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| From https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons /4/45/The_Phantom_of_the_Opera_(1925_film).jpg |
Director: Rupert Julian
Screenplay: Elliott J. Clawson, Raymond L. Schrock,
Bernard McConville, Jasper Spearing, Richard Wallace, Walter Anthony, Tom Reed
and Frank M. McCormack
Cast: Lon Chaney (as Erik, The Phantom of the
Opera); Mary Philbin (as Christine Daaé); Norman Kerry (as Vicomte Raoul de
Chagny); Arthur Edmund Carewe (as Ledoux); Gibson Gowland (as Simon Buquet)
A Night of a Thousand
Horror (Movies) #44
Regrettably, while his iconic status is still held aloft in
horror lore through older fans, this is the first and only film I have ever
been able to see so far of Lon Chaney's,
his body of mostly silent horror cinema incredibly difficult to acquire in the
United Kingdom. One of the strangest anomalies of the DVD age, especially as
the British appreciate horror cinema with incredible reverence, is huge parts
of early American horror cinema (Val
Lewton for example) have been barely released, Lou Chaney another victim of this. Considering this film, this is
stupefying to consider because I immediately mesmerised by him; for once his sinister
plastic mask as the Phantom, haunting the Paris Opera House, is yanked off its
not only his (still) incredible makeup work that surprises, done to himself
using fishing wire to sculpt his own flesh, but how much of a prescience he is.
Not a ham, but like Vincent Price or Boris Karloff, he is giving a great
performance in context of a silent film just from body language stalking the
screen. His shadow is the first thing seen, hanging off a stone wall as a
sinister entity preventing anyone but budding opera singer Christine Daaé (Mary Philbin) from playing the lead in
Faust, but as he physically appears
on screen he stands out incredibly just from magnetism alone, making the
unavailability of his career to see in Britain irritating for me.
If there's only one major flaw with this adaptation of Gaston Leroux's original novel it's
that, like films nearly a century on, the hero and heroine are a bland duo cast
to represent wholesome, lovely normalcy when the diabolical (and sane) viewers
like myself are on Chaney's side. Chaney steals the film continually and
even if he's psychopathic, you're on the side of this melodramatic, organ
playing entity who wants love even if it means kidnapping an opera singer,
causing a giant chandelier to fall down on the audience, attempting to drown
people in the cellar of his already underground canal lair, and threaten to
blow up the entire opera house with gun powder. In comparison, Philbin as the singer threatened by the
Phantom and Norman Kerry as her dashing beau are merely stand-ins for
the excitement of the story, out done by Chaney
and the decadent production design.
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| From https://carrieannebrownian.files.wordpress.com/2015/10 /012-the-phantom-of-the-opera-theredlist.jpg |
While it's not as elaborate and haunting as what was being
depicted onscreen in Germany in the twenties, not just German Expressionism but
the set design of films like F.W.
Murnau's own take on Faust (1926),
I appreciate how theatrical but also tangible the world of this tale is. Giant stairways,
trapdoors which propel people up like springs as much as they fall down them,
secret doors behind mirrors, a sense of mystery around each set to reveal in,
let alone the Phantom's secret lair that requires a boat to get to it where he
sleeps in a coffin. It does evoke as a result Les Vampires (1915) in how it's not only horror but a pulp tale
where each door, each room is a prop that leads to a new event rather than set
dressing, the sense of space felt as the environments engulf their characters
and each room representing a new plot point. When viewed in the colour tints of
the restored version (of blood red, vibrant green), a greater potency is felt to
these sets.
Of course, this version of the Phantom of the Opera is also known for its environment with two tone
colour in the Bal Masqué sequence. It's rudimentary but witnessing it in 2016, the
sight of colour, of pink skin and the deep crimson of the Masque of the Red Death costume the Phantom wears, is awe
inspiring, a magic to it because of its flawed appearance against the visceral
nature of the colours themselves, seeing experimentation add new colours
(literally) to the painter's palette. The sense of spectacle is felt throughout
the film, more so because of its age and how it's from an entirely different
era where such extravagant sets were built; famously, until it was tragically
demolished in 2014, Soundstage 28 where the set was preserved in Universal
Studio was still kept into the modern day. Any issue of the more exaggerated
acting amongst the cast, particularly the comedic characters who work at the
theatre, or the bland nature of the good protagonists cannot detract from the
imaginative, exciting nature of the Phantom
of the Opera altogether because of this.
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| From https://i.ytimg.com/vi/9fAd2phremk/maxresdefault.jpg |
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