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London After Midnight
- 288 statements
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London After Midnight is a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer horror-flavored mystery film that premiered on December 3, 1927. It is a Silent Movie and was marketed in Great Britain as The Hypnotist, which in the USA was the working title until August. Tod Browning was both the writer and the director, while Waldemar Young took care of the scripting stage in-between. Filming for London After Midnight began on July 24, 1927, and it is one of the eight films Browning produced with Lon Chaney. The latter plays a detective with an unconventional plan to get to the bottom of an apparent suicide years prior. One of the selling points of the film was that the detective, like Chaney, was a makeup artist and that audiences would get a glimpse into how he performs his craft.Today, London After Midnight is one of the most coveted lost horror and/or mystery films. The last known copy was destroyed in the MGM vault fire of 1965. What remains are Marie Coolidge-Rask's 1928 novelization of an early version of the script, the second draft of the shooting script, a 1928 transcript, around 200 stills, and promotional material. Following the original run of the film, a second novelization by Lucien Boisyvon was published in 1929. This one is based on London After Midnight as-is and gives its own spin on the plot holes. Originally published in French, it was translated and published in English in 2018. In 2002, film preservationist Rick Schmidlin used the transcript and the surviving stills to reconstruct an approximation of London After Midnight.Roger Balfour (Claude King) is found dead in his home. He's left a suicide note so, despite protests from James Hamlin (Henry Walthall), Balfour's friend and neighbor, Inspector Edward C. Burke (Lon Chaney) declares the death a suicide. For the next five years, Hamlin looks after Balfour's daughter Lucille (Marceline Day) alongside his nephew Arthur Hibbs (Conrad Nagel). One day, eerie people known only as the Man in the Beaver Hat (Lon Chaney) and the Bat Girl (Edna Tichenor) take up residence in the abandoned Balfour House. The maid Smithson (Polly Moran) recognizes them as vampires and soon the notion spreads in the Hamlin household. Hamlin summons Burke to deal with the mystery. Because the new lease for the Balfour House was signed with Roger Balfour's signature, Hamlin and Burke go take a look if his corpse is still in its tomb. It is not. A vampiric Balfour, commonly referred to as the Stranger, is later spotted conversing with the eerie duo and vampire attacks on the Hamlin House start up, culminating in the abduction of Lucille. Everyone goes over to the Balfour House to save her, and in the chaos Burke hypnotizes Hamlin into thinking it's five years ago. All of the supposed vampires are revealed to be actors and the Stranger enacts a domestic scene with Lucille to coax Hamlin into recreating the night of Balfour's death. As per Burke's suspicions, Hamlin reveals himself to have murdered his friend because he objected to Hamlin's intent to marry Lucille when she'd be old enough.It is theorized that London After Midnight was a demonstration by Browning and Chaney that they could be trusted with Dracula once a studio would secure the film rights. This would explain several key similarities between the two stories, such as the London setting, the vampire's lantern, and the parallels between Mina-Lucy and Lucy/Lucille. If the theory is true, it worked. Browning got to direct Dracula in 1931, but due to Chaney's death in 1930 the role of Dracula was filled by Bela Lugosi. Although Lugosi offered a vastly different vampire, the Bat Girl's appearance was transposed to the Sisters and the ruinous state of Balfour House is reflected in Castle Dracula, armadillos included. Browning got the chance to remake London After Midnight in 1935 as Mark of the Vampire, casting Lugosi in the role once handled by Chaney. As the final step in this back-and-forth, Mark of the Vampire adjusts the two vampires to a father-daughter duo and may have very well influenced the decision to make the 1936 sequel to Dracula about Dracula's Daughter.Beyond its intimacy with Dracula, the legacy of London After Midnight continues principally through Chaney's striking appearance as the Man in the Beaver Hat. The monster from The Babadook, the killer from The Black Phone, and Gene Simmons's on-stage look all take design cues from him. The Hatbox Ghost and the Beating Heart Bride from The Haunted Mansion evoke both of the vampires, a connection made more likely by the fact that in a protoype stage they were known as M. Bogyman and Mlle. Vampire. In the music scene, the band London After Midnight took its name from the movie.On a final note, London After Midnight has the dubious honor of being one of the first films invoked in a murder trial. On October 23, 1928, Robert William murdered Julia Mangan and tried to blame it all on hallucinations involving the Man in the Beaver Hat. The judge didn't buy it. | |
