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\u201cDon\u2019t step on it,\u201d moviegoers warned each other in the 1920’s: \u201cIt might be Lon Chaney!\u201d The joke testified to the talent and versatility of one of Hollywood\u2019s first bona fide superstars.<\/p>\n
With an uncanny command of body language and physical gesture as well as an extraordinary genius for makeup, Lon Chaney, Sr. could convince audiences that he was almost any character. He worked hard to earn his famous nickname, \u201cThe Man of a Thousand Faces.\u201d<\/p>\n
For this striking, one-sixth scale, 12-\u00bd inch tall polystone resin statue<\/a>, Jeff Yagher – an actor (you might remember him as Kyle Bates from V <\/em>in the \u201980s or Hoyt in Six Feet Under<\/em>) and a pioneer in the collectible modeling field, with 30 years\u2019 experience to his credit\u2014has sculpted Chaney in what is, paradoxically, one of his best-known and <\/em>least seen roles: the ghoulish \u201cMan in the Beaver Hat\u201d from London After Midnight<\/em>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The reason for the paradox? London After Midnight<\/em> is a lost movie.<\/p>\n Chaney\u2019s \u201cUncanny Disguise\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n Directed by Tod Browning (of Dracula<\/em> and Freaks <\/em>fame), London After Midnight<\/em> did considerable box office upon its December 1927 release thanks to Chaney\u2019s name on the marquee. He\u2019d been acting in movies for almost 15 years, and two of his most impressive performances, as Quasimodo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame<\/em> (1923) and as The Phantom of the Opera<\/em> (1925), still loomed large.<\/p>\n In London After Midnight<\/em>, he commanded attention as a mysterious, menacing man seen in the mansion where Roger Balfour, an apparent suicide, died five years earlier. Rumors swirl he is a vampire.<\/p>\n Chaney certainly looked monstrous for the part!<\/p>\n Image: MGM Studios<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n According to writer and cinephile Richard Day Gore<\/a>, the actor achieved his wide- and wild-eyed appearance by inserting wire rings into his eye sockets. False, serrated teeth and a wispy wig, all faithfully reproduced in Yagher\u2019s sculpture, completed what the New York Times\u2019 review called Chaney\u2019s \u201cuncanny disguise.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMystery Thriller\u201d Gone Missing<\/strong><\/p>\n Despite the fact that it made money, this \u201cmystery thriller,\u201d as it was marketed, failed to thrill movie critics (the Times\u2019 critic included). At least one reviewer rebuked it for drawing too liberally from the stage version of Dracula<\/em>. Others simply found its characters flat and its plot convoluted.<\/p>\n Maybe judgments like these helped the film fade from sight. In 1935, Browning remade the movie as Mark of the Vampire<\/em> (starring none other than Bela Lugosi), but London After Midnight<\/em> languished in obscurity\u2014and in MGM vaults, where the last known surviving print fell victim, along with many other old films, to fire in 1967.<\/p>\n Because interest in Chaney persists, so does desire to recover London After Midnight<\/em><\/a>. In 2002, Turner Classic Movies aired a 45-minute reconstruction of the movie from 200 still photographs and a shooting script. If an original print surfaced, its discovery would prompt even more excitement than the occasional discoveries of lost <\/a>Doctor Who<\/em><\/a> episodes<\/a> do. London After Midnight<\/em> has achieved near-mythic status largely because of its absence.<\/p>\n![\"Image:](\"http:\/\/www.entertainmentearth.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Lon_Chaney_London_After_Midnight_Vampire_Bat_Cape.jpg\")
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