The Phantom of the Opera (1925)
“The Phantom of the Opera” (1925)
"The Opera ghost really existed. He was not, as was long believed, a
creature of the imagination of the artists, the superstition of the managers,
or a product of the absurd and impressionable brains of the young ladies of the
ballet, their mothers, the box-keepers, the cloak-room attendants or the
concierge. Yes, he existed in flesh and blood, although he assumed the complete
appearance of a real phantom; that is to say, of a spectral shade."
No, the Phantom never did actually live, but the Phantom is clearly alive today
in ways denied the vast majority of real souls who actually walked this World. He
was created by Gaston Leroux for his Novel “The
Phantom of the Opera” (1909), which was clearly influenced by Victor Hugo’s
Novel “The Hunchback of Notre-Dame” (1831). Despite its virtues like an
irresistible narrative line and passages of lyrical beauty and dread worthy of
Edgar Allen Poe, the book was pretty deeply flawed and likely would’ve disappeared
from our cultural memory had it not been for this film and how it inspired a
long line of remakes, most more rooted in this film than the original novel.
Any
film from the Silent Era that is still broadly known today is something
special. This particular one is held up in a circle of maybe four that even your
run-of-the-mill movie-fan can name if you ask them about Silent Horror film. It
was also the second film in the greatest string of classic Horror films ever
produced by a single studio, the Golden Age of Universal Monsters that ran from
“The Hunchback of Norte Dame” (1923, obviously Silent) to “The Wolf Man” (1941,
well into the Sound Era). This film was born of largely the same creative team
as “The Hunchback of ...” but at the time it was produced, much of that extraordinary
talent pool was jumping ship for MGM, requiring Universal to restock its talent;
it is remarkable that Universal managed to pull it off and keep the hits
coming. This would happen again-and-again, and from what I’ve read, Universal’s
mistreatment of their talent was often why people kept jumping ship in the
first place (that certainly was the case with Director James Whale and Actor Boris
Karloff, whose “Frankenstein” (1931) and “Bride of Frankenstein” (1935) which are
probably two best films of that Golden Era). Even before “The Wolf Man,” but
far more obviously afterwards, Universal had finally reached the point of
eating its own tail. I guess, after almost thirty-years, the reservoir had run
dry, so the studio couldn’t merely hire its way out of its mistreatment and
interference of those who had already brought them success.
This
is without doubt one of the great films of the Silent Era, with several scenes
that have permanently ingrained themselves in our cultural memory, but it can’t
be denied that much of this film is actually kinda weak. If you look at any
list of “Greatest Films” (and this movie is on a few of them) you will see a
number of masterpieces that are deeply flawed, but few as flawed, while at the
same time as marvelous, as this.
So,
lemme tell you the story of how it came to be, and why it became what it was. The
key players in this drama about making a drama are Producer Irving Thalberg and Actor Lon Chaney.
In this era, Thalberg was Universal’s
most gifted Producer, known for his “an uncanny sense of story” (so wrote his
biographer Bob Thomas) and cultivated attentive and supportive relationships with
his talent. During his three years with the studio he was able slow the
defections of talent to MGM.
Before
his association with Thalberg, Chaney was a struggling “Actor’s Actor” admired
among his peers for his gifts and dedication, but no way viewed as a Leading Man
by the studio this despite the fact that Chaney had at least two successful
lead-roles under his belt already, “The Miracle Man”
and “The Penalty” (1919 & 1920,
respectively, but I admit I have seen neither). His make-up skills were unique, and that is what ultimately elevated
him above the pack, but his dramatic skills were even greater, and Chaney’s
devotees single out some roles where he did not rely on make-up as his finest work
(“Tell it to the Marines” and “West of Zanzibar” (1926 & 1928, respectively, but, again, I’ve seen neither)).
Thalberg’s
Co-Producer on “The Hunchback of …” was studio founder Carl Laemmle, who would
ultimately be the Producer on “The Phantom…” In most versions of this history, Thalberg
was the driving force behind, “The Hunchback of …” and the one who insisted on
Chaney’s casting. By almost any measure “The Hunchback of …” is a better film
than “The Phantom of …” and it finally earned Chaney the major Stardom he
deserved. It would also prove Universal’s most profitable film to-date.