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| London After Midnight / int_12a59731 | type |
Goodbye, Cruel World! | |
| London After Midnight / int_12a59731 | comment |
Goodbye, Cruel World!: Roger Balfour leaves a suicide note that simply reads: "I am taking my own life. Forgive me, Lucille." Five years later, it is uncovered that James Hamlin forced him to write that note at gunpoint and shot him afterwards. | |
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Supernatural Light | |
| London After Midnight / int_12bd8223 | comment |
Supernatural Light: Taking a cue from the literary Dracula, the Man in the Beaver Hat is introduced carrying a lantern and rarely goes without. | |
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Our Banshees Are Louder | |
| London After Midnight / int_148bc07d | comment |
Our Banshees Are Louder: In the novelization, the Bat Girl is believed to be the ghost of a Balfour woman who died young and horribly centuries ago and now haunts the Balfour House. The Irish chauffeur Gallagher specifically identifies her as a banshee because whenever a tragedy hits the household, her wail is heard. So it was on the night Roger Balfour died by gunshot through the head and so it is when Lucille is ostensibly abducted by the vampires, although in the latter case the wail is a cover for the special siren used by the constables. | |
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A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing | |
| London After Midnight / int_14e41a53 | comment |
A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing: James Hamlin acts like a caring man who refuses to believe his good friend Balfour committed suicide and who generously took in his child when she became an orphan. In truth, he killed Balfour to have access to his daughter. In the novelization, he's even worse because of Harry, Lucille's brother. He takes him in too, but murders him too to prevent him from leaving with Lucille. Despite all his pretense of caring for Lucille, he is unconcerned with how much pain he causes her as long as she'll be his one day. | |
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Locked Out of the Fight | |
| London After Midnight / int_1c9e9215 | comment |
Locked Out of the Fight: At separate points, both Lucille and Arthur get locked away in closets to keep them out of harm's way. Lucille is locked away by Smithson when the Man in the Beaver Hat manifests in Hamlin House while she acts as a distraction if not a barrier to the vampire. Arthur gets locked away by Burke towards the final stage of his plan both to ensure that Arthur's uncle won't kill him and to prevent Arthur from possibly ruining everything. | |
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| London After Midnight / int_24e5adb9 | type |
Beast and Beauty | |
| London After Midnight / int_24e5adb9 | comment |
Beast and Beauty: The Man in the Beaver Hat's ghoulish type of vampire and the Bat Girl's statuesque type of vampire form a beast-and-beauty pair with an undefined relation to each other. All that's for certain is that he leads and she follows. | |
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| London After Midnight / int_2b80abf4 | type |
Trivial Title | |
| London After Midnight / int_2b80abf4 | comment |
Trivial Title: London is the setting of the story, which at no point matters. After midnight is when the murder on Balfour occurs and the time of the reenactment of the murder five years later. This is slightly less irrelevant than the setting, because it influences the proceedings of the investigation at both points, but still is a throwaway factoid in the face of the film as a whole. | |
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The Killer in Me | |
| London After Midnight / int_2fd62e54 | comment |
The Killer in Me: When Burke declares Roger Balfour's death an unmistakable case of suicide, James Hamlin protests that Balfour would never commit suicide, but it is no use. When strange events take place five years later, he gets Burke involved once more and the two of them take the most action to uncover what's going on at Balfour House. In the end, it turns out Hamlin killed Balfour all those years ago to have access to his daughter Lucille. Burke had his suspicions, which is why he acted along. | |
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Adapted Out | |
| London After Midnight / int_33d5b7f2 | comment |
