NECA London After Midnight Ultimate Professor Edward C Burke Figure
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00:00when deducing may not catch a criminal you may need to resort to a disguise
00:04here's your look at the brand-new neck of toys London after midnight the
00:07ultimate professor Burke
00:10despite all copies being destroyed in a vault fire the 1927 silent film London
00:32after midnight has remained a cult classic Lon Chaney plays a dual role as
00:36professor Edward Burke and the man in the beaver hats in a tale of murder and
00:40inevitable justice this ultimate action figure from the classic silver screen
00:44movie is highly articulated and comes with lantern removable hat extra hands
00:48three interchangeable heads and attachable winged cape the seven-inch
00:52figure comes in a collector's friendly window box packaging with open flap
00:55even though really his frights are just the facade before we course we get a
00:59closer look at the ultimate professor Burke from London after midnight I'd
01:02like to thank the folks over at neck of toys that did provide this sample we
01:05could have a look at you did hear right at the beginning this review all copies
01:08unfortunately of London after midnight were destroyed in 1965 MGM vault fire
01:13some copies I'm sure still exists somewhere but they haven't surfaced yet
01:17the figure though of professor Burke is gonna stand just a little over seven
01:21inches in height maybe about seven and a quarter inches well that's gonna
01:24translate to a figure that's 18 centimeters tall I'm sure this guy may
01:27have some problems with Burke playing dress-up as the undead here's what the
01:29figure looks like with the Bela Lugosi Dracula a character that always tries to
01:32hide his facial features here's the figure looks like with the Phantom of
01:35the Opera and a character that has to dress up in order for him to see him
01:38here's what the figure looks like with the Universal Monsters Invisible Man in
01:41the movie the deer inspector dresses up as a vampire in order to catch the
01:45criminals so his frightful face isn't even his own face ironically enough
01:48though Lon Chaney was responsible for doing his own makeup and even though
01:52unfortunately don't have a working film available for London after midnight most
01:56of the movie has now been presented through stills and background music so
02:00there is a way still to watch it although it's only just still pictures
02:03that you can be seeing the figure though comes included quite a lot of
02:05accessories first he comes with a lantern the lanterns nicely molded here
02:10in a very dark gunmetal gray it looks to be the case that they've used the
02:14translucent yellow plastic as sort of the main part of the lantern it does
02:18actually fit into his hands although not the hands that he has right now but he
02:21does actually have one suitable for holding the lantern it's just basically
02:24this hand here you take the handle carefully because that's one thing
02:27that's gonna be potentially broken if you're not too careful just basically
02:30feed it underneath his fingers you can also as well pry the fingers which I
02:34find helps a little bit pry them just away from the palm just enough that you
02:38can actually get the handle in there because like I said you don't want it to
02:41break it basically holds it exactly that way the figure has already sort of
02:45disfigured or somewhat our arthritic hands on the ends of his forms the
02:49figure also comes in clue with a pointing hand and also comes in clue
02:53with more of relaxed palm as well and easily it's just a case of popping it
02:56off from the existing forms they has or the existing hands just pop those off
03:00you get to go the figure also as well comes in clue with a top hat all the
03:04three heads by the way do accommodate the top hat which is basically made of
03:07very soft plastic taking the one that we started with though it's basically just
03:11a case of fitting it over top of his head and it fits in really nicely if
03:15you're not as familiar really necessarily with London after midnights
03:18or Professor Burke for that matter what you can also really do too is I find
03:22this guy would be a really great stand-in for a Jekyll and Hyde I don't
03:25think really we have plans for a Jekyll and Hyde figure down the road but this
03:29would be really I think an ideal stand-in for a Jekyll in the meantime or
03:32I guess it would be Hyde in the meantime now he has this head sculpt or he also
03:37has two I mean let's just grab these right now so you guys can see he has
03:40this head sculpt which has a very demonic looking smile in front of his
03:43face he also has this one now actually all three of these heads also kind of
03:48remind me a little bit of Uncle Fester from the Addams Family movie with
03:52Christopher Lloyd you could probably I'm sure customize this as well but the head
03:55sculpts again on all three of them I do like the darker off purple gray that
03:59they've used for the skin tone the big buggly eyes that he has sticking out
04:03actually really do paint nicely and you can see they're a little off yellowed
04:06here and a big smile on his teeth there as well the teeth actually is one of my
