Courtesy of It Came From Hollywood is this advance sales kicker for Rick Baker’s work in The Incredible Melting Man. With apparent influence from The Quatermass Xperiment, 1955, The Incredible Melting Man did well at the box office but was panned by critics. Rick Baker, the special makeup effects wizard whose creations appear in many notable horror and sci fi movies (Men in Black, Star Wars, It’s Alive, An American Werewolf in London, etc.), had designed the melting effect to be gradual, with four distinct phases of makeup.
It wasn’t until Baker was well into his work for The Incredible Melting Man that he heard from the Star Wars accountant who informed Baker that they wanted him to make the aliens for the cantina sequence. Baker explained that he was now totally involved in The Incredible Melting Man, but they persisted in their desire for Baker’s talent and asked if he couldn’t work something out. Baker would assemble and set up a crew to do the work with Baker supervising. The team Baker formed consisted of Doug Beswick, Jon Berg, Laine Liska, Rob Bottim [sic], and Phil Tippett, nearly all of whom are stop-motion animators…
…Baker’s work on The Incredible Melting Man consisted of four major latex full-head masks. Each one was altered slightly so that there were perhaps ten different versions of the makeup (Making a Monster, Al Taylor and Sue Roy, 1980, Crown Publishers).
