LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT (1927) - how to enjoy a lost film

LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT

(USA, 1927)

What to do until this lost film is found...

December 17th, 1927, was the American premiere of an unusual Christmas movie. Starring Lon Chaney and directed by regular collaborator Tod Browning, this proved to be their biggest hit at the box office.

But after the initial cinema release, this silent movie was rarely (if ever?) revived and by the time Chaney's work became better appreciated and started being restored, all existing prints of London after Midnight had been lost. The last known copy was destroyed in a studio vault fire. Not even a fragment or a trailer has been found. There are regular rumours and hoaxes announcing that it's been found (one just last week) that keep raising our collective hopes.

London After Midnight is now one of the most sought after lost films, demand fuelled by the tremendous publicity photos of Chaney's fearsome character, 'The Man in the Beaver Hat', one of the earliest depictions of a vampire in American cinema. With these photos we can still appreciate his effective, unique, painful make-up, but what we've lost is any movement from this superb, physical performer. A bent-legged hunchbacked figure, creeping towards the camera down a long corridor, descending triumphantly down a cobwebbed staircase, his grinning face in close-up as he hypnotises his victims...

But we can still experience London After Midnight in other ways, and better understand what's been lost. While The Man in the Beaver Hat is now a horror movie icon, this film is from the silent Hollywood genre of mystery movies, when haunted houses and supernatural subjects always had Scooby-Doo explanations...

David Skal and Elias Savada, authors of Dark Carnival: The Secret World of Tod Browning, conclude that Browning's story was inspired Dracula, a huge stage hit at the time. The mansion next to a decaying ruin is the central plot of Dracula boiled down to two locations - the vampire's lair and a nearby house full of prey. London includes an empty coffin, bats, howling dogs, neck bites, a vampire who transforms into mist, targeting a young woman while her suitor and a vampire expert are powerless to protect her. There's the suggestion that Browning wrote this when he couldn't get the rights to film Dracula (but he got that chance four years later).

The scriptbook and photo-reconstruction

Browning's original story 'The Hypnotist' was rewritten as a script by Waldemar Young (The Unholy Three, The Unknown, Island of Lost Souls). If you find it easy to read scripts, the second draft was published in 1985 in this book by Philip J Riley. Dated July 1927, the script describes only what was envisioned. Several key scenes were later omitted, other scenes shot but left out.

The second half of this book is a photo reconstruction of the finished film, interspersed with the original title cards. The author had the good fortune to find the original 'cutting continuity', a shot-by-shot description. A document I'd still like to see in full, it's a guide to the framing (wide shot or close-up) and exact timing of every shot in the released print.

The book includes a reminiscence from Forrest Ackerman (who saw London After Midnight when it first opened), original publicity material, shots of the sets, and even Lon's special 'location' make-up box just used for this film.

Even back in 1985, there was a longing to to reclaim this film, Riley's astonishing research providing this superbly detailed book. My first chance to experience London After Midnight. And also quite a deflation of my expectations. Not the film you'd expect from the photos of Chaney's vampire. I was hoping for another Dracula.

Once an expensive hardback edition, this wonderful book is still available in paperback reprints and even available for Kindle.

The novelisation

As a script, the story is quite confusing, though the photo reconstruction demonstrates that the finished version simplified the set-up, adding as many red herrings as possible. But the novel proved immensely helpful in understanding the plot, defining the characters and their motivations. It's not really a novel, but an adaption of the original script and was first published in the UK and US in 1928.

While recent novelisations have a reputation for being swiftly written and even wildly inaccurate, Marie Coolidge-Rask produced an atmospheric, well-written tale with less comedy, more romance and drama. However, she's so thorough, that the mystery is far too easy to solve from the start, allowing room for only one real suspect! The elaborate scheme is detailed enough to make all the subsequent versions easier to follow. The first several chapters set up the story before the events of the film kick in.

The 1928 novelisation includes photos from the film

While I bought this tattered original 1928 copy off eBay several years ago, this early example of a movie tie-in has recently been reprinted, with its original photo inserts, in this paperback edition and also this brand new limited edition.