04:11favorite things about the head sculpt is that all three of them also have very
04:14well painted teeth for how small really those are the paintwork on these is
04:19exceptional the only thing I would really worry though about is putting on
04:23the hat as many times as well I haven't done it very many at all but the fact
04:27that this is likely painted putting on a hat several times I would imagine would
04:31start to probably wear away the paint on the sides of the face that's not gonna
04:34happen for me I'm gonna basically just essentially choose which head I want to
04:37use and then stick with that now we looked at this head and I believe I also
04:41brought in this head here which you can actually see does have the comb over on
04:45the top party on the back long sideburns they're sticking over the ears he has
04:50that head sculpt and if I can actually hold these two I can bring in the other
04:53one my favorite by far is this one here not only takes the idea of going crazy
04:58and takes it to the extreme but you also see as well more of an opportunity for
05:02that tongue to be predominant the eyes are also looking a little bit more down
05:05on this head sculpt and again changing the heads isn't that hard at all you
05:09basically just take the head that you want to use remove the head that you
05:12don't want to do deal with anymore just pop that off the provided peg take the
05:15head that you want to use which again is this one right here for me and pop that
05:19very securely in place now he does also have a back section here for his cloak
05:23this jacket piece by the way is simply removable you don't even have to worry
05:27really about taking the hat off first this comes off you're probably wondering
05:30why this comes off too is that he can also swap it out with a fabric version
05:34of this the reason why they give you two is if you put this over top of his jacket
05:38the way it is right now it's very impossible in fact bring his arms
05:41forward without prying away the plastic basically that's gonna sit over top of
05:45his jacket so neck I thought of that and what they did instead so there's
05:49basically like this plastic version that's gonna go over top of the jacket
05:51you can then take this off in favor though of a fabric version the fabric
05:56version that was a little bit lighter so when you're putting it against the
05:59backdrop of the plastic for his jacket you can see like it's not quite the same
06:02color but it's pretty close you know basically fit that over top just pull
06:06these over like you're drawing curtains now you basically have a cloth version
06:09that gives you a lot more freedom especially if you want to bring his arms
06:12out for example you wouldn't really be able to do that with this one here the
06:16actually other thing that the figure also comes included with is the bat wings
06:20I know bat wings as well yes the figure does also come include with us as we do
06:25see I would say in the more normally I would have said in the movie but from
06:28the stills that we see he also has a pair of bat wings guess buying into the
06:32whole idea that he looks like a vampire it's really interesting to see a company
06:35like NECA toys doing something in a medium like this normally you just
06:38expect to see like plastic but while it's plastic it's definitely a lot more
06:42more rubbery it's kind of more like a rubbery fruit roll-up nice detailing and
06:47texturing on the back of the wings there as well it's gonna go basically this way
06:50and what you'll need to do is you'll have to pop off the head and pop off the
06:53side hands in order to fit this basically around the pegs let's do that
06:56what we're gonna do is now again you want to take the cloth one I mean you
07:01don't really have to necessarily you could just take this off entirely but
07:03from what I've seen at least from the stills it seems to be the case that he
07:06still has the back of the jacket still on there so you want to just make sure
07:09that you bring the fabric around you want to make sure of course you want to
07:12have a face in the right way and this is one thing honestly that I had a harder
07:16time to do it wasn't even so much changing out the heads but just making
07:19sure that this was folded back because you don't want to get this stuck in the
07:23way basically just put that over top of the back of his neck and once you get
07:27that you want to make sure that these are basically fit fastened around the
07:30sides and I guess what you probably may have wanted to do first is take the head
07:34off just pop that off to provide a peg we're gonna take this part here that's
07:38on the top of the wings and that's the thing that's gonna fit over top now
07:41again you can either leave these off if you wanted to I prefer to keep them on
07:45because again based on some of the stills it seems to be the case that he
07:48still has this on his jacket as well pop the head back in place so that's gonna
07:51keep now the wings all intact then you're gonna bring the arms out you
07:55probably already can see where this is gonna go you're gonna remove the hands
07:58do it on the one side and we'll do the exact same on the other side here if
08:05you're having any tough time by the way removing the pegs you can always go the
08:07route of heating this up I did actually drop the top of the cloak but I can