“The
Phantom of …” was an obvious follow-up to “The Hunchback of …” sharing both Gothic
Themes and a Paris setting (both films use the same Norte Dame set), and “The
Hunchback of …” Chaney was uniquely skilled to be the lead in both. It didn’t
hurt that the Author of “The Phantom of…” was still alive, and personally
pitched the project to Universal Executive Carl Laemmle while Laemmle
vacationed in Paris.
Universal’s
best Director at the time was Erich
von Stroheim, who track-record for hits made him seemingly
unassailable by the Studio Executives, but his reputation for fast-and-lose
spending put him at odds with all he worked for. Though Thalberg had a great love of lavish films and
defended most Creators’ artistic choices, he also took his responsibilities as
Producer seriously and as von Strohiem’s cost-overruns became increasingly onerous
so, ironically, Thalberg seemed the only one in the studio willing to standup
to the already legendary figure. “The Phantom of …” was to be von Stroheim’s
film, but clashes between Thalberg and von Stroheim over two back-to-back
productions, “Foolish Wives” (1922) and “Merry-Go-Round” (1923) led to Thalberg
firing von Stroheim.
After that the story of the production
gets muddled. “The Hunchback of …” skilled Director, Wallace Worsley, was not
considered -- was this because he’d jumped ship to Paramount, or did he jump
ship after not getting this plumb gig? One thing is clear, a new Director was
needed, and the one chosen wasn’t the one Thalberg wanted. Though the new
Director was supposed to have the virtue of thrift, in the end, “The Phantom of
…” cost over-runs exceeded those of von Strohiem’s films, all the while being guided
by hands that had nowhere near the amount of artistry.
Director Rupert Julian first came the
attention of Universal after his enormous success with the WWI propaganda film
for Renowned Pictures, “The Kaiser, the Beast of Berlin”
(1918), which he Wrote, Produced, Directed, and Starred in the title role. At Universal, his first major project was
completing “Merry-Go-Round” after von Strohiem’s firing, and this, no doubt, this
steered him to “The Phantom of…” Allegedly, he promised he could bring down
costs by modifying “Merry-Go-Round’s” Austrian costumes to make them French.
And
the story gets more complicated, and therefore murkier. MGM Studio Head, Louis
B. Mayer, managed to tempt both Producer Thalberg and Actor Chaney away from
Universal, but in Chaney’s case, they did so without the protection of an
contract (the fact that Chaney, at this point, couldn’t get a decent contract
at either studio seems unfathomable). So Thalberg’s role in this story is
completed, but Chaney remained free to remain attached to Universal’s “The
Phantom of …” even though he already had a hit at MGM, “He Who Gets Slapped” (1924).
(Thalberg
would eventually secure that good contract for Chaney with MGM after completion
of “The Phantom of …” but that’s another story.)
Once
on the set, pretty much everyone involved decided they despised Director Julian.
As an Actor in the role as “The Kaiser …” he overplayed the part of the bullying,
blood-thirsty, Prussian Militarist (or at least is said to have, the actual
film is lost) and as Director of “The Phantom of …” he was mocked by many for
seemingly still be trapped in that part. Ultimately, he didn’t complete the
film, and almost every really compelling sequence has since been credited to
three Directors who received no such credit at the time, Edward Sedgwick, Ernst Laemmle (Carl Laemmle’s
nephew) and Actor Chaney.
The fact that the troubled production
ever got completed, instead of permanently shelved, was likely to do with the
fact that Universal had invested so much money in it up-front, so they were
obligated to keep throwing more money at it even when it became obvious that
everything had gone off-the-rails. They built the first steel-and-concrete
stage in Hollywood history which housed the entire interior set of the Opera
House, the stage, the backstage area, and the grand staircase. This stage is
the only surviving set from any Chaney film, standing today as a featured
attraction on the Universal lot.
All the sets, and their details, were
amazing. The Opera house was massive and adorned with grand statuary, rich
draperies, and flickering shadows. Underground was an elaborate maze of
chambers influenced by Piranesi’s “Imaginary Prisons” (a series of etchings
originally published in 1761) and featured an underground lake that the Phantom
could drain and fill at will, and more secret doors and booby traps than any
other film I can think of.
