LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT and Why We Want to See it by Vance Capley

 This year we celebrate the 91st birthday (1927) of the release of a lost...but never forgotten horror film....London After Midnight:

“The abandoned home of a wealthy man who supposedly committed suicide five years earlier is taken over by ghoulish figures - could they be vampires?” -IMDB description of London After Midnight

The last copy of the film known to exist was destroyed in the 1967 MGM vault fire, making London After Midnight one of the most famous and eagerly sought after of all lost films.

But why does this film spark so much interest?

It was remade by the same director as Mark of the Vampire (1935).

“Mark of the Vampire is a 1935 horror film, starring Lionel Barrymore, Elizabeth Allan, Bela Lugosi, Lionel Atwill, and Jean Hersholt, and directed by Tod Browning. It has been described as a talkie remake of Browning's silent London After Midnight, though it does not credit the older film or its writers” - Wikipedia

Mark of the Vampire had THE Bela Lugosi. Fans should have been satisfied...but they weren’t. They’d seen the original film. They hadn’t forgotten it. Time passed and horror fans saw stills from London After Midnight...and they haven’t forgotten. There is hope, in the horror film community, that a copy of the film exists somewhere.

But how can that be?! The last known copy burned in a fire in 1967!!






 
But only ONE copy of the film burned in 1967 at vault #7 at MGM.

Foreign editions existed.

Google it….I did.

LONDRES APRES MINUIT -FRANCE

DER VAMPYR -AUSTRIA 1928

IL FANTASMA DEL CASTELLO -ITALY

LA CASA DEL HORROR -SPAIN

LAUKAUS YOSSA - FINLAND 1929

LONDON E'JFE'L UTA'N -HUNGARY

LONDRES DEPOIS DA MEIA-NOITE -PORTUGAL 1930

META TA MESANYKTA -GREECE

TO LONDINON META TA MESANYKTA - re-release in GREECE

UM MITTERNACHT -GERMANY 1928

THE HYPNOTIST -UK...and I save this one for last for the fact (possible rumor) that the film was involved in a murder trial. If this story is true, a copy of the film may have been placed in some sort of judicial archives in London:




"On October 23, 1928 a man called Robert Williams was found by a policeman near Fountain Gate on the north side of Hyde Park. He was lying face down with a bleeding wound at his throat and a razor dropped beside him. Williams, originally from North Wales and who had been out of work for sometime, told the policeman, “I did it; she has been teasing me,” and then pointed to the nearby lifeless body of a ‘housemaid-waitress’ called Julia Mangan who had lived at nearby Stanhope Gardens.



Two months later Williams spoke of that night at his trial at the Old Bailey and said that he and Miss Mangan had been friends and at about 10 o’clock that evening they had been talking; “I wanted to marry her and I told her so”, he told the court. “The last thing I remember” he continued, “was Julia whistling. Then I felt as if my head were going to burst, and that steam was coming out of both sides. All sorts of things came to my mind. I thought a man had me in a corner and was pulling faces at me. He threatened and shouted at me that had where he wanted me!”


At this point the defence lawyer, Mr Peregrine, said to the defendant: “Do you remember whose face it was? “Yes Sir.”

Williams went on to describe the hideous face of Lon Chaney as he had looked in the movie London After Midnight, directed by Tod Browning and released the previous year." https://flashbak.com/the-lost-movie-london-after-midnight-and-the-brutal-murder-of-julia-mangan-in-1928-54484/


...I researched this one.... Julia Mangan did exist. She was murdered by Robert Williams at Hyde Park on 23 October, 1928 (MEPO 3/1642 -http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C1257684)

Now, as I was saying....surely one of these copies still exists....

so why can’t we forget London After Midnight and just let it go?

Two words… LON CHANEY

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