08:11easily just retrieve that just down here and then what we're gonna do is
08:14we're gonna take the hands and the hands will kind of be the thing that guides
08:18those back in so you're gonna plug this in one make sure of course I got facing
08:22the I want to make sure I've got the right hands facing here so just fit the
08:25peg in and the pegs gonna be the thing that guides it back into the forearm
08:28you're gonna do it on one side and then you're gonna do the same as you guessed
08:32it on the other side as well now while I'm doing this too the only thing I
08:36would really worry about is being that this is a very soft rubbery plastic I
08:39don't know if over time this will develop stress marks my plan though in
08:43mind is probably not to have the figure displayed with the bat wings but again
08:46when you're putting it back onto the form just want to be careful pulling it
08:50back in place there we go and even though I did really lose these in the
08:54process again you could always just take really the cloak and the cloak could
08:58just fit over top now again you can leave it off really if you want to I'm
09:01just gonna put it back on there because it gives them the additional color piece
09:03so that basically fits back in place and just kind of bring everything out
09:08accordingly to finish the look we'll go ahead and add the top hat again you can
09:12choose to have the top hat on or off if you want but I think that gives us a
09:15nice finish look for the deer inspector of course the jacket itself being a
09:20softer plastic this isn't gonna be something that's gonna ever be removed
09:23on the figure but again like if you want to have the figure displayed with the
09:26wings boy does that ever look really nice for all that work and all that
09:31effort what we're gonna only just do anyways is I'm gonna remove this one
09:34last look just show you guys what that looks like again I really like the
09:37rubbery material my only real one concern is actually the way that those
09:40loop around the hands not so much around the neck but I mean again if you're
09:44gonna be moving this around this is such a very thin layer of that plastic very
09:48thin strand I just don't want that to break so we're just gonna pop these off
09:52and once they're unpegged really the cape easily comes off just do it on the
09:57other side as well there we go and then of course we're gonna have to go back to
10:01removing the head and we'll just take off the cape piece all together we're
10:04just going ahead and move the wings off to the side going back all that and put
10:08the head back in place put the hands back as well those just plug back in
10:12proper place and we'll do it on the other side as well yeah we will leave
10:18the fabric off I'll leave the actual cloak piece off the back of his jacket
10:21because it's just made a little bit easier looking at the rest of the
10:23details on the figure so again like he does have this head sculpt which is my
10:26favorite really of the three and then his jacket basically consists of layers
10:30so here's a suit jacket which seems to be a tailed jacket and then he also has
10:35himself the trench coat basically goes over top of it they've colored matched
10:38everything really nicely here so even like the jacket that he has underneath
10:41matches pretty close in color to the black that he has for his outer jacket
10:44and of course he's got the sleeves that go along with that as well the lower
10:47pants also have somewhat of a matching color you could choose really to have
10:52this guy paired along with your black and white Universal Monsters but being
10:55the fact that he does have some color there in his eyes and especially in his
10:58tongue that's why I would likely probably want to choose to have this guy
11:01displayed my colored versions of the Universal Monsters rather than the black
11:04and white for the figures articulation while still keeping with it the top cat
11:09the top hats on top of his head the figure does have a ball joint so
11:13professor Burke does easily rotate his head all the way around it looks up that
11:15far it looks down and else moves back and forth again one of the main reasons
11:19why I love this head sculpt so much is the fact that the eyes are angled down
11:22like this it really gives him a sinister look the arms do come out at easily 90
11:26degrees so you can take those arms and rotate them all the way around because
11:29this is also softer plastic even though the arms are really close in quarters
11:32it doesn't seem to be a thing that gets hung up so you can easily rotate the
11:36arms back and forth it's a single hinge only in the elbow but that allows at
11:39least the form to rotate back and forth and Burke's hands rotate all the way
11:42around the upper torso is despite all these layers having there I mean you can
11:47still easily rotate his torso all the way around the legs do split a little
11:51more hindered by the fact he does have the jacket over top of it you bring this
11:54still the legs forward bring them back so swivel at the top of the thigh again
11:58only a single hinge on the lower knee the allow the rotation there on the
12:01lower leg and an ankle pivot back and forth this way and an ankle rocker this