Though a Silent Film, it was obsessed
with music and as in the best Movie Palaces it would play accompanied by a live
orchestra; this “Silent” film was conceived to be more alive with sound than some
of our contemporary Sound Cinema. An amazing 250 dancers were hired at various
points in the production, all under the supervision of the renowned
Choreographer Ernest Belcher.
One sequence, the celebrated Masked Ball
where the Phantom appears and the “The Masque of the Red Death,” was even shot
in a newly invented two-color Technicolor process.
But Julien proved incompetent, he had resources
available to him that any other Director would kill for, but showed far too
little knowledge of the techniques and innovations of the likes of von Stroheim
or F. W. Murnau. The crashing chandelier sequence is memorable only because it
is so uninspired (it would be a highlight of almost all later productions), but
worse, Julien seemed to lack basic technical knowledge, so the expensive
sequence had to be filmed twice because it was inadequately lit the first time
around.
Julien seemed over-enamored of the
massiveness of the sets, and even in his well-executed scenes the most
significant action is shot at an extreme distance, making the actors seem tiny
and doll-like. This might have been a good choice with the dancers on the stage
and the POV is that of the Opera house audience, but not so much after the
Phantom’s first face-to-face meeting with Christine Daaé, the singer he’s obsessed
with, and his guides her on horse-back through the basements and catacombs to
his secret underground lair. Charles van Enger, one of three credited
Cinematographers, has stated that he eventually started agreeing to whatever
Julien demanded and then would do things the right way and Julien never knew
the difference.
The film’s best performer was Chaney,
who brought more to the production than any other Actor of the time could have.
Though Chaney and Julien worked together before on “The Kaiser…” their
relationship became toxic during this production with Chaney refusing to talk to
or take Direction from him, and some argue this saved the film.
The male romantic lead, Viscount Raoul
de Chagny, was played by Norman Kerry, who was carried over from “Merry-Go-Round.”
Kerry was from a wealthy family but he looked as acting as a hobby, he liked to
say that if he didn’t have it to fall back on, he’d actually have to work. He
wasn’t terrible, but he wasn’t one of the era’s great Leading Men either. His Character,
de Chagny, was potentially more
interesting than, let’s say, Character Johnathan Harker from “Dracula” (novel
by Bram Stoker, 1897, and a later film adaptation became cornerstone of the
Universal’s Golden Age of Monsters, 1931) but Kelly really brought nothing to
the role except his good looks.
Worse was Character Christine Daaé, played
by Mary Philbin. Actress Philbin was almost completely devoid
of natural talent, and though she delivered reasonably well with some highly
skilled Directors, like von Stohiem, or co-stars willing to guide her; her best
work was opposite leading man Conrad Veidt in “The Man Who Laughs” (1928, another of one of Universal’s Golden Age
of Monsters triumphs even though, in retrospect, it isn’t actually a Horror or
Monster film); but with a
weakling like Julian, she had almost nothing to offer. She was a big Star at
the time, in part because of nepotism, she was a family friend of Studio Executive
Laemmle, but also
beloved by a number of prominent Directors, and before his fight with Thalberg, von Stroheim had specifically chosen her for her part.
Philbin was well-liked among her contemporaries and in her retirement wasn’t
one to gossip, but had a wealth of information that Film Historians would kill
for. She finally opened up to Philip
J. Riley cultivated a friendship with the then nearly-ninety-year-old actress
after she assisted him looking for his lost dog. The tales she told were of Chaney
Directing her after he refused to deal with Julien anymore and nearly
continuous Sexual Harassment. It seems Actor Kerry was fond on putting his
hands in the wrong place during the characters’ romantic embraces:
“I remember
Norman Kerry very well. He was very naughty, on screen and off, but he was a
very handsome and charming man despite his roving hands … They did the scene [at
the top of the opera house] several times and he always found a new place to
hold me. I could not react to this on camera and though he was a rascal … I
finally had to take his hand and hold onto it to prevent it from wandering.”
You can actually see this in the movie
and, surprisingly, her self-protective gestures actually helps the scene.
