A Nicholson in Wolf’s Clothing

The Movie: “Wolf.”

The Setup: After Manhattan book editor Will Randall (Jack Nicholson) is bitten by a wolf, his body and spirit are transformed in alarming, canine ways.

The Designers: Special makeup effects by Rick Baker (“An American Werewolf in London,” “Harry and the Hendersons,” “Coming to America,” “Gorillas in the Mist,” “Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan”), costume design by Ann Roth (“Silkwood,” “Klute,” “The Day of the Locust,” “Hair,” “Places in the Heart,” “Midnight Cowboy”).

The Metamorphosis: Will as wolf man may be less visually astounding than other techno creatures of the day, but he is no less spooky. This “thinking man’s werewolf,” as his creator calls him, evolves almost hair by hair on screen.

Among the changes are an increasingly full hairline achieved with six toupees; facial and hand hairs (a combination of yak, Angora and human) applied one by one; a series of rubber prostheses affixed to the nose and ears; multiple pairs of contact lenses to convert the eyes from a green-yellow to a venomous blackish-yellow, and six sets of increasingly ferocious dental caps.

At its most extreme, the makeup application took four hours.

Quoted: “It would be a real mistake to cover Jack Nicholson with a bunch of rubber. For one, he’s got a great face with a lot of character. . . . He shouldn’t have to change into this thing with a rubber dog nose,” Baker says.

The Wolf’s Clothing: Will is rumpled and bookish, as ordinary as they come in baggy corduroys and nondescript ties and sport jackets. Yet there’s something slightly weird about his unrelenting choice of pale-to-vivid-blue dress shirts. Roth says: “I wanted to see him running through Manhattan at night, but with little points of light and a blue shirt that screamed at the moon.”

Sources: Contact lenses were made by Dr. Richard Silver in Los Angeles. Toupees were fashioned by Peter Owen in Bath, England. Will’s clothes were custom-made in New York.