London After Midnight

London After Midnight (1927) aka The Hypnotist is a silent mystery film with horror overtones produced and distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The film stars Lon Chaney, Marceline Day, Conrad Nagel, Henry B. Walthall, and Polly Moran and was directed by Tod Browning. It is also a lost film, quite possibly the most famous and eagerly-sought of all lost films. The last known copy was destroyed in a fire in an MGM film vault in 1967.[1] It is hoped that eventually a print of this film may be discovered in a foreign archive or a private collection.

The setting of the film is (then contemporary) 1920s London.

Sir Roger Balfour is found shot to death in his home. Inspector Burke (Lon Chaney, Sr.) of Scotland Yard is called in to investigate. The suspects are Williams (the butler), Sir James Hamlin (Henry B. Walthall) and his nephew, Arthur Hibbs (Conrad Nagel). A suicide note is found and the case is supposedly closed.

Five years later, the old residence of Balfour is taken up by a man in a beaver-skin hat, with large fangs and gruesome, sunken eyes. His assistant is a ghostly woman, with flowing robes and raven black hair. Could it be Balfour, returned from the dead?