My copy of the novelisation is bare, though I've just found that this site sells replica dust covers!

The TCM recreation

In 2003, Turner Classic Movies attempted their own resurrection of London After Midnight for a special Halloween programme, later released on this Lon Chaney DVD set.

An unprecedented attempt to rebuild an entire movie from its publicity photographs was initially disappointing. Partly because of the amount of talky melodrama. There are many creepy scenes in the film, but these pass by too quickly. I'm sure many films from this era would also have an uninspiring effect, given the same presentation.

But for me, there's still room for improvement. The photos have been filmed overusing movements that wouldn't have been in the film. The rostrum camera swoops across the photos in ways the camera wouldn't have. It would have been static shots - wide, medium and close - with most camera moves only tracking as a wide shot. More importantly, the editing style often fails to identify which character is speaking the lines shown in the intertitles, making it harder to follow.

The advantage this has over Riley's photo-reconstruction in print, is that the photos are better reproduced and often shown in closer detail. Reading the novel, studying the script and watching the reconstruction all helped me follow the story better, with a fuller idea of the horrific Chaney scenes that we've lost. But I'm still no closer to knowing how he might have moved, or the effect on screen.

This 2-disc set also includes a superb feature-length documentary about Chaney's life, including surviving clips from others of his lost films.

The remake - MARK OF THE VAMPIRE (1935)

Further help is at hand. Eight years later, London After Midnight was remade, with sound, by the same director. But by the time Tod Browning shot Mark of the Vampire, he'd made Dracula with Bela Lugosi, and Chaney had tragically died. Only logical that Lugosi should step in to play the vampire in this remake. But without the beaver fur hat or use of any distorting make-up.

A different approach in many ways, the remake provides further clues as to how London looked. Remakes with sound often copied the most effective scenes from the silent originals, even recycling hard-to-film footage (sadly not the case here). While the story has been tweaked further, the setting isn't even London this time, Browning appears to be jibing the audience by repeating elements from his Dracula, the early scene in the superstitious middle-European village, the variety of weird animals scurrying around the ruined mansion, even Lugosi walking through a cobweb. There are just as many references to Dracula as London After Midnight.

Lon Chaney's original character of the investigator is now split between two major actors, Lionel Atwill and Lionel Barrymore. Atwill (Son of Frankenstein, Mystery of the Wax Museum, Doctor X, Murders in the Zoo) provides a determined and believable police inspector, already a great horror actor for helping the surreal seem real. But the top-billed Lionel Barrymore treats this more like pantomime, overplaying every line, patronisingly preaching vampire lore, at the same time softening it with a self-amused smile as if tipping off audience that it's just hokum. He dominates the film and sets a light tone - perhaps the studio wanted less of a horror film and were pulling back from the harshness of the 'suicide'. The bleeding hole in Lugosi's temple constantly reminds us that the mystery centres on Lord Balfour shooting himself in the head.

Admittedly Barrymore was one of the few actors who could attempt to replace Lon Chaney. But I liked him far more in The Devil Doll (1936), again for director Browning, in a dual role that echoes Lon Chaney's two versions of The Unholy Three.

Mark of the Vampire is a good introduction to the characters, story and structure of London After Midnight, right down to the mix of scares and comedy.

It also gives us an idea of the special effects that might have been used - the way the vampire emerges from the mist, and the flight of the 'bat girl'. Note that despite being a single shot, the trailer for Mark of the Vampire uses a completely different take to the more spectacular one in the film. Hopefully absent from London After Midnight is the large, slow-moving model bat that hovers more than it flies. It might even have been intentionally playing for laughs, Lugosi patiently waiting for it to pass by.

A possible echo of Chaney's crouched walk is glimpsed when Lugosi also goes into a low stalk directly towards the camera down a similar corridor. Though it cuts off remarkably early for something that could have been quite horrifying. Lugosi's face is even distorted into an animal snarl.

Mark of the Vampire is available in a great MGM boxset of early horror films, on a double-bill DVD with the pre-code delight, The Mask of Fu Manchu.

