House of Silent Scream: After midnight.

That the mind behind "When Is Evil Cool?" (the 2009 winner of the just now created "Best Blog Name Award) is both genuinely funny and genuinely interesting would be enough to recommend that fine blog to any and all folks who dig what I do here.

But wait, there's more! Have I mentioned Warrior Wednesdays: a post series dedicated to the single greatest film about tragic death of community organizer Cyrus, the One and Only, and the consequences thereof?

Now how much would expect to pay? Don't answer yet. Because you're a great crowd, wiec? is going to throw in an extra blog. That's right, a whole other blog, free, gratis, for nothing, just cause we like your face. When you dig on wiec?, you also get "Random Picture Day," a blog with twice the brilliance of your average blog, without all those pesky words!

Now how much would you expect to pay? $10.99? $56.23? $1.7 billion?

All this can be yours for the low, low price of reading the following guest post in our third anniversary Silent Scream Series. Boys and girls, I introduce wiec?

When I was a little kid we’d visit my grandma in New Jersey about every other month. The car ride was very long and so my dad would pull over to a deli called The WaWa and let me pick out some comic books from the rack to read on the long ride home. I’d usually grab a Green Lantern or an issue of Rom the Space Knight. They also had a magazine there in New Jersey that I could never find at home at the local five and dimes. The magazine was called Famous Monsters of Movieland. Whenever I saw it I definitely used to snatch it up.

For an 8 year old kid Famous Monsters was a treasure trove of black and white goodness. The pictures were from mostly black and white horror movies from yesteryear. It had articles about said movies but I usually just skimmed those. The best part, were all the photos. I used to cut them out of the magazine very carefully when I got home from Grandma’s and taped them to the wall. I had a huge collage going that went from the floor to the ceiling and practically covered an entire wall of my room. There were Frankensteins of all stripes. Draculas everywhere. Tons of creatures and ghouls great and small from movies I had never heard of. One of my favorites was this picture from a movie called London After Midnight.

It seems the writers and editors of Famous Monsters really liked Lon Chaney. They were especially fond of his portrayal of a vampire in London After Midnight. It’s easy to see why. The scraggly hair popping out from under the top hat really made him stand out. The wide unblinking eyes and the jagged teeth stuck in a perpetual smile made him seem cartoonishly ghoulish. Chaney’s vampire was one of the freakier looking portrayals of a vamp out there. 9 out of every 10 issues of Famous Monsters featured the vampire from London After Midnight in one form or another. And 9 out of 10 times that picture was cut out and taped to my wall.

The story to London After Midnight is a pretty silly one though. The movie is not a straight up vampire flick. At first it seems like it might be a sort of Twilight Zoney sort of Tales from the Crypty kind of affair but it quickly dissolves into a who done it and why with a bunch of over the top, unbelievable detective work that would have no place in either the Jessica Fletcher or the Colombo playbooks of detecting.

In other words the story is a bit hard to follow but I’ll do my best to explain it. It starts off with an old man who is found murdered in his home. A detective (played by Lon Chaney) from Scotland Yards is dispatched to investigate. It is apparent that it was suicide after a note is found. The detective is skeptical but life goes on and the investigation is called off. 5 years later the old mans house is empty and in a state of disrepair seeming to be all but abandoned. All of a sudden a creepy guy in a top hat (Chaney) and a pale woman dressed in a long robe are seen prancing around the old man’s yard.

I was going to spoil the rest of this movie for you (and I still am) but I’m going to avoid a play by play account of the events. Mostly, I’m not going to do this because the events of the movie make no sense. I mean, it is just such a silly story. Lon Chaney plays the detective sent to investigate this mysterious stranger (who is played by Chaney). All the suspects of the old man’s murder 5 years back all seem to live in a house next door to the house were the murder took place and were the stranger now lives (the movie shows that the stranger has bought the dead man’s house’s deed). Then it appears that the old man is still alive and living in his house and that stranger and his silent female partner are vampires. A bunch of talking between the suspects goes down (that all goes nowhere. Remember this is a silent movie after all). The detective hypnotizes all the suspects. The “vampire” skulks around with a lantern. The hypnotized suspect reenacts the murder and is caught red handed by Chaney’s detective. Case closed.

“Huh? “ you might be saying to yourself. None of that makes sense.

