Movies: Praise Tod.

If you are in the NYC area and can get yourself to the Film Forum, you will be rewarded with a Tod Browning film series.

Today's double feature is the Browning classic Freaks - the now cult classic that brought Browning's fantastic post-Dracula popularity to a crashing end – and his silent era landmark The Unholy Three. The latter, which was called the "source for all that is best in the horror movie," will be shown with live musical accompaniment.

The series will also include the bizarre horror flicks The Devil Doll and The Unknown. Browning fans should also try to catch his 1928 flick West of Zanzibar. This sleazy revenge drama, a fave of indie director-hero Guy Maddin, was not only labeled "an outpouring of the cesspools of Hollywood" on its release, but it contains the first use of the "chicken-human" shot that would Browning would repurpose for Freaks.

For pro-am horror historians, the series also includes Mark of the Vampire, Browning's remake of his now vanished London After Midnight. The remake was notable in that it parodies the horror conventions that Browning, with his Dracula just four years previous, had helped cement. One of early satires of the horror genre, Bride of Frankenstein beat it to theaters by just three days.

If that wasn't reason enough to get there, the Forum is also hosting a series of prison films. This brilliant series includes double feature of Pre-Code women's prison picks: Ladies They Talk About, featuring Barbara Stanwyck, and Ladies of the Big House, a melodrama written by an actual convict.

Good times.

Movies: Finding old sawtooth.

For fans of classic horror, there's a slight glimmer of hope that the 1927 given-up-for-lost Todd Browning/Lon Chaney flick London After Midnight may have been rediscovered.

From the Allmovie blog:

In terms of cinematic holy grails, it really doesn’t get much holier than Todd Browning’s “lost” 1927 frightener London After Midnight. Produced just before the “talkies” revolutionized the film industry and released approximately three months after The Jazz Singer made the transition to sound official, this silent-but-successful collaboration between Browning and screen legend Lon Chaney was immediately pulled from distribution and stored in a vault following its initial theatrical run. By the 1935, London After Midnight had been taken completely out of circulation by MGM in order to avoid comparisons between it and the recently released remake Mark of the Vampire. Four decades later, on what would have been the fortieth anniversary of London After Midnight, an electrical blaze in Vault #7 of MGM’s Culver City studio destroyed what many believed to be the last remaining nitrate print and negative of the film.

Over half a century later, horror hounds are still mourning the loss.

Flash forward to Thursday, July 24, 2008, and Ain’t It Cool News founder Harry Knowles receives a link leading to a story claiming that a print of London After Midnight (stored under the alternate title of “The Hypnotist”) may still exist. It has all the makings of a great detective story, and whether it turns out to be fact or fiction, it’s a truly exciting read for film enthusiasts.

From Ain't It Cool, written in Knowles' typically telegraphic spastic CAP style:

Today - a fella named CarnyTrouble sent me a link... This Link and asked me to publicize this.

THE HYPNOTIST -

If you work at Time/Warner's Turner Entertainment Company, 5890 W. JEFFERSON BLVD,, LOS ANGELES, CA 90016. The facility was later also known to some as Bonded Film Storage... Get this print into the hands of an Archivist IMMEDIATELY! Every frame needs to be scanned and saved. This is literally the most holy of cinematic Holy Grails.

Finally, part of the original post at The Horror Drunx:

July 11th, 2008: In preparing this article, I revisited
5890 West Jefferson Blvd.
Bad news. No films are housed there any longer and the building has been leased to new tenants. I just have to hope I can track down the print again. Making a few phone calls and doing some research, I've discovered that all motion-picture assets which were housed at Jefferson have now been moved to the Warner Bros. lot or other storage facilities-- except for nitrate films, which have apparently been moved to the UCLA Film Archives. I'll be tracking it down again, hopefully now with the help of some bigger players in the motion-picture industry (their names won't be mentioned here yet) who are more likely to be listened to by those in charge than we are. Just hope we can track it down again, before it is too late.

