All my life I’ve been nursing erotic fantasies about the late Helena Carter, who played “Dr. Blake with the torn blouse” in Invaders From Mars (‘53). The Ignite Bluray of this classic paranoid alien invasion film arrived yesterday, and it prompted a Google search about Carter, whose Invaders performance was not only her most famous but her last.
It was only after discovering Carter’s 1948 Life magazine cover photo that I realized why she didn’t catch on in a bigger way. Ten words: Beautiful eyes and mouth but her nose was too big -— i.e., on the bulbous side. If she’d gotten a nose job things might have turned out differently…seriously.
I’m not speaking as a 2022 woke (or more precisely woke-terrified) person but a time traveller from 1953, when emerging actresses were almost entirely judged and promoted according to their looks.
And I’m saying this, mind, as someone who’s gone under the knife myself so don’t tell me.
