough outer hide, Paul thought that a person who was undergoing a profound physical change all the way down to the molecular level would change on the inside as well. “If someone were to actually survive the kind of effects described in the story, the entire body would have to change, not merely the skin and flesh,” Blaisdell reflected. “Some parts of the body might be deformed, some other parts might be entirely new, specifically developed to deal with their new, radioactive world.” Blaisdell envisioned a bulked-up body with the outer “skin” made of metallic scales which would protect the flesh and inner metabolism from further radiation-induced change.

  To reflect the severity of bone deformation, Paul gave his mutant an elongated, bullet-shaped head and added cavernous ears, which like the head itself, stretched upward and tapered to a point. Because the mutant also developed extrasensory powers, strange projections from the cranium would be used to send and receive telepathic messages.

  Besides the alterations and malformations generated by radiation, Blaisdell figured the body would also suffer some general deformations such as rotted teeth and the collapse of the nose bone. The gums would probably recede; eyes might be blasted from their sockets and replaced by new, larger orbs—possibly even an extra eye that would let the creature see in a kind of ultra 3-D. This supervision would be used to deal with all the new and unknown potential threats that would exist in this poisoned, irradiated world.

  But the metamorphosis had to stop somewhere, and to suggest this idea Blaisdell envisioned a useless second set of arms growing from the shoulders. (In the earliest design sketches the monster sported tentaclelike outgrowths on the shoulders, waist, and kneecaps. The concept was dropped when it was determined there was no way to realistically manipulate the tentacles on camera.) These diminutive appendages would suffer a kind of arrested development because the body’s bombardment by nuclear energy abruptly ceased after the last bomb was detonated. Thus the arms would stop growing before they were fully developed. (It also would have been much more difficult to play a four-limbed Mutant on camera.)

  After the sketches were submitted to Alex Gordon, ARC initiated its long and sometimes circuitous approval process. According to Blaisdell, it probably took two or three weeks of consultations with Gordon, Lou Rusoff, Roger Corman, Jim Nicholson, and Sam Arkoff before the monster design satisfied everyone. When it was finally approved, the actual construction process began.

  It took Paul and Jackie a little over four weeks to build the suit. (By contrast, it would take almost eight weeks to construct the more elaborate costume for The She-Creature.) Most of the monsters coming out of rival studios, such as Universal’s “Gill Man” in the Creature from the Black Lagoon series, were crafted in spacious, well-stocked makeup and effects laboratories with solid monetary backing by the studio. Conditions were much different for Paul and Jackie Blaisdell. Their effects “lab” was their Topanga Canyon home. Supplies were purchased on an as-needed basis, and as often as not they had to make do with materials and methods that the Hollywood “big boys” probably would have scoffed at. When costumes were being made for young, low-budget outfits such as ARC, there were no assistants, no supply requisitions, no invoices to be turned over to a bookkeeping department. These things could make for rough going at times, but it was the kind of working environment that would beget a unique prosperity of its own, with dividends paid in pure imagination.

  The process by which Paul Blaisdell created Marty the Mutant may seem bizarre in comparison to the way things are done today in even the lowest low-budget movie. But when Blaisdell first began making film monsters, there was no right or wrong way of creating the illusions for these pictures. Whatever worked was just fine. Blaisdell had no formal training in the art of molding and casting but relied on his own intuition and artistic sensibilities. The bottom line was all that mattered, and for Blaisdell the bottom line was that his techniques worked.

  Keeping all this in mind, it may not sound so strange that Blaisdell built his first life-size monster suit over an ordinary pair of long johns. Paul occasionally utilized the most mundane materials to finish the task at hand, like the rubber lizards’ tails that ended up masquerading as antennae on his Beast with a Million Eyes. For Day the World Ended, the snugness and flexibility of a pair of long johns meant that the material would assure a good fit and that the finished costume would be articulated in all the right spots. And as a bonus, it would allow for ready ventilation.

  Work began on the costume with Paul and Jackie cutting pieces of block foam rubber into small, half-moon shapes. Once painted and fitted into place, these would become the “armor plates” of the Mutant’s scaly hide. The foam rubber chunks were glued directly onto the long johns using contact bond cement, which sealed the materials together as well as any kind of modern household “super glue.” The plates were arranged in rows to emulate a lizard’s skin and were colored varying shades of brown. The chest and shoulder areas were built up with larger pieces of block foam. Deep ridges were gouged out of the material to give the monster’s hide a rough, pock-marked appearance.

  Blaisdell kept a quantity of different size scissors on hand to cut and trim the block foam to whatever shape or size he needed. Although this was the first time he had worked with such a large quantity of foam rubber, it wouldn’t be the last: this material formed the basis of almost every one of his creations, from Marty the Mutant to the Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow. Eventually, Blaisdell became so adept at working with block foam he was able to cut the material into virtually any shape and thickness he desired with minimal effort. He got so good at creating rounded edges and curves that later creations like the She-Creature took on a surprisingly naturalistic look. (It looked less like a costume and more like a sculpted form.)