In conclusion, I'd suggest that anyone new to London After Midnight starts by watching Mark of the Vampire, to introduce themselves to the story, the characters and the plot twists as effectively as possible. Then try one of the photo-reconstructions, either the TCM recreation or the Riley scriptbook, to compare the differences from the remake. Then read the novel to expand on the original story and characters, and catch up on the scenes that were even cut from the original film, including an extra murder!

To find out more about the amazing life and work of Lon Chaney, Michael F. Blake has published several books based on his superb researches.

A hundred years of THE LOST WORLD (1925) - and the three best DVDs

THE LOST WORLD

(1925, USA)

Dinosaurs attack! The seminal story and 1925 movie

This month marks the centenary of Arthur Conan Doyle's story 'The Lost World' completing its first ever run as a serialised story in The Strand magazine. It was also published as a complete novel that same year. 1912 also marked the birth of Edgar Rice Burrough's characters Tarzan and John Carter of Mars. What an extraordinary year!

While Conan Doyle is far more famous for writing the many Sherlock Holmes stories, also published in The Strand, he wrote four further stories for The Lost World's Professor Challenger. But none of them proved as riveting as his trip into the Amazon rain forest in search of a lost explorer and living prehistoric animals...

While people and dinosaurs had been thrown together in short films, mostly for comedy effect, the 1925 adaption of The Lost World was feature-length and took Doyle's suggestion seriously. That dinosaurs could survive to meet men in modern times, on a remote Amazonian plateau cut off from its surroundings, with a similar climate to the era when dinosaurs roamed the Earth.

The story starts when Professor Challenger returns from a disastrous expedition without any evidence to present to the scientific community. No one believes he has seen living dinosaurs and they therefore refuse to finance another expedition. It's only the possibility there's still a survivor stranded on the plateau that encourages a newspaper editor to put up the money. Challenger is joined by a sceptical professor acting as an expert witness, the daughter of the missing man, a young reporter representing the newspaper and an adventurer in love with the daughter. Two bickering scientists and a love triangle!

Soon we see the party arrive at the foot of the huge escarpment, and witness prehistoric birds flying high over the summit. The only access to the summit is to climb up a pinnacle of rock next to it, then fell a tree to form a primitive bridge. No sooner have the expedition crossed onto the plateau, than their only means of escape is cut off. Trapped in The Lost World, they soon discover that there are more than just pterodactyls living there...

The plot structure roughly resembles the later King Kong (1933) with its series of deadly foes, climaxing with a gigantic animal being brought back to meet civilisation... In the book it's a pterodactyl, but the movie upgrades that to a far more spectacular brontosaurus. The ensuing chaos also makes this silent movie, via King Kong, the early forerunner of The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, Godzilla and every other giant monster on the loose...

King Kong also recycles scenes such as the log bridge, and the 'reeling in' of a rope ladder, as well as the 'monster stand-off' fight scenes. Crucially, the dinosaurs of The Lost World were also brought to life by Willis O'Brien's elaborate stop motion animation, without which King Kong wouldn't have been possible. Even during the making of The Lost World, the producers filmed enough subplots to make an entirely live-action movie, if the dinosaur special effects didn't work out.

More recently the story, and indeed the title, echoed throughout the Jurassic Park movie series. Pixar's Up (2009) also has this wonderful, visual quote from The Lost World and its spirit of adventure.

The possibilities of this story now seem far-fetched. But in 1912 and 1925 the Amazonian rain forests were largely unexplored. Now viewed as a fantasy, the fun is in seeing what creatures our heroes encounter and if the special effects stand up. Like King Kong, the matte paintings and composite work (that combines the images of people and modelwork) remain impressive. But the stop-motion animation is quite varied in quality. Willis O'Brien couldn't possibly do ALL the animation, and other less-experienced animators had to help with the huge number of ambitious trick shots. Another time-saving (cost-saving) method appears to be the use of two-frame animation, resulting in jerkier movement. The allosaurs move far less smoothly than the brontosaurus.

The long-necked brontosaurus model is all the more impressive because of its ability to 'breathe'. I particularly love the scenes of it moving around in mud. How do you animate mud? Incredible. Note also the nasty, tiny, gory details. Like the pteranodon picking apart a pig that's still alive...