Adapted Out: The original story called for Lucy/Lucille to have a brother, Harry. Harry appears in the novelization and the discovery of his corpse was filmed as demonstrated by the existence of a still, but the final cut omits any mention of him. Colonel Yates is another identity Inspector Burke utilizes in addition to the Man in the Beaver Hat. The identity appears in the novelization and shooting script, but not in the film. Colonel Yates is an old army buddy of Hamlin and also an acquaintance of the late Balfour. Making Hamlin "remember" his good friend Yates is Burke's first act of hypnotism. | |
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When the Clock Strikes Twelve | |
| London After Midnight / int_3429147e | comment |
When the Clock Strikes Twelve: As per the film's title, Balfour dies after midnight and it is after midnight five years later that vampires take up residence in Balfour House. | |
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Unrelated in the Adaptation | |
| London After Midnight / int_3de32c52 | comment |
Unrelated in the Adaptation: While Arthur Hibbs is James Hamlin's nephew and ward in the film, in the novelization (and shooting script) Jerry Hibs is Hamlin's secretary. | |
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| London After Midnight / int_4219a300 | type |
Mysterious Mist | |
| London After Midnight / int_4219a300 | comment |
Mysterious Mist: After Smithson locks out the Man in the Beaver Hat and backs away from the door, smoke swirls up from under the door. When it clears, the vampire is in the room with her. | |
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| London After Midnight / int_454e6cf5 | type |
Hypnotic Eyes | |
| London After Midnight / int_454e6cf5 | comment |
Hypnotic Eyes: Inspector Burke is an experienced hypnotist and utilizes this skill during his investigation into Balfour's death. He performs hypnosis by making prolonged eye contact with his target and moves his hands so as to draw the target in. Arthur is the first to be hypnotized as a means to keep him out of harm's way when Burke rightfully suspects that someone will attempt to murder the young man that night. As the Man in the Beaver Hat, he also tricks Hamlin into looking him straight into the eyes to hypnotize him into reenacting the night of Balfour's death. In the novelization and shooting script, Burke's hypnotic gaze is additionally put to use to make Hamlin believe that Burke is an old army friend by the name of Colonel Yates. | |
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| London After Midnight / int_4b9a8e96 | type |
"Scooby-Doo" Hoax | |
| London After Midnight / int_4b9a8e96 | comment |
"Scooby-Doo" Hoax: For the longest time, it seems that Roger Balfour has risen as a vampire and invited a gang of his undead kind to hang out in his former home and terrorize the neighbors, which include his good friend Hamlin and his daughter Lucille. The danger grows immediate when the Man in the Beaver Hat and the Bat Girl abduct Lucille, but after everyone rushes to save her it is revealed that all the horror is a hoax by Burke, the police, and some actors to find Roger Balfour's murderer and manipulate him into a confession. | |
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| London After Midnight / int_51afcd70 | type |
Sexy Silhouette | |
| London After Midnight / int_51afcd70 | comment |
Sexy Silhouette: The Bat Girl wears an acrobat's bodysuit underneath a flowy transparent dress. Any time she stands before a source of light, her figure is outlined through the fabric of the dress. On one hand, it is sensually elegant. On the other, it evokes the way a bat's body is opaque amidst the transparent patagia of its wings. | |
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| London After Midnight / int_5663a595 | type |
Adaptation-Induced Plot Hole | |
| London After Midnight / int_5663a595 | comment |
Adaptation-Induced Plot Hole: The reason the investigation into Roger Balfour's not-a-suicide picks up again after five years is the murder on his son Harry. Why is he killed five years after his father? Because he was orphaned at fifteen and in the present is approaching 21, the age of majority, and will soon be able to claim his father's possessions and take Lucy with him away from Hamlin. Furthermore, the motive behind the vampire charade is to draw out the murderer who made Harry's death look like a vampire attack (by means of poisoned needle; the same weapon used in the murder attempt on Arthur) in the first place. Without Harry in the final film, neither the wait nor the charade have anything going for them and the poisoned needle is also a tad random. A question that comes up in regards to Hamlin's attempted murder of Arthur is why he uses a poisoned needle. As per the novelization, Hamlin is a drug user. He has access to syringes because he uses them to get his fix. Without this character detail in the final film, the poisoned needle is a curious choice of murder weapon. The maid Smithson was originally written to be in on Burke's charade. That's why the Man in the Beaver Hat can attack her while Burke is downstairs — Smithson is lying about the attack. And that's why she disappears along with Lucille when Lunette comes to get them. As is, the best interpretation for how Smithson could be attacked by the vampire disguise of a man presently downstairs is that it's the backup actor attacking her and that she imagines his face worse than it is. There's little explanation for her absence after Lunette's visit, though. | |