I’ll explain: Chaney’s detective figured the dead old man didn’t kill himself 5 years back. He was murdered. How does he know this? He just knew. He then waits 5 years and comes back dressed as the vampire stranger. Buys the dead old man’s house. Hires a guy who looks like the dead old man to live there. Hires a girl to play his vampire wife (just because) and the two of them do all their skulking about to make the suspects next door nervous. Because the suspects are nervous they hire Chaney’s detective character to investigate. He investigates and hypnotizes them all and then waits. Under hypnosis he figures which ever of the suspects originally murdered the old man will try it again with old man decoy he hired to live in the house. He figures right and arrives just in the nick of time. In other words, the stuff of nonsense.

You might be wondering what the point to this movie was. The story is pretty thread bare in the logic department and when it’s all said and done makes zero sense. The critics when it was originally released didn’t much like it and most audiences where left confused. However the movie is considered to be a minor silent movie classic. The reason why is it’s history and place in silent picture lore plus some of the weird events that surrounded it. Also the iconic make up gimmicks Chaney used to portray the vampire stranger made it a stand out and a favorite to silent era fans over the years.

Instead of trying to make sense of the actual story to London After Midnight let’s look at the story behind the story or film rather London after Midnight. Here are 5 things I uncovered…

1) London After Midnight is one of the silent era’s most important “lost” films. A lost film and there are plenty from the silent era, are movies that were lost or destroyed over time. Over the years studios would make movies that would disappear from their vaults due to theft or were sadly in hindsight junked by studios to make room in their vaults for newer films. Other lost films are gone because the nitrate in the actual film they used back in the silent era was very flammable. Fires in studio vaults would happen often and would wipe out tons of archived movies. Also the nitrate film they used back then was very unstable and if not stored at the right temperature the film could deteriorate quickly. Movies would literally rot inside their canisters.

Also London After Midnight was made before TV and video. Most studios didn’t see the point of keeping and archiving movies after their original theatrical run. The storing and archiving of old movies was expensive too. Sadly it is believed London After Midnight was destroyed in a fire at the MGM studios in the mid 1960’s. There are no surviving copies of it to be seen anywhere. Next to Erich von Stroheim’s 10 hr long film Greed, London after Midnight is considered one of the most sought after of the lost films.

2) The make up design for Chaney’s vampire stranger is considered by some to be an example of his best make up work. Lon Chaney was known as “the man of a 1,ooo faces.” He solidified his rep with the stuff he did to himself in Phantom of the Opera and The Hunchback of Notre
Dame. Early works like his portrayal of a legless and abusive gangster in The Penalty and as an armless knife thrower (he used his feet) in The Unknown showed Chaney would put himself through anything to get a good performance out of himself.

The vampire stranger is one his best loved characters. The frightening look of the character was what fans of the movie really liked. Even though the character spends much of the movie skulking around hallways and doing very little else (in other words no murdering) the work Chaney did to himself to get the character out was quite stunning. Chaney made special thin wire circles (like lenseless monocles) that he fit into the inside of his eyelids to get the hypnotic googly eye effect and wore special wire attachments inside his mouth and the sharp teeth dentures that held his mouth in that perpetual fanged up grin. Both were said to be very painful for him. Also the way the vampire stranger walked was quite creepy. He had a sort of stooped over gait that made him look dangerous and sinister. Movie experts speculated that Groucho Marx famous walk was fashioned after Lon Chaney’s vampire stranger.

London After Midnight also briefly showed Lon Chaney’s famous make up kit. The kit was a treasure trove of simple gadgets and makeup that he used to pull off some his beloved characters through the years. It is shown briefly when Chaney’s character explains to the folks in the movie how he dressed up like a vampire. Chaney’s make up kit now resides in The Los Angeles County Museum where it was donated for safe keeping after his passing. Many consider it to be the central artifact in the history of film makeup effects.

3) London After Midnight was written and directed by early horror and thriller director Tod Browning. Tod Browning made several silent pictures with Lon Chaney and later went on to direct early talkies such as Freaks and Dracula with Bela Lugosi. While Chaney and Browning made much better films together in the years before London After Midnight it turns out Midnight was their most successful. It raked in $500,000 at the box office when it was released in 1927. Most reviewers (and me) thought it was not some of their best work. With some major changes to the plot, years later Browning remade Midnight into a talkie called Mark of the Vampire. Mark of the Vampire starred Lionel Barrymore as the detective and Bela Lugosi was cast as the vampire stranger.

