BOOTLEG FILES 934: “London After Midnight” (2025 AI-fueled reconstruction of the lost 1927 film).
LAST SEEN: On YouTube.
AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: None.
REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: It rips off a 2002 copyright-protected reconstruction of lost the film.
CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Definitely not.
Among the vast and woeful realm of lost films, the 1927 Lon Chaney-starring vampiric mystery feature “London After Midnight” is among the most sought-after titles. Back in 2000, I interviewed Jon Mirsalis, a Chaney historian and film preservationist, for an article on Film Threat – this was when Film Threat was still readable, of course – and I asked him about this Tod Browning-directed film, which was considered lost after the last known surviving print was destroyed in a 1967 vault fire at the MGM studios. In that interview, Mirsalis openly questioned whether “London After Midnight” was the lost classic that too many people imagined it had to be.
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