Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: London After Midnight found?

This is topic London After Midnight found? in forum Film-Yak at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Frank Bruno (Member # 1871) on 07-28-2008, 02:43 AM:

So this sounds like a fish story to me, but aintitcool.com is running a link to this. Their link doesn't work, but I found it anyway.

This guy claims to have handled an acetate print of Lon Chaney Srs London After Midnight in the 80s as part of the Turner collection, and to have been trying to hunt the print down since. Does any of this sound particularly sensible OR bullshit to anyone here?

I'm "lost film" geek enough to think it an interesting read anyway, even if the writer is a bit "me me me."

I wasn't aware of the Rick Schmidlin "reconstruction." Is that worth a watch? I did enjoy his attempt at Greed.

Posted by Bill Gabel (Member # 1105) on 07-28-2008, 06:23 AM:

Your right about the me, me, me part of the article. But the Jefferson storage site did have problems over the years with tagging material. I've been to the Jefferson site during those days and to other film storage areas on the studio lots.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 07-28-2008, 08:49 AM:

Urban legend.

Posted by Tim Reed (Member # 137) on 07-28-2008, 12:14 PM:

I've never heard of this picture until today. There are tons of lost movies, why is this one in particular so important?

Posted by Todd McCracken (Member # 4718) on 07-28-2008, 12:24 PM:

Well it was a very successful Lon Chaney film that did exist until modern times but was lost in a fire. I think the combination of the star power and they fact that some people actually screened this as late as the 50's have led to its prominence in lost film lore.

Posted by Gene Stavis (Member # 110) on 07-28-2008, 12:48 PM:

It is famous because Forrest Ackerman made it so to several generations of people who were in love with horror films. From the reconstruction shown on TCM and from the personal recollections of historian Bill Everson, it was in fact a particularly mediocre film which was more notable for its comic relief than for its horror content. Lon Chaney's Sr.'s reputation has also made it sought-after, but in truth there are other lost Chaney films which sound far more interesting yet are totally unknown.

Posted by Gordon McLeod (Member # 33) on 07-28-2008, 03:20 PM:

Is the version of treasure island with chaney playing blind man Pew exist or is it lost

Posted by Tim Reed (Member # 137) on 07-28-2008, 05:33 PM:

quote:
it was in fact a particularly mediocre film... there are other lost Chaney films which sound far more interesting

This is precisely the impression I got reading the story of the fellow who saw the print on the shelf. He went around flagging down people in the business who could do something with it, but it seemed like he was the only one who cared. That spoke volumes.

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 07-30-2008, 05:45 AM:

quote: Todd McCracken
Well it was a very successful Lon Chaney film that did exist until modern times but was lost in a fire. I think the combination of the star power and they fact that some people actually screened this as late as the 50's have led to its prominence in lost film lore.

Interesting that at the time of the vault fire the film was only 40 years old, and that was now 41 years ago, so the film has now been 'lost' for more than half its life.

Posted by Jack Theakston (Member # 4484) on 07-30-2008, 02:48 PM:

After reading this article, I must stress to those who don't know better that this is a hoax, and a poor one at that. It was also done in very poor taste in the wake of the legitimate METROPOLIS discovery.

quote: Gordon McLeod
Is the version of treasure island with chaney playing blind man Pew exist or is it lost

Still lost.

Posted by Frank Bruno (Member # 1871) on 07-31-2008, 01:37 PM:

Which article? the one I started with. Kind of figured as much. The one Leo posted admits to being a prank on the last page, (and the dvd cover looks REALLY photoshopped.)

Just a sucker for the lost-film mythos, I guess. It is a shame that far better things have supposedly been lost, but I still kind of hope they surface anyway. I mean, even the Day the Clown Cried might still be awful, remarkably or unremarkably so, but I'd still love to see it.

Posted by Todd McCracken (Member # 4718) on 08-14-2008, 02:59 PM:

Well, add this to this list of empty hopes it seems. Bet they got allot of traffic on their board from this though...