  Marty’s claws were actually a customized pair of commercially available monster claws purchased at the same magic supply shop where Blaisdell had discovered the rubber lizards. By covering the gloves with chunks of block foam which had been cut and painted to match the look of Marty’s torso, Blaisdell was able to disguise the origin of the claws. He carved fingernails out of soft white pine, painted them bone-white, and cemented them into place over the painted nails on the gloves. He did the same thing with the lower extremities, using a pair of “monster feet” manufactured by the same company, which were customized in the same way.

  To suggest an interrupted mutation of the creature’s biological system, Blaisdell attached a pair of diminutive arms, also carved from block foam, to each shoulder. These were painted with an airbrush and highlighted with streaks of light and dark shading. Long white fingernails were added to each of the tiny hands.

  The tentacles on the shoulders, waist and knees of the original mutant design were eliminated, and a bony horn was instead added to each kneecap—a design element that would reappear in The She-Creature a year later. The headpiece was almost identical to the original blueprint with its elongated, bullet-shaped skull, pointed ears, and upthrust horns. Blaisdell began the mask-making process by painting a rubber latex skin over a bust of his face which Jackie had sculpted some years before. Once enough layers of latex had been applied to form a thick base, it was carefully peeled away to become what Blaisdell referred to as a blank—the starting point for the actual monster mask. As a precautionary measure, the headpiece was constructed over an army helmet liner, which allowed Blaisdell to secure the mask under his chin during filming so it would not slip out of alignment with the enormous dimensions of the body suit.

  Using individual pieces of block foam rubber cut to shape, Blaisdell slowly built up the facial features of the mutant. The cheekbones and brow were heavily exaggerated, and the sides of the head were given a full, rounded look. Foam rubbe
r was also used to build up the cranium. Once all the foam pieces had been applied, Blaisdell painted a second latex skin over the entire head. Holes were cut out to allow for breathing and for the insertion of plastic eyes and teeth. Serving as the three large eyes were plastic spheres obtained from the same company that supplied materials to Paul during the making of The Beast with a Million Eyes. As he had done when designing Little Hercules, Blaisdell painted the pupils directly onto the plastic. To offset the brown color scheme of the body Blaisdell gave the mutant bright green irises.** Each eyeball was then slotted into the mask just beneath the brow. (Although it wasn’t in Marty the Mutant’s repertoire of tricks, blinking eyes were a fairly early innovation in Blaisdell’s movie monster career. The effect was originated for The She-Creature, but was not used on camera until 1959, when the effect was finally seen in The Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow.)

  Teeth were an even simpler matter. By using several sets of commercially available fangs (the plastic kind sold in many stores at Halloween), Blaisdell was able to piece together a formidable set of choppers. The long canines were removed from each set with an X-Acto knife, and the remainder of the teeth were cemented into place inside the mutant’s mouth. It took three sets of fangs to produce the single row of pointed teeth seen in the finished costume.

  Blaisdell added thin, elflike ears to either side of the head. Like the other facial features, the ears were first modeled in clay and the resultant positive mold served as the basis for separate foam rubber and latex pieces. The latex was painted dark brown and highlighted with streaks of black to provide a sense of depth. To make the telepathic horns which jutted out from the monster’s forehead, Blaisdell used candles which were slowly heated and bent into the desired shape. After the candles cooled and rehardened, they were coated with multiple layers of latex and allowed to dry. When the latex was peeled off, Blaisdell had two hollow rubber tubes which he stuffed with cotton to prevent their collapsing. A thin wire was pushed through the cotton to further fortify their shape, and they were glued into place on the mask and air brushed to match the main color scheme.

  Blaisdell also fashioned a neckpiece for the creature costume. Not seen in the finished film, the neckpiece served as a kind of flap, fitting under the neck opening of the body suit and helping conceal portions of Blaisdell’s anatomy not already hidden by the suit’s prodigious shoulder extensions. Although the film’s monster scenes were kept to a minimum until the very end of the picture, Paul wanted the full-body suit to appear as realistic as possible under the studious eye of Jock Feindel’s camera, which is why he went to such lengths to insure the integrity of the costume.

  Paul was not a big individual. He stood between 5'7" and 5'8" and therefore needed to construct all his monsters in such a way as to make them seem much taller. To achieve this effect with Marty the Mutant, he made the mask much larger than normal, which allowed him to look out of the open mouth, instead of the eyes. This padded the creature’s height by as much as eight inches, bringing the final measurement of the full costume to over six feet. Although the suit could get unbearably hot under the photo floodlamps, the extra-wide dimensions of the head provided Blaisdell with plenty of breathing room and helped conceal his face with shadows. He also wore sunglasses during the filming to make certain the camera would not pick up a pair of human eyes staring out of the creature’s mouth.

  ARC co-chief Sam Arkoff worried that Blaisdell was taking too long getting the costume ready. In his book Flying Through Hollywood by the Seat of My Pants (1992, Birch Lane Press), Arkoff claims that Blaisdell actually fell behind schedule and failed to deliver the suit on time. As Arkoff also tells the story that the monster in The Beast with a Million Eyes was nothing more than “an $8 teakettle,” it’s a bit difficult to take him at his word—especially since Paul Blaisdell has said repeatedly that all his movie props were invariably delivered on time and within the agreed-upon budget. Blaisdell’s pal Bob Burns supports that claim, and since no one else has ever indicated otherwise, it may be that Arkoff’s memory has grown a bit hazy 40 years after the fact.