July 14th , 2008 (Monday): I have a meeting with someone who may be able to help (they requested to remain nameless here to protect their identity). Good news, he agrees. Given the information I have, I know the prints from the Jefferson facility have been moved to one of only about three or four places. That narrows it down. My contact has access to one of those places, the film archives on the Warner Bros. back lot. He will be going there Thursday for some other related business and while there will have some searches run for me in the data base. I told him not to tip our hand quite yet, not to raise any caution flags. Not a problem, he says, it is the kind of thing he does at the archives quite often, so nothing will appear unusual. We consider me going with him, but quickly shelve the idea, because I trust him to do what he does without me being there. I'm still a grip of nerves, but waiting three days is a part of the "Blind Bargain.

July 17th , 2008 (Thursday): We have our answer! Of course, like many things related to LONDON AFTERMIDNIGHT, it comes in the form of a non-answer. While there was apparently nothing in the Warner's database for "THE HYPNOTIST" (though it still may be listed as The Hypnotist AKA London After Midnight) the title HIPNOSIS came up. That is quickly dismissed because it is the title of a newer movie, as well as a television show. The titleLONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT did in fact get a hit in the database though! The assets are listed as VIDEO however, which is odd. Could they have already done a safety transfer of the print? My instinct says no, it is most likely the master elements and rough footage from the 2002 still photograph recreation. I would like to find out for sure though. While this looks like a dead-end, it isn't, as I said THIS is still an answer. We know it most probably is not in the Warner's archives, but remember this was a nitrate print and all nitrate stock assets were moved to one of the U.C.L.A. Film Archives which are NOT listed in this particular database. The trail is not cold by any means! We now know where it isn't and we also know where it most likely is! The only problem now is, I don't have access to those places, but given time I may.

I've made an important decision. This has all always been about doing the better good for me, not about any kind of profit or bragging rights. It has always been the most important that LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT be FOUND, period. Not that *I* be the person to find it. What kind of an investigative researcher and historian would I be if I let ego and pride get in the way of history? After all, I've already not only found it, but had it physically in my hands once already so I KNOW it is out there. We are close enough that I can make my findings public and that I can let people with better access hopefully take it from here. I have, after all, given them a hell of a good road map to find it.

Let's hope that this article can get under the right noses where it can do the most good. Those of you who have watched the news recently may have heard of another silent film, METROPOLIS. Recently a print was found in South America that contained approximately 25 extra minutes that were missing from all the other existing prints. I consider this a major, epic find. The people in Buenos Aires tried for years to get the world to listen to them that they had the extra footage and even then, with it in their possession it was hard to get the right doors to open. Now it is suddenly a huge news story in the last couple weeks. To put things in perspective, METROPOLIS was made and released in 1927, the same year as LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT. They found 25 minutes, but I still think we can find an entire lost movie. I wish I had the alternate happy ending for you, but stay tuned here for any updates on the story that may surface. As of now, LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT is still out there someplace, found for a short time, but now missing again. Not irrevocably "lost," not yet, just "misplaced" for now.

Let's hope the folks at Horror Drunx are on to something.

Books: A two-for-one deal.

Though the famed conjoined twins, Daisy and Violet Hilton, only appear in Todd Browning's Freaks for about five minutes, they have one of the most memorable scenes. Violet (if you were facing the twins, Violet would have been on your left) is being romanced by the circus owner. Unfortunately, the footage that informed viewers that he's the circus owner was cut from the film. Consequently, his character just appears ex nihilo, giving the impression that he's some sort of fly-by-night lothario aiming to get something he can only chase when the circus is in town. As Violet and the owner pitch the woo, Daisy, whose character is married to a stuttering carnie who fights incessantly with her twin sister, ignores the couple and reads a book. Eventually, the owner moves in for a kiss and he and Violet commence to smootchin'. Daisy, without looking at her sister, suddenly looks up from her book and sits up straight. Then she closes her eyes and arches her back slightly. It is an uncanny but unmistakable image of carnal pleasure.