With the creatures also interacting with water and fire, O'Brien is pushing the possibilities of his animation techniques to their limits, as well as some jaw-dropping 'crowd' scenes. This was all great practise for the even more elaborate set-pieces in King Kong.

Oh yes, there are humans too. After Professor Challenger, Wallace Beery remained a familiar face in twenty years of talkies. Here he's less recognisable under a beard. A tall brawny figure, he's certainly more fearsome than the diminutive Claude Rains (of the 1960 remake).

Lewis Stone plays the amorous adventurer Sir John Roxton. He has a similarly strident role in a pith helmet, opposite Boris Karloff in The Mask of Fu Manchu (1932).

Romantic interest Bessie Love, here acting her heart out, eventually moved from America to London, but never stopped acting. You can also see her in Children of the Damned (1964), Vampyres (1975) and Tony Scott's The Hunger (1983)!



Which to watch?

Because of expired copyright, this is now a 'public domain' movie, and almost anyone with a print or a mastertape of The Lost World can release their own DVD. So what are the best versions out there?

The Lost World (1925) has survived the decades despite much abuse. It was cut down in 1929 for re-releases, the subplots cut out to maximise the action. It was also completely filleted for just the dinosaur footage for educational use. I first saw a very short version (ten or fifteen minutes) at London's Natural History Museum around 1970. For a moment, it looked like an old newsreel of an actual expedition!

For decades, the only existing prints were of the 1929 one-hour cutdown version, which I first saw on a VHS release. I then upgraded to the laserdisc version from Lumivision which was the best available quality print restored by the George Eastman House. I upgraded again with one of the first DVDs I ever bought, also of the Lumivision version. Although 63 minutes long, it shows what was originally left of the film, with what looks like original colour tinting and film faults. This version also includes several even earlier experimental dinosaur short films animated by Willis O'Brien.

Then, in the early 1990's a major haul of extra footage was discovered, including an almost complete print from Czechoslovakia. This was all compiled and restored by David Shepard and Serge Bromberg and released on DVD by Image Entertainment. This adds in as much new footage as possible, and importantly corrects the frame rate, (it would have been filmed around 18 to 20 frames per second). This slows the action down to look normal and realistic, the resulting running time is 92 mins. There's also 13 minutes of dinosaur animation footage, thought to be unused out-takes.

With a debate raging over how much of the footage should have been reinserted (there's no way for certain knowing how the first version was actually assembled), George Eastman House also made a rival restored version. This can be found on the 20th Century Fox release of the 1960 colour widescreen Irwin Allen remake of The Lost World (cover art above) included as a bonus feature! It's actually on a separate DVD.

But here the frame rate runs fast, as if the print was projected at 24 frames per second, resulting in people running around too fast, and making the dinosaurs look more like models. Roughly the same assembly of scenes, but it's sped up to a running time of 76 mins. Some of the film elements used are in better shape and more restoration has been done on them. But the colour tinting is very heavy and some scenes play too dark, obscuring the detail. This version also elects to keep the language of the blacked-up manservant in the original, insulting 'who dat dere' spellings. This DVD also includes the 13 minutes of out-takes.

Image Entertainment DVD (Shepard restoration) - note the position of the background: the camera is stationary 

The Fox DVD (Eastman House restoration) exactly the same moment

These two restorations present some scenes in slightly different orders, not that it hurts the story. But what I didn't realise, when viewing them side by side, was that sometimes two different angles had been shot, but only those involving actors. Why they'd use two cameras on the actors, but apparently not on the special effects, is confusing. Alternate takes have also been used by the two versions in some scenes, noticeably those with wildlife.

I'd definitely recommend the Image Entertainment disc, though slightly rougher looking in places, for the smoother running speed and less heavy-handed tinting.

The full story on the Bromberg/Shepard restoration is in Video Watchdog #75 - it includes a complete rundown of the recently reinstated scenes and what's still thought to be missing. Plus an extensive interview with David Shepard.

My favourite version of the book is 'The Annotated Lost World', heavily illustrated and full of insight into the origins of Conan Doyle's story.