4) London After Midnight was used as part of the defense for a man accused of murder in Hyde Park London in 1928. He saw the movie at his local theatre and claimed Chaney’s vampire stranger’s performance was so scary he temporarily lost his sanity and strangled a woman in the Park. His plea of temporary insanity was later rejected and he was found guilty and convicted and jailed for the crime.

5) If there are no existing copies of the movie out there how did I see it? How can you see London After Midnight if you are so inclined? In 2002, Turner Classic Movies commissioned famed film restoration producer Rick Schmidlin to produce a 45 minute long reconstruction of the film using only still photographs and production photos. Working from Browning’s script it was well received by horror fans. Most people who had seen the original theatrical version felt it was an adequate adaptation of the confusing film they saw back in 1927 and film historians praised Schmidlin for his efforts. He won a Rondo Award later that year for his work. It can be seen late at night around Halloween on AMC.

I saw Schmidlin’s piece when I rented The Lon Chaney Collection from Netflix, It’s a box set of some of Chaney’s best loved and lesser known films. On the same disc as London after Midnight is one of his lesser works The Unknown. That’s the one where Chaney plays a man pretending to be an armless knife thrower. He actually has his arms (and a hand with two thumbs. Oops spoiler alert.) who’s wanted in connection to some murders he may or may not have commited and is well worth checking out. Also on the same disc is a documentary of Lon Chaney career in movies and is narrated by Kenneth Branagh. The documentary is very through and is straight up excellent.

Thanks for reading my exhausting account of London After Midnight. And thanks to CRwM for letting me blather on about it. Good Night everyone.

House of Silent Scream: Just a hunch.

While it is always a pleasure to introduce a guest blogger, this one is special for me. There wouldn't be an ANTSS is it wasn't for her. Literally. It was Heather's Mermaid Heather horror blog that convinced me - for better or for worse - that I should try my hand at horror blogging.

So, you see, she's the one to blame!

When my first post went up in September of 2006, her blog was one just three links on the ANTSS sidebar. She's been an inspiration to and supporter of this blog from its earliest days. And for that, I thank her.

Screamers and Screamettes, Boils and Ghouls, here's Heather!

Around a month ago I got this email from CRwM telling me that his fourth year anniversary as a blogger was coming up. He also asked if I could help him out, by reviewing a silent era film as part of his silent film reviews. As you all know, he visits these films every time his blog anniversary roles around. CRwM has told me that my blog happens to be one of those that inspired his own, so how could I refuse helping him out? Even though CRwM has outdone me in every way: a better writer (in my opinion anyway), with more posts, and more followers, and the list goes on. Wait, why am I doing this again? One simple reason really. CRwM is a great guy, and one I am proud to call a friend.

When CRwM asked me to review a silent film, I had no clue which film to watch. This is a genre, if that is the correct term, that I have rarely visited myself. If I'm not mistaken, this could very well be my first review of a silent film actually. It took me a while to figure out which film to watch, which I think worried CRwM just a bit. After some research, and some debate with myself, I narrowed it down to two films. Needing to get my mind off things for a while, I decided to watch The Hunchback Of Notre Dame (1923). Even though it isn't listed as a horror film, I always come across it on lists for silent horror films.

In 15th century Paris , times are ripe for a revolt. King Louie XI is running things with an iron hand, and the peasents are getting tired of being treated like mere sheep. Clopin (Ernest Torrence) is something of a king to the poor people of Paris . His foster daughter, Esmeralda (Patsy Ruth Miller), is a woman that seemingly every man wants. Jehan (Brandon Hurst) is a brother of an archdeacon, who is trying to get Clopin to revolt against King Louie, and Jehan is also very interested in having Esmeralda. Then there is the newly appointed Captain of the guards, Phoebus de Chateaupers (Norman Kerry), who is also attracted to Esmeralda. However, Phoebus represents everything that Clopin hates about the upper class. Even though Esmeralda wants to be with Phoebus, she knows that it could never happen. In the mix with all this is Quasimodo (Lon Chaney Sr.).

Quasimodo is the deformed hunchback of the title. He is half blind, deaf, and has a hump on his back. Because of this, he is treated worse than poor people. The church has taken pity on him though, and allows him to do small duties around the church. Quasimodo's greatest joy though is to ring the grand bell, since he can feel the vibrations from it. He is also attracted to Esmeralda, but knows he doesn't stand a chance. Jehan tricks Quasimodo into kidnapping Esmeralda for him, but it doesn't go as planned. Quasimodo is arrested for the crime, while Jehan slinks off into the shadows. After Quasimodo is punished, Esmeralda is the only person to give him water and be kind to him. When Esmeralda gets into trouble later, Quasimodo takes it upon himself to come to her rescue. With a revolt about ready to boil over, can even Quasimodo save Esmeralda?

