Is that really Helena Bonham Carter playing a chimpanzee in "Planet Of The Apes"? Tim Burton's re-imagining of the 1968 science fiction classic is just the latest example of the transfigurative power of make-up, which since the earliest days of cinema has been one of the most potent tools in the film maker's armoury.

Not for nothing was Lon Chaney known as the "Man of a Thousand Faces". The scene in which his mask is ripped off in "The Phantom of the Opera", revealing a horrifying rictus Chaney achieved by inserting wooden teeth and shoving plugs up his nose. Not all actors have made such a memorable impact, however. When Spencer Tracy altered his features to play his alter ego in "Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde", one wag was heard to mutter: "Which one is he now?"

Innovations in prosthetics have wrought some truly remarkable creations, from the man-to-beast transformations of "An American Werewolf In London" to Jeff Goldblum's ugly descent from man to insect in "The Fly". Gary Oldman was virtually unrecognisable as the disfigured Mason Verger in "Hannibal", although few actors have gone as far as John Hurt went to portray "The Elephant Man".

Compared to the joke-shop monkey masks of the first "Planet of the Apes", the simians in Burton's film are astounding. With the advent of digital technology, however, it remains to be seen whether directors will put their actors through hours of torment in the make-up chair when computers can achieve the same results in half the time.

See our "Planet of the Apes" mini-site.