London after Midnight (MGM, 1927; presumed lost) Lon Chaney 12.75" x 9.5" Original Portrait Gallery Custom Photograph ...

Description

London after Midnight (MGM, 1927; presumed lost) Lon Chaney 12.75" x 9.5" Original Portrait Gallery Custom Photograph by Irwin Bueller. Vintage gelatin silver textured matte double-weight 12.75" x 9.5" portrait gallery custom photograph of Lon Chaney as "Prof. Beaumont / The Man in the Beaver Hat" in London After Midnight by Irwin Bueller, original story written by and directed by Tod Browning. The surviving nitrate print of this tantalizing classic of macabre horror, remade in 1935 as Mark of the Vampire, was destroyed in the 1965 MGM vault fire. Lon Chaney was a towering figure during the peak years of silent film, transforming into radical extremes of character, grotesquely in The Phantom of the Opera, as a persecuted Quasimodo in Hunchback of Notre Dame, as a menacing ghoul in London After Midnight, on hobbled knees in The Penalty, as a self-inflicted amputee in The Unknown. Chaney was unique in manifesting the darker, malignant side of men's souls, not so much in disguise as completely disappearing into the Other. Creating his own make-up, Chaney's performance in Phantom of the Opera horrified audiences so profoundly as to wrench them into fits of screaming and despair. His capped teeth visage in London after Midnight sent audiences shrieking, riveted by the repellant magnetism of the hideous demon. A single image from a Chaney film contained multitudes. Excellent, with studio album paper residue on the verso. Comes with a COA from Heritage Auctions. From the Collection of Steve Sustayta.

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