The Silver Screen Oasis

Everyone,

Hey, here is a link to some guy who claims quite convincingly that He saw Lon Chaney's lost LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT, under it's alternate title THE HYPNOTIST back in 1994, in the old MGM vault. Take a look at this. The story does not appear to be a hoax.

http://thehorrordrunx.yuku.com/topic/753

*yawn*

I'm a skeptic.

I would certainly love to believe this is true. I sent an e-mail with this link to a friend of mine who regularly corresponds with Michael F. Blake. I wonder if he's run across the news yet. It's evidently spreading like crazy...

-Stephen

The Archivist list that I belong to has been talking about all morning.

They are very skeptical of the story.

If the guy found the print why didn't he tell anyone in the vault that he had found it? He would have been hailed as a hero. Instead he keeps quiet about for almost twenty years? Something's not adding up right here.

And Turner never owned AMC.

I’m somewhat skeptical, too. Why the buzz now? He “discovered” the reels years ago. I’ll keep my fingers crossed (hard to type this way, though), but it still seems fishy.

Stephen,

Tell your friend to let Michael F. Blake know that I not only love all three of his Chaney books, but that his commentary tracks on the Lon Chaney Collection DVD set are some of the best I’ve ever heard. Blake’s style is so conversational, and he has so much information, they are absolute “musts” for Chaney fans.

I belong to an archivist list serve and we have been talking all morning about it.

I contacted an archivist who used to work at the Jefferson vault back in the 1980s at the time the writer says he found the lost print.

According to the archivist I contacted, there was never any nitrate film stored at the Jefferson vault nor did the MGM nitrate films go to UCLA Film and TV Archive as the writer purports.

The surviving MGM nitrate films have been stored at Eastman House since the 1970s.

If I get any more info I will keep you posted!

Well, LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT being found might still be another hoax, but this long un-seen Tod Browning/Chaney film being restored and scored recently, most certainly is not!

Here are the opening and closing credits to the new restoration of THE BLACKBIRD (1926). Listed in the TCM Movie Data Base as THE BLACK BIRD. Three seperate words. I don't know why? Maybe this is why the staff had trouble finding it though?

Even if LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT were found, we probably wouldn't be seeing the film publicly for quite awhile? On the other hand, THE BLACKBIRD is ready to go now? Why isn't this just as big a deal? It sure is to me, and should be to most Chaney fans, Browning fans, and Silent film fans, who have never seen it before?

I am working very hard right now to get an American TCM premier in October, replacing THE MONSTER on the schedule. I have been in contact with TCM Programmer Charles Tabesh four times now, and it looks like it could happen? Keep your fingers crossed.

Well, if the archivists relent and decide to turn the vaults upside down looking for it, ask them to keep their eyes open for a leftover copy of Convention City that missed the ashcan.

-Stephen

srowley75,


Here is the biggest problem with this whole story in my mind. I have not heard anyone else mention this, but it was the first thing that I thought of when reading it.

I'm quite sure that Kevin Brownlow, and Patrick Stansbury were given free access to the entire collection of Chaney films at Eastman House, and what ever other locations they use by Warner's in 1999 or 2000, when He produced his documentary on the man for TCM "LON CHANEY: A THOUSAND FACES".

Now, It seems highly unlikely, if a mis-named print were laying around someplace, that Brownlow, and his entire Photo-play Productions staff would have missed it??? That's just not possible!

Jeffrey,

Actually it has been noted on a couple of sites such as alt.movies.silent and a couple of posters from there have commented on horrordrux before being banned (!!!) that archivists have been combing the international vaults of film archives for years looking for LAM.

In addition to Brownlow and Stansbury, there is Rick Schmidlin who did the still reconstruction of the film. He had access to the Turner/Time-Warner vaults when he collaborated with TCM on the stills reconstruction.

He, too, came up empty handed. It is one of the most sought after lost films of all time. That so many archivists and preservationists have combed the Turner/Time-Warner vaults and not found it probably tells us what we need to know.

Many people want to believe Sid Terror's story but posting his story on a new website and then going out of town seems a strange way to get your story out.

And to have the web-master ban legit posters for being skeptical about Terror's story is not inspiring any confidence in this claim.

Lynn,

Yes, but let me reiterate yet again. They haven't combed the late Roberto Di Chiara's Archive in Argentina! Neither Brownlow, or David Shepard have ever heard of, let alone met the man! He never learned to speak English. Literally anything from Colleen Moore's FLAMING YOUTH, to Ernst Lubitsch THE PATRIOT, could be there? Thousands of Silent films mostly all unidentified!

I found a reply from Ted Newsom (the guy who was working at the MGM
archive and corroborates Terror's story on Horrodrunx).

He recaps his end of the scenario about finding the listing sans
assets or vault location in the early 2000s and then ends with this:

"Further point of reference: I have told this before (and it's pretty
much the same story every time), on CHFB, on Latarnia, and on Scarlet
Street, so my end of it is pretty much in the public domain... if,
say, someone wanted to do an elaborate prequel to it and use my story
as a verification...

Yah jes' never know... "

Elaborate prequel? I'm shocked, shocked I tell you! NOT!!

This is beginning to sound like boy found film, boy lost film but boy got girl. And lots of hits to a relatively new website.

Amazing what some folks will do to get their websites noticed.