Debunking the Found Vampire [2008]
Remember when I wrote about Harry at AICN saying that there was a possibility that the long lost silent “London After Midnight” might have been found? Ivan Shreve points us to Stacia at She Blogged By Night. Stacia makes a case (that Vincent Bugliosi would be proud to claim) and her conclusion is that Harry’s original source is a fraud.I can’t say that I’m shocked. Disappointed, but not shocked. At least we still have the lost scenes from “Metropolis” coming our way.
I never properly thanked you for the shout-out, Craig. Thanks! I’ve always loved that promo from LAM, because you can actually see the wires Chaney used to bug out his eyes.
Meanwhile, I’m jealous of your sidebar list and must find away to get one of my own.
Thanks for dropping in Stacia!
I received the e-mail below and thought it was worth sharing… the controversy continues…
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Just forwarding to you the same thing I sent to “Stacia”
Regarding your blog debunking Sid Terror’s LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT article, you got so many of your facts wrong that it is criminal.
I notice you do not have your pages set up to accept public responses, and that alone is very telling.
Doing my own research, Popeye cartoon you mentioned was not available at the time Terror found it. It was LOST. He should be credited for this find, which was very important. Neither research books or most notably the official Fleisher biography that was out at that time even had it listed. Which means it was both lost and FORGOTTEN. Terror made a very important discovery that preserved some animation history.
As a person who works in the film industry, I know of the company Cinema Delivery. It is known by everyone. People commonly refer to it as “Cinema Delivery”, “Cinema Delivery Company”, “The Cinema Delivery Service” etc. Coca-Cola and Coke are the same thing and everyone knows it. So he got “street” and “avenue” mixed up. Give it a rest, he worked their 20 years ago.
Tom “Dewey” DeWitt is a very real person, as id his brother Bob “Bullet” DeWitt. Dewey was film electrician, Bullet did everything from transportation work to stunt driving in Thelma and Louise. Relying on the IMDB is fool hearty. As people who actually have listing in it will tell you, because much like wikipedia and no-nothing can make updates to it and get facts wrong. THE ROSE btw was shot in the summer of 1977.
Lori is an accepted shortened nickname for Laura. Pat for Patricia, Debbie for Deborah, Peter for Pete, Robert for Bob, and Richard for Dick are other examples of this practice. Laura DeWitt does work as a personal assistant for the production company named in the Ain’t It Cool news quote, the author of quote itself is a Producer there.
As a person who lives in Manhattan Kansas, I doubt you have ever been in a film storage facility. Security and the way they run is often lax. Having never been in this facility yourself and seen how it was run, you are reckless in your assumptions. Delivery people in the motion picture business are bonded and allowed into many secure areas, the same as security guards.
You say Terror was “fired” from Cinema Delivery only to bolster your other claims and tinge his character. Subtle but very smarmy of you. He himself explained he was laid off due to company downsizing.
Terror told his story and got it out there. Quite a bit of work seems to have gone into the writing of it. It’s purpose appears to be to bring awareness to a print and get a bit of history found, as well as showing what happens when things get lost in a system that doesn’t always work. Saying he made a claim now doesn’t have to do a damn thing is irresponsible of you, when he has offered to do follow-ups to assist in the search himself unpaid.
If the people who run archives should not be made aware of these claims, who should? Listing contact info of vault archivists, so that they can be informed and DO THEIR JOB makes complete sense. Why deride Mr. Terror for that? Who in your opinion should we tell, bee keepers?
I seriously doubt Mr. Terror wrote this article to get his name in Google, as you claim. That would be a pretty round about way to make that happen. Really your blog ends up just coming off as a fantastic and ridiculous conspiracy theory, full of your own inconsistencies and lack of knowledge and research. I doubt you even came up with most of it yourself, but instead cobbled it together from what a bunch of internet kooks have been saying. That peanut gallery may make a lot of noise, but noise does not equal intelligence.
What you are doing is reckless and can only serve to defame a story that should be taken seriously and investigated.
But your blog has gotten your site a lot of hits and a Google listing while riding on the coat tails of a bigger story, hasn’t it?
Montgomery Brando
Hollywood, California