The case of the doctored publicity photo

 

General Photography

“Valkyrie. We’ve already delved into the drama surrounding this film, in which Cruise plays would-be Hitler assassin Claus von Stauffenberg. Somewhere along the line, someone mentioned that there had been bad press in Germany. Well, of course there was. Tom Cruise is a Scientologist, Germans don’t care for Scientology, and the subject of Valkyrie is a German hero. But this was different bad press. The rumor that our source had heard was that there was a kerfuffle because some people believed Cruise’s company, United Artists, had tweaked a photo of von Stauffenberg to heighten a postulated resemblance to Cruise.” (story) Tweaked or not (scroll down on that page to see the images)?

Update (25 June): Here is an “explanation” for what happened, which, as it turns out, explains nothing. But hey, it sounds good!