Also, she was the wrong body-type for Character
Christine, so her costume was padded, and (according to van Enger) Director Julien
was overly fond of readjusting that padding.
Though Philbin didn’t have a bad voice, she retired from
acting early in the Talkie era to care for her aging parents so not involved in
this film’s later sound dubbing. She lived quietly, never marrying, until her
death in 1993.
The lavishness of the production and Actor
Chaney’s performance are what hold the film together, and the film is most
memorable for three specific scenes.
During the second half of the film, there’s the Masquerade Ball (the “Red
Death” scene) and the scene on the top of the Opera House immediately
thereafter, were both exceptionally strong visually. I have not seen any of
this film’s pre-Production artwork, but I assume it was abundant, and as they
would’ve been drawn long before filming began, they would’ve been created when
the production was in the hands of a very significantly different creative team.
Chaney’s striking poses are large part of the scenes’ visual flair, and I
wonder if even those were part of the original drawings.
The most famous scene, coming at the exact mid-way point, was the Phantom’s
unmaskin, which Chaney personally Directed. Except for the Vampire’s shadow
cast upon a wall in F. W. Murnau’s “Nosferatu” (1922) it is
the single best remembered moment from the whole of Silent Horror Cinema, and Chaney
was clearly influenced by Max Schreck’s performance as the Vampire in that
film.
In this film, the Phantom appears first only as a shadow, then wears a mask
that covers the whole of his face down to his lower lip. What lies beneath that
mask is something the audience waited for in great anticipation. The face
revealed was closer to the description in the novel than any other film adaptation:
“He
is extraordinarily thin and his dress-coat hangs on a skeleton frame. His eyes
are so deep that you can hardly see the fixed pupils. You just see two big
black holes, as in a dead man's skull. His skin, which is stretched across his
bones like a drumhead, is not white, but a nasty yellow. His nose is so little
worth talking about that you can not see it side-face; and the absence of that
nose is a horrible thing to look at. All the hair he has is three or four long
dark locks on his forehead and behind his ears.”
As the Character’s unmasking was the critical moment of the film, Actor Chaney
made sure that the make-up design was unpublished before the film’s premier,
and even kept it hidden from the other members of the Cast and Crew, most
especially Actress Philbin. There are many rumors about the make-up Chaney
created for the Phantom, and Chaney encouraged them, applying all his make-up
himself, behind closed doors. He claimed that he made his cheekbones more
skeletal by pushing cotton up between his gums and cheeks, but Oscar-winning
Make-up Artist Rick Baker once gave a lecture where he made the case that
Chaney would’ve had to use a scalpel to slice away some tissue, allowing the
cotton to be pushed higher than it would normally go, so it was more likely that
Chaney just built up his cheeks with putty better than anyone else knew how.
So, Chaney (mostly) didn’t use Mystery Techniques, but instead fairly
standard make-up technology just with greater skill than any of his
contemporaries could’ve. Putty, careful shading, taped-back ears, nasty false
teeth and a skullcap make up most of the look. Because the makeup was both
fragile and restricting, Chaney also made more than one mask, each expressing a
different emotion for a different scene. But even today the nose retrains some
mysteries.
The nose appears as if it was cut off the face has
inspired tales of Chaney inserting pins in his nostrils to open them up unnaturally
wider and upward, but this seems improbable. A better explanation is that
Chaney pulled his back his nose with a combination of tape and wires – Actor Bela
Lugosi used some of these same techniques when he played Dracula in the 1931 for
Universal, but the effect there was not nearly extreme. Chaney had a reputation
of a near-masochistic embrace of physical discomfort to achieve the effects he
desired, he was the ultimate Stage Magician willing to endure more than his
contemporaries for the sake of a performance.
It’s worth comparing Chaney’s low-tech achievement to the
high-tech FX effects used to create Lord
Voldemort in the “Harry Potter” film franchise (first one released in 2001
though this character doesn’t appear fully embodied until 2005). That
character’s appearance was not dissimilar to the Phantom here, but the use of
CGI assured the actor, Ralph Fiennes, both less discomfort and, ultimately,
less grotesquery. James Cagney, playing Chaney, did a fair recreation of the unmasking
scene in the biopic “Man of a Thousand Faces” (1957), but even in that case it
was obvious Cagney used a full-rubber-mask, so not quite the same achievement.