THE CABINET OF DR CALIGARI (1920) - fundamental horror

THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI

(1920, Germany, Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari)

A man in black with murder in his eyes creeps into a beautiful woman's bedroom at night. A mad doctor uses his expertise for his own evil ends. A serial killer has a town in panic.

These are all regular elements of horror films, but in 1920 feature-length horror films were rare (I can only think of The Student of Prague, 1913, before it). The Cabinet of Dr Caligari heralded the start of a wave of horror films made in Germany for the next few years, including The Golem, Nosferatu and The Hands of Orlac. While they continued on from themes and characters in horror literature and the production designs of stage plays, these were among the very first to present sustained supernatural terror on film.

The influence of these silent movies inspired and influenced much of the far more famous 'golden age of horror' of early 1930s Hollywood, and predate most of the American silent horrors. Many of the key creative talents, actors, directors and production designers, soon moved to America where their ideas and style fed into that pre-code horror boom. Much like today, if something was a success abroad, Hollywood were happy to invite in the talent responsible.

Basically, these are very rewarding films for fans of horror, seeing the genre being born and taking shape. Despite their age, they're also unique nightmares, wildly creative and beautifully crafted. The make-up for the creatures in Nosferatu and The Golem is hugely effective. The set designs for The Cabinet of Dr Caligari are wildly surreal, and bravely presented for almost the whole length of the story. The question is, are these warped surroundings also part of the story...

A murder in a small village coincides with the arrival of a new attraction at the local carnival  - Dr Caligari and his mysterious assistant, who sleeps all day and night in a coffin-like cabinet. The murdered man's friend is determined to track down the killer, spurring the police (who spend most of their time at their desks) to make an arrest before it happens again...

While many of the first horror films were based on classic stories, this has an original script, inspired by a real murder and fuelled by public desperation at the end of the Great War. It has a social message, critical of mental health institutions. The surreal presentation may have disguised their sentiments, but the metaphors were all too clear. A late rewrite (which I thought I had been enforced on them) changed the story's message by means of an added prologue and epilogue.

This isn't just a story of murder and madness, everything about it looks psychotic. The whole film takes place on angular expressionistic sets. Like above, instead of a rooftop, the set merely suggests a rooftop - the only recognisable shapes here are two rough windows and a surreal chimney stack.

Besides the wild scenery, the acting is also exaggerated. To watch this without seeing other silent films of the time will give the impression that they're acting is wild, but they're trying to convey 'expressionism' in their performances. (For example, compare it to Paul Wegener's naturalistic acting in The Student of Prague, 1913). The benchmark of this style is Dr Caligari himself. Werner Krauss is brilliant - menacing, unhinged, random. In comparison, I could only tink of the head of the family in the dinner scene in David Lynch's Eraserhead - with his unpredictable, extreme emotions.

Conrad Veidt is the iconic 'monster' - tall, stealthy, with the ability to look demonic. An excellent and versatile actor, he's an early horror star, with leading roles in Waxworks, The Hands of Orlac, The Man Who Laughed and a remake of The Student of Prague (1926) again opposite Werner Krauss. He then made a fairly smooth transition to roles in 'talkies', appearing in Michael Powell's The Spy In Black and The Thief of Baghdad (as Jaffar!) with one of his last roles being in Michael Curtiz' Casablanca.

For years it was very hard to see these early films on anything but very scratchy prints (often with truncated or missing shots). Bootlegs, videotapes, public domain DVDs and YouTube compression have compounded the film faults making these movies very hard to appreciate. But now that some have been carefully restored and released on DVD, I've finally been able to understand their 'classic' status.

I think the best versions are currently the Kino International restoration on DVD in the US, and in the UK, an earlier restoration from Eureka, which is commended for it's orchestral score and subtle colour tinting.

While the Eureka DVD is the best quality I've ever seen, many scenes are spoilt by a dark horizontal 'join' running across the top of frame, often through the actors' faces. The Kino International DVD apparently doesn't have this fault, though the first five minutes are said to be of inferior quality to the Eureka version. The choice is yours. More details in the following link...