One of the things I noticed right away while watching The Hunchback Of Notre Dame is that it gives you the feel of actually being filmed in Paris . It isn't like the film takes us on a tour of Paris , but because of the massive church, it still feels like Paris . In truth, it was all filmed on sets. The cathedral set remained standing until a fire in 1967 destroyed it. It grossed over $3 million dollars at the time, or roughly $23 million today I think. Lon Chaney was a well known actor already, but this film is said to have made him a star in the eyes of Hollywood . When it was filmed, it was one of the biggest movies as far as extras being used. In some of the opening scenes, you can see just how many extras were being used for the film.

One of the problems I have with silent films is that there seems to be a lot of talking going on, but they only give you the readers digest version of what is being said at times. With The Hunchback Of Notre Dame, I sometimes felt I was missing something. For example, they make Phoebus out to be a womanizer at the start of the film. Esmeralda likes him from the start, but the film makes it clear that Phoebus has no real feelings for her. Then at some point in the film, with no real explanation, Phoebus and Esmeralda have promised to be married. I thought I had missed something at some point, but that may not have been the case after all. It wasn't the only time I felt a little confused by the events in the film. As it turns out, two reels were dropped from the film once it was released for home rental. It is said that 10-15 minutes of film is still missing. Maybe this helps explain some of the gaps that I felt were there.

Lon Chaney's makeup for this film was supposed to be his most extreme yet. To me this is one of the things that holds up well in this film. Even better than his makeup though, was how well Chaney sells the character of the hunchback. I can understand how he became a popular actor in silent films. Chaney seems to throw everything he has into his character, and then some. Patsy Ruth Miller and Norman Kerry also do a wonderful job, but it is truly Lon Chaney's film.

Even though this was the first time I have watched this film, there were scenes I remembered from it. Either they were used in other films, or in a documentary somewhere. The Hunchback Of Notre Dame ends up being a longer film than I thought it would be. Most of the older films I have watched run a little over an hour, but this one came in around the same time a film from today usually runs. I enjoyed watching it, even if I did feel like it dragged just a little. But I have a very hard time calling it a classic horror film. It is much more the drama film that it claims to be. Still, I want to thank CRwM for inviting me to review a film for his blog. I truly hope we see many more years of blogging from you.

Son of Silent Scream Series: "You talk as if you had legs!"

As regular readers know, this is the second annual series I've done on silent horror. The first year, I discovered a real stand out that I had somehow woefully neglected in my pursuit of pre-talkie fright flicks: the unbelievably brilliant Häxan, which is not just one of the best horror films of the silent period, but one of the greatest films ever made, period. It may be too soon to declare this just yet, but I think Wallace Worsley's 1920 horror/crime drama, The Penalty, starring the legendary Lon Chaney, might be the great discovery of this second series.

Worsley's creepy, almost Gothic, tale of crime and punishment begins at the bedside of a young boy who has been injured in an automobile accident. Two doctors, the young Dr. Allen and the more experienced Dr. Ferris, tend to him. Allen tells Ferris that, fearing for the boy's life, he took drastic measures and amputated the boy's legs. Ferris examines the patient and, to Allen's horror, declares that the amputation was unnecessary. The boy, still somewhat delirious, begins to wake. Ferris, deciding that this could ruin the young doctor's career before it has even begun, takes the bullet for Allen: Ferris tells the parents of the now legless lad that the double amputation was necessary.

Jump to San Francisco, 1912: The young boy has grown up to be Blizzard, the brutal crime lord of the Barbary Coast's vicious underworld. Murder, prostitution, jewel thefts, white slavery – Blizzard is behind it all. But, lately, something even bigger and more sinister is going down. Secret Service agents assigned to bust the elusive Blizzard have noticed that he's inexplicably pulled several of his working girls off the street and has them working away in a sweatshop creating tons of straw caps. They send in Rose, one of their agents, to infiltrate Blizzard's organization. Once inside, Rose finds out that Blizzard is launching nothing short of an armed invasion of the city. Unfortunately, Rose also begins to fall for the diabolical genius.

