London After Midnight

I would like to disagree with the above. I thought that the use of the remaining stills to recompose this movie, was brilliantly done. It was, indeed, obviously a labor of love, but now, we at least have SOME idea of what the audience saw in 1927...here it is, 2006, and I thought that for it's time, it probably WAS frightening. And Chaney's makeup is outstanding. The people of that era weren't used to those kinds of images on the screen, so I imagine that they were probably petrified by Chaney and his ghastly makeup, which, for its day, was superb, as I stated before. I'm clearly a Chaney fan, however, so, more than likely, I am truly biased.

All in all, this was brilliant, I thought.

When I learned that "London after Midnight" was going to be on, I thought it was the actual film, and was very eager to see it. At first I was slightly disappointed when I saw pictures instead of action. However, my disappointment was quickly gone. In essence, the restoration was a "silent film" but had no motion. The "still acting" was masterful, and it was so easy to understand the characters. The script and sets were great, the timing between the "shots" was good, particularly when different angles of a subject were changed rapidly. I am a Lon Chaney fan, and his close-ups are masterpieces. He truly stole the show, although it had a good cast. Chaney was unrecognizeable in his unsettling vampire makeup, and it helped make his performance as the vampire more potent. Coupled with his performance as the highly intelligent, take-charge Inspector Burke, he's truly a winner.

I am curious to see the actual film, but I am greatly impressed with the restoration TCM did. They tried to get the restoration as much like the film as possible, and because of that, it is a godsend.

but it can't replace the original film work as others have said here. While it certainly casts some new light on LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT (1927) and some of us finally get to see what it was all about, it's never going to be able to in any way duplicate the experience those who first enjoyed the film in the theater had..still it was fascinating to see so many previously unseen stills from this movie especially those which show off Lon Chaney's most unusual make-up.

London After Midnight (2002)

*** (out of 4)

Tod Browning's lost and highly sought after film got a photo reconstruction several years ago that tries to capture the mood and feel of that original film and for the most part I think this works. In fact, these photos are still a lot more entertaining than Browning's 1935 remake Mark of the vampire. As I've said countless times before, it's probably best that this film remains lost because if it were ever found then all the mystery and legendary status would probably be gone since most reviewers called this a very poor film. It's doubtful the film will ever be found but I'd love to just see a few moving frames of Chaney as the vampire because the make up is so incredible that I'd love to see how Chaney played the role.

This reconstruction was obviously a labor of love. But it simply reinforces the uniqueness of film - a compendium of stills set to music is an entirely different medium - and makes the loss of London After Midnight and all other vanished films all the more heart-breaking. That's not to say there's no place for this kind of thing; certainly it was used in a positive way to fill in the gaps in the 1954 A Star Is Born. But to watch a reconstruction of an entire film becomes rather tedious. So, this is interesting, useful - but inevitably unsatisfying.