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#1
Good Movies / Re: London After Midnight
Last post by M.10rda - Today at 05:01:55 PMJackpot!
This is definitely proof of the kind of thing I saw in my youth:
https://www.michaelgebert.com/lam/lam3.html
This website claims LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT was only advertised for sale in this 1973 catalog - but I wasn't alive or reading in 1973.
Mail-order catalogs like this were still in business in the mid-to-late 80s and maybe just reprinting similar or identical copy 10-15 years later... 'cause this is pretty close to what I remember.
Note though that the '73 catalogue advertises "dramatic short subjects" - not explicitly "complete feature films". I never worked w/ 8mm celluloid and I don't know offhand how many minutes roughly 1300 feet of 8mm would be when projected at 24 fpm. So, maybe this catalogue wasn't even technically claiming to sell the complete movie - but if it was any amount of LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT, again, that's pretty damn significant!!!
Here's another photo of a catalogue reputedly from 1998!
https://www.michaelgebert.com/lam/lam5.html
Now, here's the frustrating thing about Michael Gebert's website... dude presents the images at the two pages above, then... concludes like RCM that the film was lost in the mid-60s. Okay, I accept that... but that doesn't address what the heck those vendors were selling in the 70s through the 90s! Even if it was a collection of scenes or just a trailer or something... where is that stuff???
This is definitely proof of the kind of thing I saw in my youth:
https://www.michaelgebert.com/lam/lam3.html
This website claims LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT was only advertised for sale in this 1973 catalog - but I wasn't alive or reading in 1973.
Mail-order catalogs like this were still in business in the mid-to-late 80s and maybe just reprinting similar or identical copy 10-15 years later... 'cause this is pretty close to what I remember. Note though that the '73 catalogue advertises "dramatic short subjects" - not explicitly "complete feature films". I never worked w/ 8mm celluloid and I don't know offhand how many minutes roughly 1300 feet of 8mm would be when projected at 24 fpm. So, maybe this catalogue wasn't even technically claiming to sell the complete movie - but if it was any amount of LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT, again, that's pretty damn significant!!!
Here's another photo of a catalogue reputedly from 1998!
https://www.michaelgebert.com/lam/lam5.html
Now, here's the frustrating thing about Michael Gebert's website... dude presents the images at the two pages above, then... concludes like RCM that the film was lost in the mid-60s. Okay, I accept that... but that doesn't address what the heck those vendors were selling in the 70s through the 90s! Even if it was a collection of scenes or just a trailer or something... where is that stuff???
#2
Good Movies / Re: London After Midnight
Last post by M.10rda - Today at 04:43:10 PMI am sitting around idly, not working on vacation (though I could, I suppose) while my family squabbles amongst each other and I stay out of it. Thus I started Googling again and found this very interesting page:
https://filmint.nu/london-after-midnight-gary-d-rhodes/
>>>...I can add various occasions from the 1980s to the present when collectors and historians have personally told me rumors of prints, tucked inside an American refrigerator, or perhaps stored in an old building in Korea. It survived in the form of footage from a coming attraction trailer, or as a fragment, or in an abbreviated 9.5mm format, or even in complete 35mm form, with one person confidently assuring me that Stanley Kubrick kept a copy in his personal vault.
So, this is probably what I think I saw in the 80s: an ad for "a coming attraction trailer, or... a fragment, or... an abbreviated 9.5mm format". I maintain that even an 8mm trailer would be a major find, in the 80s and definitely today, as no moving images from the film seem to have survived into 2026. Yes, the complete film was probably lost in '65 (or '67, as some websites claim) but some trailer reels may have survived for another 20+ years. I wish we had those today!
Additional credence to my aging recollections are provided by the following paragraph:
>>> In the 1970s, Hollywood agent Don Marlowe ran advertisements offering the lost print of Bela Lugosi's test footage for Frankenstein (1931) for sale. In the 21st century, more than one story has been told about the rediscovery of F.W. Murnau's 4 Devils (Fox, 1928). Neither film is known to exist. And yet many of us retain hope that they might, in part because we are optimists, and in part because major rediscoveries continue to be made around the world.
There's also this remotely feasible account (reflecting my print sightings) from someone named "Sid Terror"
: >>>Terror claimed that in 1988, he worked for a cinema delivery service in Los Angeles. While at a "massive film storage facility" owned by Turner (who had acquired MGM's catalog), he asked a worker about London after Midnight, referencing its original title, The Hypnotist. The worker gave him the "section, row, and shelf number" of its location. While the nitrate print was incomplete, it was indeed London after Midnight, Terror insisted. Once he examined the reels, Terror was "positive." He "may have even wept a little." I sure would.
https://filmint.nu/london-after-midnight-gary-d-rhodes/
>>>...I can add various occasions from the 1980s to the present when collectors and historians have personally told me rumors of prints, tucked inside an American refrigerator, or perhaps stored in an old building in Korea. It survived in the form of footage from a coming attraction trailer, or as a fragment, or in an abbreviated 9.5mm format, or even in complete 35mm form, with one person confidently assuring me that Stanley Kubrick kept a copy in his personal vault.
So, this is probably what I think I saw in the 80s: an ad for "a coming attraction trailer, or... a fragment, or... an abbreviated 9.5mm format". I maintain that even an 8mm trailer would be a major find, in the 80s and definitely today, as no moving images from the film seem to have survived into 2026. Yes, the complete film was probably lost in '65 (or '67, as some websites claim) but some trailer reels may have survived for another 20+ years. I wish we had those today!