In a movie full of surreal, unusual, and often brutal imagery, that scene has always stuck out for me. Partially this is because the scene is one of the best moments of acting in a film filled with second-rate and non-professional film actors. Another reason it sticks out is that it is a typical auteur moment for Browning. The director liked to insert brief, evocative moments in his films where, for only a few seconds, the film completely focuses on a side character. Think of that strange hanging moment when Dwight Frye, as Renfield, crawls towards the fainted nurse in Dracula. That moment, a throwaway scene that is never even resolved, is one of the most frightening parts of that film. Finally, however, the main reason the scene sticks out in my mind is that the twins were one of the few "freak" performers who genuinely lit up the screen. Many of the freakish performers existed entirely as the embodiment of their freakishness. For example, Prince Randian, the armless and legless "Living Torso," is really a non-character. He exists in the film only to shock you with what he is. Randian is amazing, but the connection is shallow, immediate, and passing. It is this reductive gaze that critics of the film pick up on. There is something to the claim the film traffics in voyeuristic cruelty. However, the warm life the twins bring to the film shows the movie's approach to its title characters is more complicated than critics would suggest. The twins come off as stars. The film attempts to embrace their full and complex humanity. Unlike the Living Torso, we can imagine that they have lives, loves, and existence independent of the short scenes that grace.

Thanks to journalist Dean Jensen, we don't have to imagine their lives any longer. Jensen's Lives and Loves of Daisy and Violet Hilton: A True Story of Conjoined Twins is the first full-length biography of these two unusual stars.

Named after a highly fictionalized memoir the twins produced late in their lives, Jensen's story begins with their birth in Brighton, England. The off-spring of a single woman and a married man, the twins were left in the care of a barkeep and midwife who immediately began to display them to bar patrons. After tours in England and Australia, the twins came to America and made it big on the vaudeville circuit. Mercifully for the twins, they were produced as a genuine "act." The sisters were trained to dance, act, and play instruments. Though it was impossible to completely shake off the uncanny impact Daisy and Violet had on viewers, the fact that they were performing artists of no small talent helped elevate their act above the sideshow and make them respectable names on the vaudeville stage. As to twins rose in popularity, their "adoptive caretaker" sold them to a couple how kept the twins as virtual slaves. Fearing that unscheduled public appearances would diminish the twins' draw, they were confined to circus train cars or the vast estate their owners built out of the twins' earnings. All external communications were closely watched. Daisy and Violet were held as prisoners. Ultimately, their owners made a mistake and allowed the twins access to a lawyer. In a celebrated court case that grabbed national headlines, Daisy and Violet were emancipated.

Unfortunately, in many ways, their best years as a box office draw were behind them. Though they still toured and performed, the death of vaudeville and the increasing public distaste of "freak" acts took a heavy toll on the twins' popularity. They appeared in Freaks only to have that film become a legendary bomb. While Daisy and Violet actually agreed with many of the film's critics, the backlash against the film was an indication that their time as performers was passing. They went from lavish vaudeville settings to county fairs. From county fairs to drive-in movie theaters. What little of their fortune was left was blown on producing the truly horrible Chained for Life, a curious z-grade flick that Daisy and Violet delusionally believed would revive their careers. Finally, having squandered their hard-earned fortune and being unable to land gigs, they took a job in a grocery store. They couldn't even keep that gig: the often ill-tempered Violet insulted a customer and they were canned. A local church offered them rent-free housing, and it is in that house that the sisters died. Daisy went first. They think Violet might have held on for a couple of days, refusing to get help, determined to die still connected to her sister.

Jensen's book is a solid, well-researched work. The style is clean and lively in parts, but it never rises to the level of something you'd read for its own sake. Daisy and Violet are the draw here and it is the sheer tragic and frustrating oddity of their story that makes the book compelling. A good read for those interested in the twins, the vaudeville era, or in that strange jewel in the Universal monster-flick crown: Browning's Freaks.

Jensen's book is published by Ten Speed Press and is scheduled for release in November.