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Snark-to-Snark Combat | |
| London After Midnight / int_583ec33e | comment |
Snark-to-Snark Combat: Burke's my-way-or-the-highway attitude does not impress Arthur Hibbs. They butt heads regularly, usually because Burke has something to say that necessitates Arthur to come up with a counter. | |
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Cobweb of Disuse | |
| London After Midnight / int_58dd1c53 | comment |
Cobweb of Disuse: The Balfour House has plenty of cobwebs covering the nooks, crannies, and several pieces of furniture to show that nobody has lived there for five years. | |
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Wife Husbandry | |
| London After Midnight / int_5dd191ec | comment |
Wife Husbandry: Hamlin has set his mind to marrying Lucille by the time she's only thirteen. When her father objects to the idea, he murders him and as per the regrettable state of Balfour's will at that time, Hamlin becomes the guardian of Lucille. He waits for five years for her to reach a proper age, but has no success in her getting to love him romantically. Whatever he may have done to get his way, his plans come to an end when he's exposed as Balfour's murderer. | |
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| London After Midnight / int_5f54a67b | type |
Enter Stage Window | |
| London After Midnight / int_5f54a67b | comment |
Enter Stage Window: Arthur breaks one of the windows of the Balfour House when he spots Lucille, who had seemingly been abducted, and the Bat Girl inside and believes that the Bat Girl is preparing to bite Lucille. He climbs in past the glass, but fails in his rescue attempt because the women flee from him and Burke, assisted by two other men, captures him and locks him in a closet. | |
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| London After Midnight / int_6331ba26 | type |
Plot Hole | |
| London After Midnight / int_6331ba26 | comment |
Plot Hole: The film is riddled with hows and whys that never get answered. Many answers exist in the shooting script and novelization, though they aren't flawless and some last minute changes to the final film's story mean that the secondary sources have nothing for those scenes. When Burke questions Arthur on the night of the murder, he says that Balfour has been dead for fifteen minutes and asks where Arthur was at that time. Arthur responds with the question how Burke even got here if the murder only happened fifteen minutes ago. Burke doesn't answer this. There are several scenes where the vampire actors elaborately act like vampires when no one not in on the scheme (or who has no reason not to be in on the scheme) is around. Burke and his team could know from photos what Balfour looked like in life in order for the Stranger to imitate his appearance. Burke himself could very well have learned to replicate Balfour's signature from documents he perused. But how do any of Burke's team know what Balfour sounded like well enough to fool Lucille into thinking her father is calling out for her? There's a hole in the vampire charade that took luck for no one to pick up on. The Man in the Beaver Hat signs the lease for the Balfour House with Balfour's signature, but he does not pretend to be Balfour as a vampire. That's the Stranger's job. So why would the Man in the Beaver Hat sign with Balfour's signature if he isn't supposed to be Balfour? The oddities regarding Roger Balfour's butler Williams, who after the former's death goes to work for James Hamlin, are never explained. Why does he claim not to have heard any gunshot and to have only woken and gone downstairs to check on Balfour because of a "strange unnatural power"? And why is it that he supposedly wakes up after the attempted murder on Arthur, but arrives at the scene wearing his day clothes underneath his housecoat? Williams, despite being the most likely of two suspects at this point, is supposedly cleared offscreen and partakes in the setup to coax Hamlin into reenacting the murder without another word from him for the rest of the film. The novelization and the shooting script don't provide any further insight either because the butler is a late addition to the cast and is not present in the early material. How does the Stranger know what to say to get Hamlin to reenact the murder? There's not even been a hint so far that Burke or anyone else on the investigative team knew what the motive to the murder was. In the novelization and shooting script, there is a scene in which Hamlin gives Burke a lot of information about the night of Roger's death, but obviously nothing relating to the murder, so crucial information is still missing. | |
