By Matthew Jaster – Published March 1, 2024
Artists Bruce Rosenbaum and Ben Cowden earned film credits recently for prop design on the PBS documentary The Lie Detector: A Truly Unbelievable Story. This ambitious historical account of real-life inventors, marketers, law enforcement professionals, and snake oil salesmen traces the interconnected lives of John Larson, William Marston and Leonarde Keeler in their independent efforts to detect lies and expose liars.
Rosenbaum said documentary filmmakers are always challenged by visual collateral and material that supports their projects. This is especially true when dealing with historical topics where film and photographic evidence may be hard to find or nonexistent.
For the invention of the polygraph, the producers asked Rosenbaum and Cowden to combine their skills to recreate the original lie detector machine.
“We only had photos of the original Larson Lie Detecting machine—no surviving machine exists—so there was nothing physical to work from when we started to assemble our components for modification and fabrication. Our goal was to use as many authentic period objects as possible to make it feel like the original machine,” Rosenbaum said.
Components including a historic gauge, battery, leather blood pressure cuff and 1920s medical apparatus (pictured) were used to mimic the original lie detector equipment that would record vital signs from the suspect as they answered the interrogator’s questions.
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