The Phantom of the Opera

Year of Release:  1925

Director:  Rupert Julian

Screenplay:  Walter Anthony, Elliott J. Clawson, Bernard McConville,  Frank M. McCormack, Tom Reed, Raymond L. Schrock, Jasper Spearing, Richard Wallace, based on the novel The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux

Starring:  Lon Chaney, Mary Philbin, Norman Kerry

Running Time:  107 minutes (re-edited version 93 minutes)

Genre:  Horror

Christine Daaé (Philbin) is the new up and coming star at the glittering Paris Opera House.  Her sweetheart Raoul (Kerry) wants her to give up performing and marry him.  However Christine refuses to abandon her career.  Meanwhile the opera house is full of rumours about a mysterious phantom haunting the corridors and cellars of the building.  The Phantom (Chaney) turns out to be all too real, as he develops a dangerous obsession with Christine.

Gaston Leroux's horror novel The Phantom of the Opera was first published as a serial in a Parisian newspaper in 1909, before appearing in book form in 1910.  Since then it has been adapted to the screen and stage numerous times, perhaps most famously as the 1986 Andrew Lloyd Webber stage musical, however this 1920s silent film could be the most iconic.  Silent films tend to present some problems modern audiences, not just with outdated content, but the nature of the medium and how they have been preserved.  Since many of these films are now out of copyright they are often available in several different versions, more on that later, as well as the use of title cards to tell story and dialogue and the often exaggerated acting styles.  The Phantom of the Opera is full of florid performances, some daft comic relief moments involving a bunch of people falling down trap doors and then being shot up again like circus clowns, odd choices such as characters raising their hands like they want to ask a question in order to avoid attacks by the Phantom and a fairly weak performance by Norman Kerry as the rather dull Raoul.  However Lon Chaney gives one of the most iconic performances in horror cinema, the famous makeup for the disfigured Phantom was famously devised and applied by Chaney himself, and the famous unmasking sequence is still startling even now, and at the time cinema ushers were advised to keep smelling salts on hand for moviegoers fainting at the sight of the Phantom's visage.  You'll probably be okay to do without the smelling salts, but it's still a powerful image.  Chaney's performance is more than just makeup.  He makes the Phantom into a fully fledged character, terrifying but also sympathetic.  The scene where he learns of what he sees as Christine's betrayal, perched on a gargoyle, shrouded in his billowing red cape is actually very moving.  Mary Philbin is effective as Christine, and there is real power in her scenes in the Phantom's layer.  The film has a real epic feel, with the scenes of the grand staircase and the auditorium of the Opera House having real grandeur, and the catacombs and cellars, including an underground lake (which apparently actually exists under the Paris Opera House, although these days it is used more by trainee firefighters than disfigured, lovelorn classical music aficionados).  The film exists in various different cuts.  There was the 1925 original version which runs to 107 minutes, and a re-edited version made in 1929, with alternate takes of many scenes which was originally released as a partial sound film, where cinemas were supplied with discs containing music and partial dialogue, as opposed to laying as. silent film with a live musical accompaniment.  There are several different versions of the both cuts of the film of varying quality.  I saw the 1929 which had been remastered.  As was fairly common practice in the silent era certain scenes shot in black-and-white were tinted various colours to provide atmosphere, additionally The Phantom of the Opera features a sequence at a Masked Ball, which is shot in early Technicolor and features a terrifying appearance by the Phantom disguised as the "Red Death".  While it is certainly not without it's flaws, this film is a classic of horror cinema and one of the high points of silent Hollywood.

Lon Chaney is The Phantom of the Opera