London After Midnight

[chainsaw midget]

I suppose I could have just put this in the thread about what movies you've watched recently, but I felt this was a well know enough movie to warrant it's own thread. 

Now before I get going and people get their hopes up to much, I did NOT watch the actual movie.  I watched the Turner Classic Movies restoration, which uses the original script and a LOT of movie stills to retell the picture.  It's honestly more of a slideshow than a real movie. 

I have to say, as a story ... it really doesn't make a lot of sense.  It's basically reverse Scooby Doo where the good guy disguises himself as a monster to catch the bad guy.  And for some reason, he waits five years and hires multiple actors to do this. 

It's a famous lost movie, and I feel that if it were found, people would be disappointed by what they see. 

HOWEVER... Lon Chaney's Vampire character (referred to in the subtitles as "the Man in the Beaver Hat") just has such an awesome and iconic look to him.  It's a shame we can't see that in action, even if the plot he's in doesn't really work. 

As I watched the Turner Classic Movie restoration, the thing had no sound.  No music in the background.  Nothing. 

I just played some background music from the Resident Evil games, and that worked quite well for establishing mood, and if recommend that if you are going to watch it, you should probably do something similar. 

[Rev. Powell]

Yeah, I've watched that. Pretty unremarkable. The stills tell the whole story.

[M.10rda]

Same here.
The "remarkable" thing about LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT is that, as recently as the the mid-to-late 80s, I insist this film was not "lost". Okay, my insistence is a bit extravagant, but. My Dad used to order free catalogs for movies on 8mm (yes) and VHS/BETA... back in the day when you could purchase them directly from a wholesaler for some fee. There were hundreds of 8mm prints you could buy, probably some 16mm too. We never ordered any - he just knew I liked reading about old movies and these catalogs had synopsis of all the films and cast info, running times, etc.

LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT used to show up in these catalogs!

I recall no hyperbole in the description to the effect of "This is the last known surviving copy of this film!" or "This is a short recreation using stills or anything." They were selling complete movies. No one seemed to care about LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT specifically - except me, 'cause I thought the synopsis sounded awesome, and probably the promo image of Chaney. But I didn't ever order a copy of it - or of anything else. (I remember one catalog made a HUGE deal out of the silent film SPARROWS... which has survived and I've seen it.)

Anyway... on occasion I've fallen down the internet rabbit hole on LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT. One thing it seems no one has tried to do is search "the archives" of old movie wholesalers....... though I imagine this is because those places all went out of business 35+ years ago around the advent of Blockbuster and maybe literally threw out or destroyed all their stock.  But FWIW, LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT was A Thing that still existed in our lifetimes.......