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| London After Midnight / int_6492f4ca | type |
Spirit Advisor | |
| London After Midnight / int_6492f4ca | comment |
Spirit Advisor: The Man in the Beaver Hat and the Bat Girl are the vampiric twosome who draw Lucille towards action to play her part in uncovering what brought about her father's death. Some scenes suggest that the Man in the Beaver Hat and the Bat Girl are supernatural parallels to Roger Balfour and Lucille, while the novelization instead portrays the Bat Girl as the spirit of an ancestor from centuries ago who died young and horribly and now acts up whenever a tragedy occurs in the household. | |
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Big Brother Instinct | |
| London After Midnight / int_69681e01 | comment |
Big Brother Instinct: In the novelization, Harry doesn't like the way Hamlin imposes himself and may have been aware that the man has uncouth intentions towards his sister. That's why he aims to claim his inheritance and make the Balfour House his home once more, taking Lucy with him. It is because he gets in the way of Hamlin's hold on Lucy that Hamlin murders him. | |
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| London After Midnight / int_720e0c25 | type |
Grave Robbing | |
| London After Midnight / int_720e0c25 | comment |
Grave Robbing: It's glossed over, but Burke and his colleagues removed Balfour's corpse from its tomb to make it believable he'd risen as a vampire. | |
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| London After Midnight / int_74d9d78f | type |
Hate at First Sight | |
| London After Midnight / int_74d9d78f | comment |
Hate at First Sight: Burke and Arthur don't like each other from the moment they meet. Burke finds Arthur disrespectful and deems him a suspect. Arthur finds Burke authoritarian and suspicious. By the time the murder case gets solved, they do hold some level of respect for each other. | |
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Sudden Name Change | |
| London After Midnight / int_7833feeb | comment |
Sudden Name Change: In the film, the Stranger refers to the Bat Girl as "Luna". Her assistants later call her "Lunette". "Lunette" is the only name used in the novelization, but the Bat Girl's equivalent in Mark of the Vampire is Luna. The novelization is a photoplay novel, so stills from the film are included. One still showing the discovery of Harry's corpse has the subscript "Jules Cowles and the searchers find the body of Harry Balfour". Jules Cowles is the name of the actor who plays the gardener, but is treated here as the name of the character. Yet the text refers to him as "Thomas". The gardener goes unnamed in the film. | |
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Did Not Get the Girl | |
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Did Not Get the Girl: Burke and Lucille develop slight feelings for one another. However, Burke cherishes no illusions about the practicality of anything between them and gives her courtship with Arthur his blessing. | |
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Prayer Is a Last Resort | |
| London After Midnight / int_8dea4592 | comment |
Prayer Is a Last Resort: When Smithson spots the vampire duo for the first time, she prays while the gardener spurs on the horse to get them out of there. Smithson is later menaced by the Man in the Beaver Hat and all she can do is ensure Lucille's safety and kneel in prayer for her own survival. | |
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Ominous Owl | |
| London After Midnight / int_93decddf | comment |
Ominous Owl: The three nocturnal investigation scenes are each marked with a focus shot of an owl. There's one around when the Man in the Beaver Hat signs the lease of the Balfour House with Roger Balfour's signature. There's one around when Burke and Hamlin take a look if Roger Balfour's corpse is still in its tomb. And there's one around when Burke and Hamlin search through Balfour House for vampires. | |
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| London After Midnight / int_97cf7f86 | type |
Vampire Hickey | |
| London After Midnight / int_97cf7f86 | comment |
