I cannot review this film - as I have only seen less than three minutes of it - but it is an interesting example of what we can lose.
Certain stars of the silent film period made so many films that we are still in a good position to analyze their best work: Chaplin, Keaton, Lloyd, Langdon, Swanson, Bow, Valentino, Fairbanks, Gilbert, Hart, Gibson - much of their work survives that shows what they could do on film. Added to these stars was the greatest of all horror stars of the period, Lon Chaney Sr. His best recalled films (THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA and THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME) were saved. But one of his best film London AFTER MIDNIGHT no longer survives, and the version shown two years ago on TURNER CLASSIC FILMS was a documentary of the movie based on the script and careful use of surviving film stills. It helped in that case that Tod Browning, who directed that film, directed a sound remake MARK OF THE VAMPIRE which enables one to see the film's story line quite clearly.
But the reconstruction of London AFTER MIDNIGHT gave only a taste for the film - not a sense of it. For example, Chaney's Vampire was supposed to walk bent over like Groucho Marx would in the Marx Brother Movies. A slight bent position is noted in his stills, but no sense of the sloping walk.
But more serious is the loss of THE MIRACLE MAN (1919), which may have been the first film that brought Chaney's remarkable physical gifts to the attention of Hollywood. Based on a play of George M. Cohan, the film was about four con artists who decide to make a killing using an itinerant preacher as a front. Their plan deals with faking a miracle (Cohan's ideas here are not too far from similar set-ups in actual revivalist camps, and even in later films like ELMER GANTRY). Then the gullible will shower money on the preacher.
The head of these con artists is Thomas Meaghan, at one time a leading star in Hollywood (best recalled for the film CONRAD IN SEARCH OF HIS YOUTH). One of his fellow con-men is Chaney, called "the Frog" who is something of a contortionist. Chaney's big sequence (of which only a fragment exists) was when he is crawling to the preacher, and slowly seems to be able to regain his regular muscular and skeletal structure. But the thing that upsets the plan (after Chaney's "miracle" is performed) is that a small child who is crippled is so able to believe that he starts to walk. In the fragment that survives one sees Chaney dumbfounded by this unexpected twist.
I found the two surviving fragments on You Tube. One shows Meaghan, Chaney and their two cohorts reading a newspaper account of the "miracle man". The other is that portion of Chaney's crawling to the holy man, and then the child going to him on his own. The latter was from an historic short from MGM called THE HOUSE BUILT ON SHADOWS. It's instructive for two reasons: First it shows the original 1919 film was still in existence in 1931. Secondly it shows how fragile the historic record of motion pictures are.
Finally there is one last piece of irony in all this. When James Cagney appeared in the biopic THE MAN OF A THOUSAND FACES, the first scene they show of importance in his movie career is his appearance as the fake in THE MIRACLE MAN. Cagney was pretty good at redoing scenes from Chaney's films (not only PHANTOM and HUNCHBACK but films like WEST OF ZANZIBAR). He usually studied the roles he played as well as he could. Is it possible that Cagney was still able to see the entire film and copy it more closely than we are able to now? I would be very curious to know.
Certain stars of the silent film period made so many films that we are still in a good position to analyze their best work: Chaplin, Keaton, Lloyd, Langdon, Swanson, Bow, Valentino, Fairbanks, Gilbert, Hart, Gibson - much of their work survives that shows what they could do on film. Added to these stars was the greatest of all horror stars of the period, Lon Chaney Sr. His best recalled films (THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA and THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME) were saved. But one of his best film London AFTER MIDNIGHT no longer survives, and the version shown two years ago on TURNER CLASSIC FILMS was a documentary of the movie based on the script and careful use of surviving film stills. It helped in that case that Tod Browning, who directed that film, directed a sound remake MARK OF THE VAMPIRE which enables one to see the film's story line quite clearly.
But the reconstruction of London AFTER MIDNIGHT gave only a taste for the film - not a sense of it. For example, Chaney's Vampire was supposed to walk bent over like Groucho Marx would in the Marx Brother Movies. A slight bent position is noted in his stills, but no sense of the sloping walk.
But more serious is the loss of THE MIRACLE MAN (1919), which may have been the first film that brought Chaney's remarkable physical gifts to the attention of Hollywood. Based on a play of George M. Cohan, the film was about four con artists who decide to make a killing using an itinerant preacher as a front. Their plan deals with faking a miracle (Cohan's ideas here are not too far from similar set-ups in actual revivalist camps, and even in later films like ELMER GANTRY). Then the gullible will shower money on the preacher.
The head of these con artists is Thomas Meaghan, at one time a leading star in Hollywood (best recalled for the film CONRAD IN SEARCH OF HIS YOUTH). One of his fellow con-men is Chaney, called "the Frog" who is something of a contortionist. Chaney's big sequence (of which only a fragment exists) was when he is crawling to the preacher, and slowly seems to be able to regain his regular muscular and skeletal structure. But the thing that upsets the plan (after Chaney's "miracle" is performed) is that a small child who is crippled is so able to believe that he starts to walk. In the fragment that survives one sees Chaney dumbfounded by this unexpected twist.
I found the two surviving fragments on You Tube. One shows Meaghan, Chaney and their two cohorts reading a newspaper account of the "miracle man". The other is that portion of Chaney's crawling to the holy man, and then the child going to him on his own. The latter was from an historic short from MGM called THE HOUSE BUILT ON SHADOWS. It's instructive for two reasons: First it shows the original 1919 film was still in existence in 1931. Secondly it shows how fragile the historic record of motion pictures are.
Finally there is one last piece of irony in all this. When James Cagney appeared in the biopic THE MAN OF A THOUSAND FACES, the first scene they show of importance in his movie career is his appearance as the fake in THE MIRACLE MAN. Cagney was pretty good at redoing scenes from Chaney's films (not only PHANTOM and HUNCHBACK but films like WEST OF ZANZIBAR). He usually studied the roles he played as well as he could. Is it possible that Cagney was still able to see the entire film and copy it more closely than we are able to now? I would be very curious to know.