Atlantis Online
March 18, 2024, 09:17:41 pm
Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
News: Did Humans Colonize the World by Boat?
Research suggests our ancestors traveled the oceans 70,000 years ago
http://discovermagazine.com/2008/jun/20-did-humans-colonize-the-world-by-boat
 
  Home Help Arcade Gallery Links Staff List Calendar Login Register  

The Lost Movie ‘London After Midnight’ and the Brutal Murder of Julia Mangan

Pages: [1]   Go Down
  Print  
Author Topic: The Lost Movie ‘London After Midnight’ and the Brutal Murder of Julia Mangan  (Read 252 times)
0 Members and 11 Guests are viewing this topic.
Depths of Darkness
Hero Member
*****
Posts: 780



« on: February 22, 2017, 11:23:31 pm »


The Lost Movie ‘London After Midnight’ and the Brutal Murder of Julia Mangan in 1928
By Rob Baker on 13 February 2016 | comments 0


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.
London After Midnight, 1927

The cover of the novelisation of London After Midnight by Marie Coolidge-Rask published in 1928.

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.”

Lon Chaney in London After Midnight

Lon Chaney in London After Midnight 2

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.

The story of London After Midnight began at a cultured and peaceful manor on the outskirts of London. It’s owner, Roger Balfour, is found dead, seemingly by his own hand, and a visiting Professor Burke wants to solve the case. Five years later a hypnotist and detective Edward C. Burker of Scotland Yard reproduces the scene of the crime and hypnotises the suspect into re-enacting the murder. As well as Lon Chaney the MGM film starred Marceline Day, Conrad Nagel and Henry B. Walthall.
Tod Browning

Tod Browning
ADVERTISEMENT

tod-browning-london-after-midnight-mgm

London After Midnight lobby card

Although popular with audiences, London After Midnight opened to mixed reviews. Oliver Claxton in the New Yorker wrote that the “directing, acting and settings are all well up to the idea,” but “it strives too hard to create effect. Mr. Browning can create pictorial terrors and Lon Chaney can get himself up in a completely repulsive manner, but both their efforts are wasted when the story makes no sense.”

Tod Browning’s infamous film is now, unfortunately, lost with the last known copy destroyed in the 1967 MGM Vault fire in Culver City in California. Today it is one of the most famous and eagerly sought of all the lost films and in 2014 an original poster for the film sold for almost $500,000.

Mark of the Vampire poster

Lon Chaney, Marceline Day and Edna Tichenor in London After Midnight, 1927

Lobby Card for London After Midnight 1927

Robert Williams told the court that he had committed the murder during an epileptic fit after seeing a horrific vision of Lon Chaney. If it was an excuse it almost worked and the original jury was unable to agree on a verdict. At the retrial in January 1929 the Manchester Guardian reported, under the headline ACTOR ENOUGH TO TERRIFY ANYONE, that the judge, Mr Justice Humphreys, dealt with Williams’ “vision” in his summing up:

    I do not know whether you have been to see any film in which he acted. One of them, we are told, is The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and another, London after Midnight. If any of you members of the jury have seen the latter, or even the advertisements of what Mr. Lon Chaney looks like when he is acting in that film, you may agree it is enough to terrify anybody.

    It is the story of a haunted house, and Lon Chaney takes the part of a person – really a detective – who pretends to be a most terrifying ghost. If the accused saw that film you may not think it remarkable or as in any way indicating insanity that he should in a moment of emotional excitement remember the horrifying, terrible aspect of an actor in a part which he was purposely being terrible. I can myself see nothing in the vision to suggest that the accused is an epileptic.

This time the jury, after being directed perhaps a little more forcefully by Justice Humphreys, found Williams guilty. After the verdict was announced the judge sentenced Williams to death by hanging. Two weeks later, however, the sentence was reprieved by the Home Secretary Sir William Joynson-Hicks. Who, after reading the official medical reports that established Williams’ insanity, decided that the murderer should serve his sentence at Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum.

A few months later while filming ‘Thunder’ Lon Chaney developed pneumonia but subsequently diagnosed with bronchial lung cancer. Chaney’s condition soon worsened and was exacerbated after breathing in artificial snow, made out of cornflakes, which lodged in his throat which created a serious infection. Seven weeks after the release of his first and only talkie ‘The Unholy Three’ Chaney succumbed to a throat haemorrhage on August 26, 1930.
Lon Chaney postcard

http://flashbak.com/the-lost-movie-london-after-midnight-and-the-brutal-murder-of-julia-mangan-in-1928-54484/
Report Spam   Logged

Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Depths of Darkness
Hero Member
*****
Posts: 780



« Reply #1 on: February 22, 2017, 11:24:22 pm »

Report Spam   Logged
Depths of Darkness
Hero Member
*****
Posts: 780



« Reply #2 on: February 22, 2017, 11:24:55 pm »

Report Spam   Logged
Depths of Darkness
Hero Member
*****
Posts: 780



« Reply #3 on: February 22, 2017, 11:25:37 pm »

Report Spam   Logged
Depths of Darkness
Hero Member
*****
Posts: 780



« Reply #4 on: February 22, 2017, 11:26:32 pm »

Report Spam   Logged
Depths of Darkness
Hero Member
*****
Posts: 780



« Reply #5 on: February 22, 2017, 11:26:53 pm »

Report Spam   Logged
Depths of Darkness
Hero Member
*****
Posts: 780



« Reply #6 on: February 22, 2017, 11:28:16 pm »

London After Midnight 1927 - Surviving film - YouTube
Video for london after midnight film
▶ 18:20
Report Spam   Logged
the 4th Dimension
Full Member
***
Posts: 10



« Reply #7 on: March 11, 2017, 03:57:48 am »

Love the mythology and look of this movie, wish they would find it!
Report Spam   Logged
Pages: [1]   Go Up
  Print  
 
Jump to:  

Powered by EzPortal
Bookmark this site! | Upgrade This Forum
SMF For Free - Create your own Forum
Powered by SMF | SMF © 2016, Simple Machines
Privacy Policy