  Arkoff also claimed that ARC originally hired a seven foot tall actor to play the part of the mutant, but that Blaisdell intentionally designed the costume to fit only his own build. While it is true that Blaisdell built his monster costumes to match his own dimensions, he did this knowing well beforehand that he would be playing the monster. (The single exception was It! the Terror from Beyond Space, which was made for United Artists, not ARC/AIP.) In his book, Arkoff almost makes it sound as if Blaisdell conspired to force ARC to give him the role of the mutant at the expense of the other (unnamed) actor in some kind of devious, underhanded fashion. It’s perhaps significant that no one else has been able to confirm Arkoff’s version of events in this instance. In any event Blaisdell continued to play the on-screen role of the monsters he created for American-International in every future film he made for the company.

  Day the World Ended was filmed on a ten-day schedule, which included seven days of interiors and three days of location shooting. Roger Corman was interested in playing up the psychological suspense elements of the story created by throwing together a diverse collection of characters under trying and unusual circumstances. Imprisoned in a small house by events over which they had no control, these people would be driven to rape, murder, madness, and even suicide. Since the mutant didn’t really figure in the action until late in the picture, Corman had ample opportunity to explore all the relationships he wanted. Unfortunately, Rusoff’s script was heavily burdened by stereotypes, and none of the characters had much room (or time) to develop beyond their immediate purpose in the story.

  Another inhibiting factor was the film’s length. At 78 minutes there was barely enough time to tell the story in the most straightforward fashion possible, let alone trying to tackle lofty characterizations and suspense dramatics. Corman did shoot bits of footage that seemed to be deliberate attempts at poignancy (Ruby’s striptease act, Rick’s monologue about a brother who died after studying for the priesthood, for instance), but they are rather clumsily staged and too obvious. The dialogue also tells us how ironic the characters’ situations are instead of letting viewers formulate that opinion on their own. Although these efforts demonstrate that Corman was willing to add a little spice to his science-fiction salad, he hadn’t sufficiently developed as a director to pull it off just yet. (By the time of his next science-fiction picture, made less than a year later, his talents had improved tremendously.)

  Day the World Ended maintains an appropriately claustrophobic feel, which is heightened by the film’s cramped staging and flat lighting and Corman’s extended use of medium shots and close-ups. Even when Jock Feindel’s camera is roaming outdoors, the film exudes a choking, oppressive atmosphere. Part of this overbearing sense of stagnation and wretchedness is a result of the constrained location shoot, which involved filming under rather inauspicious conditions at the Sportman’s Lodge Restaurant on Ventura Boulevard in the San Fernando Valley. Behind the restaurant was a small, lagoonlike pond kept well-stocked with fish which were served fresh to customers who ordered dinner entrees from the seafood menu. This pond stood in for the uncontaminated lake of Rusoff’s story.

  The problem was that Corman and his crew were only allowed to film there when the restaurant wasn’t serving its clientele. Since Sportsman’s Lodge did not have a lunch menu, Corman was allowed to use the location for most of the day, as long as the crew cleared out well before the dinner hour. A single morning and afternoon of filming had to suffice for shooting not only the girls’ waterfall bath and Rick’s wooing of Louise while she senses the mutant nearby, but most of the climax of the picture as well, including scenes of Paul Blaisdell in his monster outfit. There was little time to plan particulars; it was basically a “point the camera and shoot” situation. This resulted in a lot of medium close-ups and tight framing shots, which actually help underscore the sense of claustrophobia viewers share with the characters in the story as the
ir world is reduced to a meager shadow of its former glory.

  Corman shot another two days of locations at Griffith Park and Bronson Canyon, a favorite location of filmmakers shooting low-budget science-fiction and horror films during the 1950s. It was here that Blaisdell, on camera in full monster regalia, absconded with Lori Nelson and almost broke his ankle when he lost his balance while carrying her. According to the script, Louise would be abducted while wandering in a trancelike state outside the Maddison house. The mutant was to carry her toward the irradiated ridge (perhaps he intends to expose her to the radioactivity so she will mutate into the same kind of creature he has become). Because Paul had built the costume nearly a head taller than he was himself, he would have to lift Lori up almost to his chin just to make it look like the mutant was carrying her at normal chest height. To make sure things would go as smoothly as possible, Paul and Lori discussed the scene beforehand and worked out exactly how to perform the actions required in order to get the scene done in one take. They decided that Lori would take a swing at Paul and lock her arm around the neck of the costume in the process. That would give Blaisdell enough leverage to lift her easily.

  When it was time for the cameras to roll, Blaisdell sauntered up to the actress and waited for her to do her thing, but she never did. Maybe she forgot. While a puzzled Roger Corman looked on, Paul struggled with the cumbersome monster suit, doing his darnedest to lift the 105-lb. actress up to his chin without toppling over backward in the process. He silently congratulated himself when he managed to get her off the ground and realized he was still standing up.