Although the American Film Institute has taken a populist turn of late with its endless series of “100 Best…” TV specials, one of the great things about that organization has always been its commitment to preserving our cinematic heritage by any means necessary. Along those lines, back in 1980 the group issued its list of “The 10 Most Wanted “Lost’ Films,” which included the 1910 version of Frankenstein produced by no less than Thomas Edison, the 1922 Walt Disney cartoon Little Red Riding Hood and the 1928 Greta Garbo vehicle The Divine Woman (of which about 10 minutes have since been discovered). But it was Lon Chaney, a genuine superstar of the silent era, who managed to place two titles on the list, including a motion picture that has long been considered a Holy Grail of sorts by horror film aficionados: 1927’s London After Midnight, a movie that seemingly ceased to exist after a studio vault fire destroyed the last existing print in the 1960s.No print of London After Midnight has ever turned up, but as any fan of the vintage Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine can attest, finding photos from the movie has never been a problem. To that end, filmmaker Rick Schmidlin, who produced the reconstructed versions of Orson Welles’ Touch of Evil, Erich Von Stroheim’s Greed and Elvis: That’s the Way It Is, used over 200 of those stills, as well as a copy of the complete script, to fashion together a 45-minute “Still Restoration” version.
This photographic flick will premiere on Turner Classic Movies as the centerpiece of their Horror Film Festival, which began at the beginning of the month and will continue through Halloween. London After Midnight will debut at 8pm on Halloween night, to be instantly followed by its 1935 remake, Mark of the Vampire (with Bela Lugosi and Lionel Barrymore). So, the question looms: Was it worth the wait?
From a historical perspective — and to appease film fans eager to see this thing in any form — TCM’s presentation is a godsend. But if we can judge the quality of the actual moving picture itself based on this airing, then the result confirms the impression held by horror film scholars (such as Alan Frank and Denis Gifford) who actually saw the film eons ago — that it’s an average drama most notable for Chaney’s typically superb makeup creation and a twist ending that left audiences of the day feeling cheated.
Certainly, the contributions of writer-director Tod Browning (adapting his own story, “The Hypnotist”) are negligible. Browning, whose fame as the director of Dracula (the Lugosi version) and Freaks can’t disguise the fact that his productions were generally stagy, has concocted a clumsy murder mystery that segues into a terror tale about a vampire and his mysterious assistant, Luna the Bat Girl. Chaney handles double duty, playing both the vampire and the detective in charge of the case.
The treat here is to watch the Man of a Thousand Faces don yet one more frightening visage in a long line that also included turns as the Phantom of the Opera and the Hunchback of Notre Dame. Chaney could seemingly transform himself into anything (a popular expression at the time was, “Don’t step on that spider; it might be Lon Chaney!”), and here he dug into his makeup kit to come up with one of his creepiest creations. And also one of the most painful: Chaney was known to literally suffer for his art with his uncomfortable applications, and for this picture that meant wrapping wire around his eye sockets to force his eyeballs to bulge out.
During the course of his career, Chaney made over 150 pictures, yet London After Midnight would prove to be one of his last. Shortly after it was announced that he would play the title role in Browning’s Dracula, the star died of cancer in 1930, at the age of 47. Yet his horror legacy carried on through his son Creighton: Billed as Lon Chaney Jr., the chip off the old chopping block would go on to emerge as a horror star in his own right, thanks primarily to the success of The Wolf Man. terror on the tube
While TCM’s line-up of horror flicks isn’t as exhaustive as in past years — and while the slowly sinking AMC is clogging up much of its schedule with heavily edited versions of more modern films (you know, horror classics like, uh, Halloween 5 and Predator 2) — there’s still plenty of worthwhile fare to put you in that trick-or-treat mode. Here are some suggestions.Village of the Damned (1960) Oscar winner George Sanders (All About Eve) squares off against monstrous children in this effective British thriller. (Midnight Thursday, October 24, on TCM; the 1964 sequel Children of the Damned will air at 4am that same morning)
Werewolf of London (1935)
An interesting misfire, this was Universal Pictures’ attempt to duplicate the success of Frankenstein, Dracula and The Mummy with the start of another franchise monster. But audiences didn’t (pardon the pun) bite, and it wasn’t until six years later that the studio would get it right with The Wolf Man. (5:15am Saturday, October 26, on AMC; The Wolf Man will air at 6:30pm Sunday, October 27, and 11:30am Thursday, October 31)The Fearless Vampire Killers, Or Pardon Me, But Your Teeth Are In My Neck (1967) Roman Polanski’s enjoyably loopy comedy is perhaps best known for featuring one of Sharon Tate’s few screen appearances before she was slain by the Manson family in 1969. (3:30am Thursday, October 31 on TCM)
Nosferatu (1922)Still the greatest vampire flick ever made, this silent classic features the creepiest bloodsucker ever to grace movie or television screens. For a great double feature, have a rental of 2000’s Shadow of the Vampire (a fictionalized account of the making of Nosferatu) on hand. (Midnight Sunday, October 27, and 11:30pm Thursday, October 31, on TCM)Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy (1955) It’s no classic like Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (showing at 6:30am Monday, October 28), but fans of the wildly popular comedy team won’t be disappointed with what turned out to be one of their better latter-day efforts. (7am Wednesday, October 30, on AMC)
This article appears in Oct 23-28, 2002.
