If you could destroy one classic, and bring back a lost one?

[filmmaker2]

Destroy "Night of the Living Dead?????" Oh no! Oh no! Nooooooooo!

Well, all right.

[lilknivesguy]

Originally posted by urgeok
...how many lost classics are there ? someone have a list ?

I guess we first have to define what is meant by "lost"? If the film had been made, and the prints are extant (like NOSFERATU was for many years and only presumed lost for good), that's one category. But then there are those films that were never made, but planned (like the legendary Hammer "lost projects").

If we stick to what we presume are "lost" but extant works, there aren't that many. Edison's 1910 version of FRANKENSTEIN (in its entirety) would be interesting to see.

The aforementioned LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT tops my list as it apparently does so many folks here in this thread. What's funny, though, is that one Chaney expert thinks LONDON would have been "a stinker." See

http://www.filmthreat.com/Features.a...One.inc&Id=195

Don't mean to take us off-topic, but it's an interesting article if you're a Chaney fan.

[ClassicHorror]

Lost: Un-findable.

That question is impossible to answer.

[lilknivesguy]

Well, then, OK. Un-findable makes for a short thread, and a bit of a paradoxical exercise, but we can revisit your suggestion of Devil's Castle, by which I assume you mean Melies' Le Manoir du Diable from 1896. Two to three minutes of all manner (manor? manoir?) of mephistophelian mayhem, from bats to cauldrons to cavaliers with crosses.

There are a few seconds of it in Real Player at http://www.mshepley.btinternet.co.uk/melies2.htm (click on the camera icon at end of paragraph about the film)

But yeah, no one has found the entire thing (or no French archive has coughed it up). So we can agree on
Le Manoir du Diable (1896)
Frankenstein (1910) and
London After Midnight (1927)? Any others?

I'll still hold out for Frankenstein. Which really isn't "un-findable" (see http://www.filmthreat.com/Features.a...One.inc&Id=284 ). Nothing is truly "un-findable" unless it never existed in th first place. There's always a private collector or museum archive somewhere that seems to surface. And then the legal entanglements ensue.

As to what "classic" should topple and be supplanted by the new find? I never much thought Creature from the Black Lagoon deserved the same stature as the other "classic" monsters.

[iamragmar]

I'm pretty sure there was a thin book all about lost horror films, it had a beautiful painted cover of London After Midnight(a close up of chaney), it was about £10, I kick myself now for not buying it, but I was not that heavily interested in horror films as I am now, to be honest, most of the films didn't look very interesting.

[HollywoodGoth]

This is easy.

DESTROY: NOSFERATU
RESURRECT: LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT

[Doc Faustus]

Destroy: Rosemary's Baby
Bring Back: Der Januskopf

[Marya Zaleska]

I would get rid of Monster From The Surf and bring back London After Midnight with Lon Chaney, Senior

[DEATHH DREAMS author]

Netflix doesn't have either London After Midnight or The Devil's Castle...bummer...

I would destroy the original Frankenstein and bring back Lady Frankenstein.

[Roderick Usher]

Originally Posted by DEATHH DREAMS author

Netflix doesn't have either London After Midnight or The Devil's Castle...bummer...

I would destroy the original Frankenstein and bring back Lady Frankenstein.

IT DOES!!!! I've rented it, it's part of the "Lon Chaney Collection" I can't remember which volume, but it's listed as a special feature. It is presented as a series of stills with text in between to fill in the blanks of the story.

And I hate to say it, but it's a lame story. I won't go into spoilers (as this is readily available on DVD!) but the story certainly wasn't what I thought it was and not terribly exciting...and I am a huge Lon Chaney fan.

Yes, he looks awesome. I've long been fetishizing the make-up design, but the story is weak compared to ANY of the classics people have suggested to lose in favor of this one.

Lose the Spanish-language Dracula??? I find it even moodier than Brownings version...sure it's missing Lugosi, but it's still wonderful. And Night of the Living Dead is my all-time favorite film...couldn't dream of losing it.

Very interesting thread indeed, but I love the classics too much to destroy one on speculation of what could have been.

But I'm a tremendous nerd, so...