Additional credence to my aging recollections are provided by the following paragraph:
>>> In the 1970s, Hollywood agent Don Marlowe ran advertisements offering the lost print of Bela Lugosi's test footage for Frankenstein (1931) for sale. In the 21st century, more than one story has been told about the rediscovery of F.W. Murnau's 4 Devils (Fox, 1928). Neither film is known to exist. And yet many of us retain hope that they might, in part because we are optimists, and in part because major rediscoveries continue to be made around the world.
There's also this remotely feasible account (reflecting my print sightings) from someone named "Sid Terror"
: >>>Terror claimed that in 1988, he worked for a cinema delivery service in Los Angeles. While at a "massive film storage facility" owned by Turner (who had acquired MGM's catalog), he asked a worker about London after Midnight, referencing its original title, The Hypnotist. The worker gave him the "section, row, and shelf number" of its location. While the nitrate print was incomplete, it was indeed London after Midnight, Terror insisted. Once he examined the reels, Terror was "positive." He "may have even wept a little." I sure would. #3
Off Topic Discussion / Re: Pizza browning
Last post by lester1/2jr - Today at 03:50:41 PMSome of the Italians here call marinara sauce "gravy".
#4
Television / Re: TV characters you hated?
Last post by Alex - Today at 03:29:37 PMAdric in Dr Who, although his death did redeem him somewhat.
#5
Off Topic Discussion / Re: Alex's even longer post th...
Last post by Alex - Today at 03:27:00 PMThe stuff I collect is a rather awkward scale, 1:56 which is a terrible scale for gaming and I truely do not understand why it has become the most popular size. I could have understood it more if it'd been at the same scale as the most popular model railways for getting terrain and buildings.
#6
Good Movies / Re: Recent Viewings, Part 2
Last post by Dr. Whom - Today at 02:38:36 PMThe Hunt for Red October (1990)
Having recently made a podcast about the real life mutiny that was one of the inspirations of the movie, I'd thought I'd check it out.
The Hunt for Red October belongs to a now extinct genre that some call 'competence porn'. A group of men (this kind of movie is almost exclusively populated by men) deals with an unexpected emergency and/or resourceful enemy in a skillful and efficiënt way. There are no unsolved traumas, love stories, emotional backstories, subplots or even much comic relief. Just a bunch of guys calmly dealing with the matter in hand, with nobody being extra stupid to make the movie happen. This is a great example if you like this sort of thing (and I do).
This was done in the pre-CGI days, so you get a lot of actual hardware and practical effects (and some improbable but fun submarine combat). Did people really smoke that much in Soviet submarines?
In case you're interested in the real life Soviet mutiny (which was a lot more chaotic), some shameless self promotion: https://order-of-the-jackalope.com/mutiny-on-the-storozhevoy/
Having recently made a podcast about the real life mutiny that was one of the inspirations of the movie, I'd thought I'd check it out.
The Hunt for Red October belongs to a now extinct genre that some call 'competence porn'. A group of men (this kind of movie is almost exclusively populated by men) deals with an unexpected emergency and/or resourceful enemy in a skillful and efficiënt way. There are no unsolved traumas, love stories, emotional backstories, subplots or even much comic relief. Just a bunch of guys calmly dealing with the matter in hand, with nobody being extra stupid to make the movie happen. This is a great example if you like this sort of thing (and I do).
This was done in the pre-CGI days, so you get a lot of actual hardware and practical effects (and some improbable but fun submarine combat). Did people really smoke that much in Soviet submarines?
In case you're interested in the real life Soviet mutiny (which was a lot more chaotic), some shameless self promotion: https://order-of-the-jackalope.com/mutiny-on-the-storozhevoy/
#7
Off Topic Discussion / Re: Pizza browning
Last post by Rev. Powell - Today at 02:31:38 PMQuote from: zombie no.one on Today at 01:31:04 PMQuote from: HappyGilmore on Today at 12:55:06 PMQuote from: zombie no.one on Today at 12:47:51 PMwhat do you guys mean by 'pie' here?Pizza.
in england this is a pie
We have that kind of pie here too. I've never eaten it, though.
okay so if someone said "let's go for a pie" you'd assume they meant let's go for a pizza?
If I was in the Northeast and/or among people of Italian descent I would. Anywhere else, I'd think they were very strange individuals.
#8
Off Topic Discussion / Re: Alex's even longer post th...
Last post by Dr. Whom - Today at 02:13:23 PMEsci did a M13/40 in 1/72 way back in the day
#9
Off Topic Discussion / Re: Pizza browning
Last post by zombie no.one - Today at 01:31:04 PMQuote from: HappyGilmore on Today at 12:55:06 PMQuote from: zombie no.one on Today at 12:47:51 PMwhat do you guys mean by 'pie' here?Pizza.
in england this is a pie
We have that kind of pie here too. I've never eaten it, though.
okay so if someone said "let's go for a pie" you'd assume they meant let's go for a pizza?
#10
Television / Re: TV characters you hated?
Last post by HappyGilmore - Today at 01:21:48 PMQuote from: Trevor on Today at 01:08:45 PMI remember that one, actually. Lot of people seem split on her character. The girl on now, most people seem to hate.Quote from: HappyGilmore on Today at 12:37:00 PMQuote from: Trevor on March 09, 2026, 10:10:37 AMSerena Southerlyn, LAW AND ORDER.What?
Never liked her at all,the first Mary Sue character in L&O. In one episode called Shangri La she solves the case before the police by asking for yearbooks.
Good actress but not a good character.
Quote from: Trevor on Today at 01:09:35 PMThink it's a combination of the actor just not being any good and the writing. It's a kids show, so I don't expect great acting. But it's the only time I've wanted one of the monsters to just toss him off a cliff.Quote from: HappyGilmore on Today at 12:38:05 PMDax, Power Rangers Operation Overdrive. I've never wanted to punch somebody more. And he's one of the good guys.
😳😀😄😄😆