The unmasking scene was shot at multiple angles and,
exceptionally smoothly edited together; it is a masterpiece of composition of
motion dependent on Planning and Performance. At the vital moment has the
Phantom at his organ playing “The Triumph of Don Juan” (this piece of music
doesn’t really exist outside of the novel and film, but seems to have pulled
heavily on Richard Strauss Symphonic Poem
“Don Juan” (1889)). The Phantom is facing the audience with his mask on. Christine
approaches him from behind, so also facing the audience. She reaches over his
shoulder and pulls off the mask. We, the audience, see his horrific visage
first, then he slow turns to Christine and her horror blossoms as the Phantom,
whose real name is Erik, is truly revealed. He yells (the Intercards reveal), "Feast
your eyes, glut your soul, on my accursed ugliness!" It’s her best moment
in the film.
Philbin was not prepared Chaney’s appearance unmasked, helping
in her shocked reaction; Van Enger added to this tale, claiming that Chaney unleashed
a barrage of verbal abuse to scare Philbin more, and her terrified reaction to
the abuse made it onto the screen, and then apologizing after he got the shot
he wanted. Philbin, on the other hand, never mentions this; instead she says
that the entire production overwhelmed her and she was afraid of everything, even
the horse, the boat, and the sets.
An important part of the novel and the film, but missing
in many later adaptations, is how truly sociopathic Erik really is. His sophisticated
love of music makes him fascinating, his futile love of Christine pulls on the
heart-strings, but he is many times more Monstrous in character than most other
great Golden Age Universal Monsters; the Hunchback, the Frankenstein Monster, and
the Wolf Man, who all deserved the love they were denied more than Erik.
I’d argue Chaney dug deeper into Erik than the book, and he
did so even though his performance was denied his face in most scenes. Further
complicating things was that Erik’s voice is supposed to be entrancing, in a
Silent film Erik has no voice. Chaney wisely focused on maximum theatricality of
gesture to reveal Eric’s Lunatic Narcissism. For Eric, everything is about control;
Erik loves creating drama and seems to prefer an audience because evoking fear
was no different to him than being worshipped like a God. He murders
capriciously (in the film’s very first cut, even more capriciously than in the
later one, I’ll get to that later). He dominated the theater’s previous owners,
then extorts the new ownership, and when they won’t bend to his will, he drops
a chandelier on the audience. He treats Christine as clay to be molded and for
a time she surrenders, referring to him as “the Angel of Music” and early in
the film, his control over her is everything he ever longed for, she abandons
Raoul and vows to "forget all worldly things" in furtherance of her Art
and his Mentorship.
Erik hid behind a mask in fear of Christine’s rejection, he
suffered from the delusion that if he could make his control over her complete,
he could enforce her love in a way that would make her look beyond his
deformity. Her horrified reaction during the unmasking scene shatters his most
precious fantasy.
Though not as famous as the above-mentioned three scenes,
the climax, where Eric is chased by an angry mob, is also among the best
executed in the film, and the most revealing of Eric’s character of them all.
In the novel, and in the original shooting script, Eric
dies of a broken heart. For the mass released version the ending this was reshot
with a mob chasing Eric through the streets. They corner him, and he faces them.
With great flair, he reaches into his coat for something…the crowd reels back.
What is it? A bomb?
Eric pulls out his hand and opens it…
The hand is empty.
He laughs at the mob even as they close in on him and tear
him apart. Though he hated his appearance, he loved his madness, and to the
last he played his power games.
Reportedly, Chaney did not like this ending, preferring
one wherein the Phantom dies of shock when Christine kisses him. That footage
seems to have been lost. I say this ending is stronger.
The
plot of the novel was simple and straight-forward, buttressed by marvelous set
pieces. Over time, radically different versions have emerged. But even with
changing the identity of characters, removing and replacing backstories, and
changing the order of events, the main thread remains unsullied, which was the
key to the film’s success and what has attracted so many to remaking it.