Vampire Hickey: In the novel, Hamlin murders Harry by injecting him with poison in his neck twice, which creates the look of a vampire's bite. This may have been intended but it may also have just come about that way in the struggle. In either case, people do worry a vampire is behind it, which inspires Burke, who is not superstitious, to put on an entire vampire charade to lure the murderer into the open. This, in turn, may have emboldened Hamlin when he sneaks into Arthur's room to kill his romantic rival the same way he killed Harry. Burke prevents the murder and as planned gains further insight into who the murderer is. | |
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| London After Midnight / int_99b2613a | type |
Oop North | |
| London After Midnight / int_99b2613a | comment |
Oop North: Thomas the gardener is identified as being from Yorkshire in the novelization and speaks with an accent. In the film, he is without accent and no mention is made about his origins. | |
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| London After Midnight / int_9f63d4f1 | type |
Our Vampires Are Different | |
| London After Midnight / int_9f63d4f1 | comment |
Our Vampires Are Different: The vampires aren't real, but actors trying to unsettle the murderer. The two main personas, the Man in the Beaver Hat and the Bat Girl, represent two different takes on vampirism. The Man in the Beaver Hat is a hunched figure with a permanent slasher smile, sharp teeth, unkempt shoulder-length hair, crazed eyes, and his bat-like wings are set in the form of the wings of a flying squirrel. He is impishly energetic, which contrasts the Bat Girl's eerily stoic presence. She's got a short cut with not a hair out of place, piercing eyes, normal teeth, a near-permanent stoic face, and her combination of a bodysuit with a transparent dress with wing-like sleeves evokes the image of a bat's opaque body amidst the transparency of its patagia. Both the Man in the Beaver Hat and the Bat Girl demonstrate the ability to fly. According to a book Smithson gives to Arthur, vampires are living, bloodsucking corpses that turn into bats by day to sleep. To prevent one from entering a home, a drawn sword of the sharpest steel and a wreath of tube roses are to be placed over the lock of a door or window. This barrier doesn't work because the vampire actors need to get things done. | |
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| London After Midnight / int_a36fb848 | type |
Grand Staircase Entrance | |
| London After Midnight / int_a36fb848 | comment |
Grand Staircase Entrance: The introduction scene of the Man in the Beaver Hat and the Bat Girl sees them slowly descending the central staircase of Balfour House. | |
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| London After Midnight / int_a431b0e6 | type |
The Butler Did It | |
| London After Midnight / int_a431b0e6 | comment |
The Butler Did It: The butler Williams is one of the three suspects of Roger Balfour's could-be-suicide-could-be-murder that Burke investigates. The man had been in Balfour's service for twenty years and while there's no motive, his behavior is so suspicious that for a time he is the most likely suspect. For instance, when Burke asks how it happened that he woke up in the middle of the night and went downstairs to discover Balfour's corpse, Williams blames a "strange unnatural power" for his actions. However, in the end he's proven not to be the murderer. In the novelization, Smithson is an agent who has become a maid at Hamlin House specifically to snoop around and overhear whatever secrets may be spilled when people regard the servants as part of the furniture. | |
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| London After Midnight / int_adc73af3 | type |
Rich Language, Poor Language | |
| London After Midnight / int_adc73af3 | comment |
Rich Language, Poor Language: Smithson is the only servant who sticks around throughout the film. Unlike all the non-servant characters, she speaks with a Cockney accent. | |
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| London After Midnight / int_ae50ca8f | type |
Stage Names | |
| London After Midnight / int_ae50ca8f | comment |
Stage Names: "Lunette" is all but confirmed to be a stage name. Lunette the Flying Lady was an actual circus and fair act in the early 20th Century and no acrobat who played the character was actually called Lunette any more than, say, anyone who performed as Galatea the Statue Turning to Life was actually called Galatea. In the novelization, Jimmy Mooney is the name of Lunette's co-star (either her assistant or the backup Man in the Beaver Hat). This is also a stage name, with "Mooney" being a counterpart to "Lunette". | |
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| London After Midnight / int_ae8038f1 | type |