Meanwhile, we learn that Blizzard is working a mad revenge plan to punish Ferris and Allen. Ferris's daughter, Barbara, is a wannabe artist with the requisite pretensions to boho slumming and bleeding heart attitudes toward crime lords. When pressured by her fiancée, Allen, to give up the art thing, she begs him off in order to create one last sculpture: Satan after the fall. Blizzard contrives to be Barbara's model and attempts to seduce her. Though the seduction fails, the results are compromising to place Allen and Ferris right where Blizzard wants them – he plans to force Ferris to chop off Allen's legs and transplant them on the crime lord. Once he's fully mobile, Blizzard intends to lead his forces against the City by the Bay. The ultimate fate of San Francisco is decided in the operating theater hidden under Blizzard's HQ.

The Penalty seems riotously overstuffed. Mad science, revolutionary schemes (a reflection of the first, and considerably worse, Red Scare in US history – then called Palmerism after the then-Attorney General, it represents perhaps the low point of civil rights in post-slavery American history and makes the 1950s Red Scare look downright timid by comparison), domestic dramas, class struggles, revenge – there's an absurd amount of crap going on here. Still, the movie moves along at a brisk clip, never dragging or losing it viewers. Worsley proves adept at shifting and combing styles as the crazy-quilt story demands. He goes from an unobtrusive stage-like style for domestic scenes, to shadow shrouded expressionism, to Griffith-worthy epic crowd scenes without jarring the viewer. The Penalty is a brilliant example of way a director without much in the way of personal style can still produce a top-notch film by fitting his work to the demands of the material rather and working to let the other aspects of the work shine.

Most notable "other aspect" is the one, the only Lon Chaney as the titanic, Satanic Blizzard, crippled crime king of the Barbary Coast. Chaney's performance, even though he's bound up to disguise the fact that he's got two legs, is astounding. Too often Chaney's work is presented as if it was a special effect. The make-up that he so often covered his face with now threatens to bury his legacy. Chaney's transformation into a double amputee is astounding – all the more so for the fact that you quickly forget it is a trick and, in a way, it is so successful as to obscure itself. But concentrating on the "trick" aspect of his performance doesn't do it service. Chaney's Blizzard is a scene stealing, epic villain who radiates a physical mastery of everybody around him. His performance is all the more interesting in that the script wants to add a sort of pitiable victimized aspect to the character, but Chaney's performance keeps dragging Blizzard back into something inhumanly evil and monstrous. In The Penalty we get to see what happens when a master actor gets his character better than the screenwriter or director do. The supporting cast also does a fine job. Jim Mason (credited as James Mason, but it isn't THAT James Mason) turns in an entertaining turn as Frisco Pete, one of Blizzard's thugs. Mason would go on to appear in a handful of John Ford films, most notably Stagecoach and Young Mr. Lincoln. Through no fault of her own, Ethel Grey Terry turns in the most frustrating performance of the film as Rose, the Secret Service agent. At the beginning of the film, Rose appears fearless and resourceful. I was actually excited to see such a strong female character in the flick. Ultimately, the character is ultimately reduced to a handful of predictably Victorian stereotypes once her fascination with Blizzard is established and a truly interesting character is squandered.

There are some glaring problems with The Penalty. The flick has a hollow and moralistic ending that feels tacked on. This makes the last ten minutes or so of the film a bit of a drag. There's also several now-offensive appeals to the ever popular "cult of domesticity" that, one imagines, were already shopworn when the film was originally released. As women fought for the vote, one wonders how the line a line about every true woman wanting "love, a good home, and children" played. It is easy to dismiss these attitudes as dated, but the film seems to die a bit when this stuff pops up which suggests to me that even the filmmakers knew they were pandering. That pandering, even more than the crap morality that's being fobbed off, is what rankles. Finally, the music on the Kino Films edition is a mistake: synthesized, repetitious music occasionally punctuated with often jarring sound effects (for example, touch-tone dialing sounds echo throughout the scene in which Blizzard's criminal army seizes turn of the century telephone switchboard).

These minor problems are not enough to scuttle the brilliance of the rest of the film. The Penalty is one of the reasons people like me are still attracted to silent era flicks. I recommend it highly.

As an aside, you can score a cheap laugh when the Secret Service agents first learn that Blizzard is recruiting "disgruntled foreigners." When the head agent says," Men and hats – what is the devil up to?" shout out "The safety dance, sir!" It killed while we were watching the flick.

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.