12:06way as well of course I can't help but over also mentioned as well I don't want
12:10to overlook this that Burke does also pegs on the undersides of his feet so if
12:13you want to have the figure displayed with the display stand if you want to
12:16put him in more of an interesting pose and I've got him displayed right now you
12:19can do that neck it does of course provide not with the figure though but
12:23they do sell certainly standalone display stands you can also always pick
12:26those up as well I really like the look of Professor Burke it's really again sad
12:30the fact that London after midnight was just burned in an MGM's vault fire if
12:34not for that copies probably would have existed I still think though somewhere
12:38sitting in somebody's vault or storage locker is probably in a copy because you
12:43would imagine though MGM would not be the only ones that would have a copy of
12:47that movie it probably has been passed down from generation to generation and
12:50there's probably now you know people that probably have a copy sitting
12:54somewhere but it hasn't yet surfaced so unfortunately the only way right now to
12:57still watch London after midnight is basically through a series of stills and
13:01pictures put all together with background music it's not probably the
13:04most ideal way and not probably the way that the original makers and the
13:07director and certainly Lon Chaney had intended that the movie was ever going
13:10to survive but at least the movies the movie somewhat survives with a figure
13:15that we get from NECA toys I'm so glad that we did get ourselves Professor
13:18Burke he's got one of those iconic looks to him that even though you may
13:21not have had the chance to see the movie you probably would have still come
13:24across Inspector Burke here the figure is nicely detailed he's got a lot of
13:28accessories going for him and even though I mean really depending on how
13:31you really want to have the figures displayed I think he still stands in
13:34really well with the rest of Universal Monsters just bring in a couple right
13:37now you could choose to either have the figure displayed as Professor Burke or
13:40again as mentioned earlier I think he'd also stand in really nice for a hide you
13:45know Jekyll's counterpart even though the movie was destroyed the 1965 MGM
13:49Volfire in 2002 Turner classic movies aired a reconstructed version produced
13:54by Rick Schmidlin using the original script and numerous film stills to
13:57recreate the original plot not really the ideal way of watching London after
14:02midnight but that's the best that we'll do until somebody one day just happens
14:05to go through their collection of film reels and comes across London after
14:09midnight even though one of the copies I'm sure was destroyed there's always a
14:12chance and a hope at least that somebody has one still in their
14:15collection now me being a big avid collector of physical media I know
14:19something about the idea of having a movie lost in time with nowadays not so
14:23much Volfire's but we always have to worry about digital and streaming media
14:27that one day if you don't have physical media movies like that that only exist
14:31in the digital world of space will just cease to exist so I'm always a big
14:35advocate of having films on a library shelf physical something you can pull
14:39away and open up and watch whenever you want versus relying on streaming
14:44services and again just one day decide they don't want to have that movie air
14:47anymore when it comes to certainly the longevity of London after midnight we
14:51can of course thank companies like NECA toys that keep the movie and the legacy
14:55of Long Chaney alive by producing ultimate figures of them now of course
14:59what we get here in Professor Burke is a nice recreation of what we see in the
15:02stills of London after midnight recreated with three very interesting
15:06very unique different head sculpts of course he has different accessories
15:09including the Batwings I've got the figure displayed with white right now
15:11the only thing I would worry though when it comes to Burke is the Batwings that
15:15attach on the back of his body being that they only attached by only looplets
15:19around his wrists and especially around his neck those would all be things
15:22especially for how thin that material is that I would worry over time would maybe
15:26start to degrade and even rip themselves so I'm not planning probably display
15:30Burke with the Batwings but again it's a nice included accessory and I'm glad
15:34that NECA threw those in there after all it is in the movie from what little we
15:37are able to see of it it's nice that they actually included it with the
15:41figure as well big thank you once again to the folks over at NECA toys that did
15:44provide the sample of the London after midnight ultimate Professor Burke that
15:48we had the chance to have a look at this review have you guys ever seen London
15:51after midnight and you know again by saying seen have you ever really seen
15:55what we got the closest thing to being the movie have you ever watched it let
15:58me know down below in the comment section also as well if you guys did
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16:27next time
16:37you