Collective Identity | |
| London After Midnight / int_ae8038f1 | comment |
Collective Identity: One of the vampire actors does not play a separate vampire, but dresses up as the Man in the Beaver Hat whenever Burke is unavailable. This backup Man in the Beaver Hat is only ever seen from the back until the charade unravels. This doesn't only fool the audience, but the people of Hamlin House too. The novel further establishes that the Man in the Beaver Hat is the actor's own creation, which Burke is allowed to don for the investigation only. | |
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| London After Midnight / int_b81d4e9d | type |
Dramatic Ellipsis | |
| London After Midnight / int_b81d4e9d | comment |
Dramatic Ellipsis: The vampires known as the Man in the Beaver Hat and the Stranger speak with ellipses between their words to indicate slow, possibly staggered way of speaking that heightens their eeriness. | |
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| London After Midnight / int_ba5bbda5 | type |
Mirror Character | |
| London After Midnight / int_ba5bbda5 | comment |
Mirror Character: Burke and Hamlin join forces to investigate what kind of vampire business is going on over at Balfour House and what measures need to be taken to ensure the safety of Hamlin House. However, each man holds half of the secrets behind what is going on, because Hamlin is the one who killed Balfour, while Burke is the organizer of the whole vampire charade meant to draw the murderer out. The both of them are ruthless manipulators who believe that the end results justify the means. Despite being middle-aged, Burke and Hamlin each fall in love with the 18-year old Lucille, though in the way they handle it they are opposites: Burke takes his responsibility and encourages her pursuit of a suitable partner, while Hamlin kills everyone who gets in the way of having her. | |
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| London After Midnight / int_bd4264a3 | type |
Slasher Smile | |
| London After Midnight / int_bd4264a3 | comment |
Slasher Smile: The Man in the Beaver Hat always has a huge grin on his face that nicely displays his rows of piranha teeth. | |
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| London After Midnight / int_c3df91ff | type |
Wooden Stake | |
| London After Midnight / int_c3df91ff | comment |
Wooden Stake: In the novelization, Jerry reads up on vampires to learn that the one surefire method of killing a vampire is "to drive a hickory stake through the heart of the vampyr". A table in the servants quarters is made of hickory, so he chops off one of the table legs and sharpens it with a hand-ax. | |
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| London After Midnight / int_ca87e3ec | type |
No Name Given | |
| London After Midnight / int_ca87e3ec | comment |
No Name Given: With the exception of Miss Smithson, the servants and assistants do not have names. The two vampire personas also have no names, being known only as the Man in the Beaver Hat and the Bat Girl. | |
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| London After Midnight / int_cfbd1467 | type |
Never Suicide | |
| London After Midnight / int_cfbd1467 | comment |
Never Suicide: Balfour is found dead in his home with a suicide note by his side. Without any clues to the opposite, the scene is taken at face value for five years until Burke returns with a plan to get to the bottom of the case. | |
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| London After Midnight / int_d62dd556 | type |
The Chessmaster | |
| London After Midnight / int_d62dd556 | comment |
The Chessmaster: Burke is the mastermind behind the vampires and the entire plan to draw out Balfour's murderer. This means that he manages five vampire actors and possibly another actor (Smithson, whom the final film doesn't make clear is part of the scheme) to manipulate a total of three suspects into actions that cause the murderer to be exposed. | |
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| London After Midnight / int_da31de41 | type |
Do You Trust Me? | |
| London After Midnight / int_da31de41 | comment |
Do You Trust Me?: Halfway into the investigation into the Balfour House vampires, Burke approaches Lucille with the news that he knows her father was murdered and that he wants to solve the case. For this, he needs her to trust him despite that he cannot explain anything at present. Lucille chooses to trust him. | |
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| London After Midnight / int_dc057cf3 | type |
Adaptation Name Change | |
| London After Midnight / int_dc057cf3 | comment |
Adaptation Name Change: Lucille is Lucy in the novelization. Arthur's name in the novelization is Jerry. | |
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| London After Midnight / int_e2c4b927 | type |