The
Novel:
"The
Phantom…” was solidly part of the Gothic tradition, and perhaps even a pretty
old-fashioned Gothic when first published. Though Gothics best remembered
today, (“Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus” (1823, another cornerstone
Universal Monster film come 1931) and “Dracula”) are heavily Fantastic in story,
the more typical mannerism of the Gothic Genre was to introduce Supernatural
elements, then have them explained as naturalistic (albeit improbable) in the
end. In almost all versions the Phantom is a shadowy and Fantastical character,
but it generally clear from the beginning of each he is a remarkable, but not
unnatural, man.
In the novel Eric has
a complex backstory that could’ve been a whole novel unto itself, concerning
his relationship with a mysterious Character known as the Persian. This
backstory is left out of the film, complicating the inclusion of the Persian (played
by Arthur Edmund Carewe, second
best performance after Chaney). Later
versions would fill in Eric’s past in detail, but none would ever use the one
from the Novel.
Leroux lacked the natural story telling gifts
of those whose Classic Authors who most often appear on the same bookshelf
(Hugo, Poe, Stoker, Robert Louis Stevenson, etc.) and the book has even fallen
out-of-print in France a few times because his reputation at home never matched
the one he had Internationally, and this film is the basis of that International
rep.
There
are comedic sections that simply aren’t funny, and long asides that seem completely
unnecessary. The novel, though not long, is cluttered with superfluous Characters,
and there are in fact two other Phantom-esque figures lurking beneath the Opera
house. One, the Rat Catcher, makes some sense, but does not appear in this
film. The other, the “Shade” is unexplained (there’s even a bizarre expository
dump explaining why he’s unexplained) yet appears in this film, but no other, as
perplexingly as he does in the Book.
The
1925 film version (all three of them):
This
film has the most fidelity to the original text of any of the adaptations I am
familiar with. It includes such things as the Phantom’s first homicide coming
far earlier in the story and being almost entirely unmotivated, making him
appear that much more sociopathic; Raoul and Christine’s elaborate backstories
which explains, among other things, that they had been childhood sweethearts,
which, in turn, helps clarify Raoul motivations later; the Persian being actually
Persian; and the death by heart-break conclusion.
It
was, reportedly, very long, full of dead-spots, and the test audience hated it.
This very first cut now seems lost. The second cut was even longer, full of
re-shoots and added scenes, and was executed under the hands of a different Director,
Edward Sedgwick, best known for his
collaborations with Actor Buster Keaton. There seemed to have been a lot of bad
strategy in the re-conception, the adding of more comedic scenes with Actor Chester
Conklin, and a second romantic subplot as well as more ballet scenes the
stopped the plot dead. The second versions smarter changes included
transforming the Persian (who never made sense because of the excising of
Erik’s backstory) into a Secret Policeman named Ledoux, (again played by Carewe) which worked better
(if only marginally). Another important change was that Erik’s first homicide
is shifted to later in the narrative, after he had definitively lost Christine,
so it became a product of a wounded animal lashing out, not the more capricious
Monster of the first version. The real highlight of the revised version was the
new ending that included a dynamically shot chase-scene through the streets of
Paris before the mob corners Erik. There’s another scene, now lost, that sounds
like a hell of a lot of fun -- it has Eric throwing skulls at Raoul in a
graveyard.
Even this version also tested badly,
and the film was cut again, removing most of the new Comedic Sequences, the whole
of the secondary Romantic Subplot, and trimming the ballet. This version 107 minutes
long, was first to achieve wide release and might be the oldest still existent
(though the existing prints are pretty shabby looking). It was successful,
earning back its budget (reported to be more than $600k, and maybe much more
than that) and earn a very respectable profit of more than a half-million
dollars. Though that was great money, it also demonstrated an
investment-to-return ratio that was widely off, making the film seem only
modestly successful.
(A later example for demonstration: big
budget “The Shining” and low budget “Friday the 13th” were both
released in 1980. “The Shining” profited far more, but initially looked as if
it was going to be a bomb, and though it’s profit margin ultimately proved to
be 131% in the initial North America release, it still got the reputation of
being underperforming, so not mimicked by the studios in the follow year.
“Friday the 13th” brought in far less cash profit ($5 million or
more less), but its lower returns still represented a more than 7,000% profit
margin over initial investment with much less risk was involved. “Friday the
13th” is a film completely devoid of any originality, yet had a slew of its own
imitators within six months.)
