Well, poop.
Earlier this week, the internet briefly burned with possible news that a print of the long lost silent horror film London After Midnight starring the iconic Lon Chaney had been found. Turns out, that is not quite the case.
The folks over at Dread Central, who were the first to break the news have updated their story to say that it turns out that it was only a few frames from the film that have been discovered, not the entire film.
UPDATE 1: 3:30 PM PT:
[TV Producer Robert ] Parigi [to whom the rumor has been sourced to] just updated his post with the following statement…
“This just in, via pm from Micah Carey: “No print of ‘London After Midnight’ has been found. We did find some frames from the film that may have been cut out of a vintage trailer!”
A few frames… the seeds from which a rumor grows!
Sorry this turned out to be another false alarm. My inner monster-kid was too eager to wait for confirmation before posting.”
UPDATE 2: 3:40 PM PT – More info from Carey:
“A film archive in The Canary Islands received what look to be nitrate frames from London After Midnight around 1995. They got these from a private collector.
In 2012, the archive opened a Flickr account and posted this image among others it was posted for about five years and nobody seemed to notice it until last month.
Then this image was posted shortly thereafter…
These were both posted on the Facebook page Universal Monsters & More. I’ve contacted them and they have said they have more stills and that they will share them with us.
The school of thought seems to be that these were cut out of trailers for London After Midnight by a projectionist in the Canary Islands. But nobody is sure.
For now at least, it seems that LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT remains lost….
I guess that this is just a case of one thing growing totally out of proportion in the retelling. We see it every now and then in the film community. Something to always be aware of when the news seems to good to be true. And perhaps, something to keep in mind outside of movie news as well these days.
