Ronald Lacey melting skull Raiders of the Lost Ark

913. Ronald Lacey "Major Arnold Toht" prop melting skull from Raiders of the Lost Ark. (Paramount, 1981) This is Toht's skull used in the shocking special effects "Wrath of God" sequence in which the Ark obliterates all the Nazis in the film Raiders of the Lost Ark. Beginning with the skull which is created of plaster, Chris Walas was the principal sculptor of the finished head. The layers of musculature, blood vessels, fat and skin were sculpted to photo-realistic standards by Walas using dental alginate which was melted off the skull with heat guns over a 20 minute period and captured with a time-lapse camera. Following its use, Wesley Seeds wrote on top of the skull in pen, "To Richard from Toht, Belloq & Dietrich we blew our brains out for you and loved every moment of it, Good luck Wesley". Wesley Seeds was the principal model shop artist who worked with Chris Walas on the three heads of those who dared to look into the Ark of the Covenant—the shrinking, the exploding and the melting. The skull is still coated with the red dental alginate remaining from the shoot. The lower jaw is missing as well as a portion of the right side of the cranium. From the collection of Academy Award-Winning Visual Effects wizard Richard Edlund and comes with a LOA signed by Edlund. $20000 - $30000