London After Midnight

MGM’s “London After Midnight” is probably the most famous of all “lost” movies. The last print known to exist was destroyed in a warehouse fire in 1967. (Turner Classic Movies released a reconstruction of the film using still photos in 2002. It is available on the Lon Chaney Collection DVD set.) The film was originally released in 1927 and featured the silent era’s greatest star, Lon Chaney. Though many who saw the film on it’s initial run remember it as a mediocre film at best, images captured from remaining stills have turned it into a “classic” in the minds of romanticizing horror fans worldwide. This can be partly attributed to more great makeup work from “the man of a thousand faces”. It’s been said that the false teeth Chaney wore for this film were so painful that he would only wear them for minutes at a time.

The toy features 21 points of articulation on it’s standard 12″ doll frame. It is highly poseable as a result but is inhibited some by the clothing it wears. The hat is permanently fixed on but the shoes are removable. It would seem that the hands, head, and clothes are the only original parts on the toy, with Sideshow choosing to recycle the inner frame from the others in the series. I should say that this is not a knock on it at all. It makes perfect sense. The main body is flesh colored, but you do not see it at all underneath the clothing.

There are not many accessories included with this one, just a stone base, and a lantern. The base is pretty lame, imo. It’s just a flat piece with a “U” molded onto the top that you place the dolls foot into. This really doesn’t help stand the toy up much at all and I’d recommend you buy a 12″ doll stand if you are displaying this on anything but the most stable of surfaces. Otherwise, it will likely fall down. Sideshow did release such stands with labels for each genre, but the monster ones are long sold out.

Despite this minor flaw, this is a great toy. Previous to this, there was few, if any, toy renditions of this character and the sculpt by Mat Falls ensured that this would be a good one. The version shown here is the Black and White Silver Screen Edition, but Sideshow did release a regular color version as well.