DVD Beaver compares the Kino version to the 1996 restoration used by Eureka (illustrated with screengrabs)...

Also, don't get this silent movie confused with the 1962 American remake with a very similar name, The Cabinet of Caligari. This rather straightforward version of one of the subplots amps up the sexual element of Freudian psychiatry (as much as was possible at the time - i.e. not very much). It's always a joy to see and hear Glynis Johns (Vault of Horror, Mary Poppins, Miranda), but this more closely resembles a William Castle film without the gimmicks, than a German expressionistic nightmare.

THE GOLEM (1920) - a must-see for horror historians

THE GOLEM
(HOW HE CAME INTO THE WORLD)
(1920, Germany, Der Golem - Wie Er In Die Welt Kam)

A classic of German silent cinema and a highly influential early horror film, especially on James Whale's Frankenstein. The superhuman, lumbering, mute monster on the rampage owes more to this movie than Mary Shelley.

The Golem is activated by an old Rabbi to persuade the King to give the Jewish community a break. But while his intentions are good, the power of such a creature is tough to control... The Medieval age of this legend reminds us that Jewish people have been relegated to ghettos for centuries. The Golem movies served as a reminder that it was happening again.

Paul Wegener is one of the earliest icons of horror movies, also starring in The Student of Prague (1913) as The Devil, and in The Magician (1926) as an Aleister Crowley/Dr Frankenstein combo. Here Wegener appears as the Golem for the third time - the earlier films only survive in fragments (see my overview of the other early Golem movies). His portrayal is a prototype of 'the robot who develops human feelings'. The make-up looks convincingly like clay, even from a distance.

The Rabbi summons the Golem to life by invoking a demon with what looks suspiciously like black magic (can all Rabbis do this?). Other key players are his frisky daughter, the sorcerer's apprentice and the King's emissary, who does more than deliver messages...

I'd not been very impressed with this film after watching it on VHS, initially drawn in by evocative production photos. I foolishly assumed that there was a German village somewhere that actually looked like this! I hadn't counted on an old European silent movie really going to town on the construction of entire streets, towers, archways and a colossal main gate. It starts as a small fable but builds up into an epic!

Finally seeing a decent restoration, on DVD, I could more easily follow the complexity of the story and enjoy the detail of the production design. For instance, in the Rabbi's house, there's a staircase shaped like the inside of a huge seashell, that somehow doesn't look out of place.

The set design isn't as expressionistic as The Cabinet of Dr Caligari, but there isn't a straight line in sight, recalling hand-sculpted, primitive architecture, but with a menacing edge. It could easily be a full-size corner of Halloweentown from Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas.

The cinematography is impressive, besides the visual effects (probably done in-camera). One static shot starts on a wide shot, then a character creeps right up to the camera to show us something hidden in his hands, only a few inches from the lens, and then returns to the back of the set. An impressive follow-focus just to avoid cutting to a close-up.

Comparing the Eureka DVD (at top) to the UK VHS release (above), the intertitles are certainly an improvement on simple electronic white captions. While they're now elaborate, gothic and suitably scratchy, they aren't original. This is probably unavoidable because of the age of the film, but a note to explain what is from 1920 and what isn't would have been appreciated. Especially as they use elaborate CGI tricks that place text into the action - on pages of old books, as letters and a fluttering parchment, all digitally constructed and animated, but not as strict recreations of the original shots. These new close-ups of text also crucially miss out the character's signatures so we don't know who they're from.

Another difference from the VHS version was a scene during the invocation ritual - lightning flashes are now visible (reminiscent of the arcing electricity in Frankenstein's lab). Also, a crucial close-up of the Golem smelling a flower has been changed to a frontal angle that catches the action better. A fly lands on him in both of the angles, indicating that two cameras were used in filming (usually one negative for Europe, one for overseas markets). The DVD restoration also adds a welcome coloured tint that changes with every scene.

The UK region 2 DVD from Eureka also includes an impressive overview on expressionism in silent German cinema, illustrated with wall-to-wall clips. Overall it's an impressive-looking restoration, but I'd have wished for some pointers as to what had been reconstructed and what was original, especially as the film is a touchstone for film study.