Suspect trivia

This trivia item strikes me as highly suspect:

"Louis Malle shot his lead actress Jeanne Moreau in close-up and natural light and often without make-up. Moreau, an icon of French film, had never been seen like this before, to the extent that lab technicians, reportedly appalled at how unflatteringly she was photographed, refused to process the film. Once they were persuaded to, however, it soon began clear that Malle had captured every nuance of Moreau's performance."

The question that should immediately come to mind is, how would the lab techs have any idea that Moreau had been unflatteringly photographed without processing the film first?