Dub Name Change | |
| London After Midnight / int_e2c4b927 | comment |
Dub Name Change: In the film, the gardener is without name. In the novelization based on the early script, he is called Thomas. In the French novelization based on the film as-is, he is called Harris. | |
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| London After Midnight / int_e2ccee25 | type |
Animal Motifs | |
| London After Midnight / int_e2ccee25 | comment |
Animal Motifs: Multiple armadillos are in the scene that introduces the Man in the Beaver Hat and the Bat Girl. There is debate about what they represent, but the likely connection is that armadillos are known as gravediggers and that they are ecological peers of vampire bats, the only bats that subside on blood and which natural habitat stretches from South America to the south of the USA. | |
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| London After Midnight / int_e7cb46d3 | type |
Satellite Character | |
| London After Midnight / int_e7cb46d3 | comment |
Satellite Character: In addition to the Man in the Beaver Hat, the Bat Girl, and the Stranger, there are three other vampire actors of minor importance. The two who appear as their own characters are part of Lunette's Flying Woman troupe. The third acts as the Man in the Beaver Hat whenever Burke has to be elsewhere, meaning his presence isn't even revealed until Burke comes clean about the charade. | |
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| London After Midnight / int_e9a97564 | type |
Evil Wears Black | |
| London After Midnight / int_e9a97564 | comment |
Evil Wears Black: The Man in the Beaver Hat is the most prominent vampire and he wears an all-black outfit consisting of a suit, an Inverness coat, and a beaver hat. | |
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| London After Midnight / int_ea8ba51d | type |
No Full Name Given | |
| London After Midnight / int_ea8ba51d | comment |
No Full Name Given: In the novelization, Thomas only is given a first name and Gallagher only a last name. Miss Smithson is only known by her last name in the film, but her first name is given as Anna in the novelization. Mr. Williams is also only known by his last name. | |
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| London After Midnight / int_ec4b148 | type |
Old, Dark House | |
| London After Midnight / int_ec4b148 | comment |
Old, Dark House: The Balfour House becomes a decaying, unappealing mansion after the death of Roger Balfour and his daughter moving in with her guardian Hamlin. Vermin takes up residence and while the exterior becomes overgrown, the interior gets covered in dust and cobwebs. The image is completed when five vampires become the Balfour House's legal tenants. | |
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| London After Midnight / int_f27ec906 | type |
Identical Stranger | |
| London After Midnight / int_f27ec906 | comment |
Identical Stranger: The Stranger, the actor who plays a vampiric Balfour, looks exactly like Balfour despite any lack of familial connection. | |
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| London After Midnight / int_f788b2c5 | type |
Love Makes You Evil | |
| London After Midnight / int_f788b2c5 | comment |
Love Makes You Evil: Hamlin murders Balfour because he objects to his friend's desire to marry his daughter when she comes of age. In the shooting script and novelization, he also kills Harry, his ward for the past five years, because he threatens independence and to take his sister with him out from Hamlin's control. Hamlin also makes preparations to kill either his secretary Jerry Hibbs in the novelization or his nephew and ward Arthur Hibbs in the film because of Hibbs's and Lucille's blossoming love. This particular murder is thwarted by Burke. | |
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| London After Midnight / int_f909b185 | type |
Lesbian Vampire | |
| London After Midnight / int_f909b185 | comment |
Lesbian Vampire: The Bat Girl has most to do with Lucille of all vampire actors and is very physical with the girl, which several promotional pieces highlight. Of note is the moment when, in order to find her father's murderer, Lucille is instructed to dress and act like she did when the murder took place five years ago. She hesitates because she's not at all comfortable about the situation and this prompts the Bat Girl to forcibly undress her. | |
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London After Midnight |
The following is a list of statements referring to the current page from other pages.
| London After Midnight | hasFeature |
Novelization / int_83d2e3da | |
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Supernatural Light / int_83d2e3da |
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