A split screen allowed two characters played by Norma Shearer to meet in Lady of the Night (1925). But when they hug, one of them is suddenly played by Joan Crawford, who was making her screen debut as Shearer's uncredited double
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This was the first meeting between Norma Shearer and Joan Crawford, who would go on to become rivals as two of MGM's biggest stars, competing for the same film roles.
Shearer later wrote: “I found myself sitting in a car and in the other corner was a girl with the most beautiful eyes. They were the biggest eyes I had ever seen. But they didn’t trust me. I could see that. They never have.”
The movie pulls off a bit of cinematic sleight of hand, by first giving the audience a good look at the two Shearers, then cutting to a shot of Shearer and Crawford, but offering only a brief glance of Crawford's face
Audiences in 1925 would have been used to seeing an actor appear more than once in a shot, but this was done with mattes, creating a hidden line down the middle of the frame that it was impossible for an actor to cross
In Little Lord Fauntleroy (1921), Mary Pickford found her own solution to this limitation by using a very elaborate matte that made it possible for her to appear to kiss herself on the cheek
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