The 1929 film version (both of them):
There was consideration of making a
sequel, but, because of the emergence of a new technology of sound, the
ultimate decision was to make a new film out of the existing one.
Sound film had been slowly emerging
for years. “The Jazz Singer” (1927), is generally cited as the first Talkie, but
that isn’t really true, what was really true was it was the first phenomenally
successful Talkie, and its technical innovations were more reproducible than
those that came before. Thing is, if you take the time to watch it (and I do
recommend it), “The Jazz Singer” is actually a Silent Film with a few Sound
segments.
So, in 1929 Universal wanted to apply
sound to their Silent movie about music. Never mind that their recording
technology wasn’t up to the task. “The Phantom of…” went through another cycle
of re-shootings and re-editings. Long dialogue scenes were dubbed, though
oddly, the original Intercards were retained even in the sound version (I
suspect because the synch was imperfect). Some roles were recast and new song and dance numbers
were added. Christine and Raoul’s backstory is cut as was the epilogue where
they get married. Mary Fabian is added to the cast for the purpose of a singing
number, but she’s filling the role of Character Carlotta, so the original
Carlotta, Virginia Pearson, is now recast of her own mother. The most striking
aspect of the 1929 release was that even though things were added, the cuts
were so deep that that running time was shorter creating plot loop-holes.
Guess what? That’s not the last version. Universal weren’t using the same
advanced sound technology as Warner Brothers, who made “The Jazz Singer,” and
their soundtrack was recorded on a separate disk, which has since been lost. So,
at some-point later, the 1929 version had to be radically re-edited. This
creates the most perfect irony of “The Phantom of …” saga -- the version of the
film that most of us have seen isn’t really Silent, it’s the 1929 sound
revision re-rendered Silent (and accordingly trimming of sound-dependent
scenes) because of the incompetence by Universal’s catalogers.
The second 1929 version is actually multiple versions as well, ranging from
78 to 98 minutes long. In among these multiple fourth generation versions of
“The Phantom of…” is likely the one you seen because these are the prints that
have been preserved in pristine condition. Because of the different cuts, and
the picture entering in Public Domain, and there are more, later produced, musical
scores than you can shake a stick at. I won’t (and can’t) break them all down,
but I will say I like the Carl Davis one a lot.
Later versions:
After 1929 others created their own versions
of “The Phantom of …” more than I could possibly count even if I restrained
myself to the (allegedly) Direct Adaptations of the novel. I will provide a
small sampling that will demonstrate the Character’s Cultural Evolution:
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“Phantom of the Opera” (1943): Though, in retrospect, the Golden Age of Universal Monsters clearly
ended in 1941, but I’m sure that no one recognized that at the time. When we
think of the later Universal Monsters, we mostly think of the increasingly
embarrassing “Frankenstein” franchise (the last really good one was released
in 1938, but the Monster wasn’t retired until 1948, then part of the “Abbott
and Costello” franchise which continued to recycle the Golden Age Monsters
all the way until 1955), but in the midst of the mounting trash, there were
still some ambitious, if misfiring, films. This version of “The Phantom of …” had a
big-budget, fine cast, and shot in lavish Technicolor (which was a near first
for a Horror film). It is easily the best the Horror movie released by
Universal in-between “The Wolf Man” and the hiring of Director Jack Arnold
(his first film for Universal was “It Came from Outer Space” (1953)). Claude Rains creates an engaging and sympathetic, though very
watered-down, version of Erik, who doesn’t come across at all Monstrous
despite his homicidal nature. Unlike the novel and first film, Erik was not
disfigured at birth, but in an accident while an adult, and his revenge
motive was grounded in a wholly new backstory that made him seem (almost)
rational. In an early draft of the film there was an incest-theme between
Erik and Christine |
(Susanna Foster), and even
after it’s dropped from the plot, it continues to hang over everything. Most of
the Phantom’s that followed owe more to the un-scary Rains than the terrifying
Chaney, and the facial scarring will similarly become progressively less-and-less.
“The Climax” (1944): The 1943 film was
successful enough to allow consideration of a Sequel, but it wasn’t a huge hit
so the decision was reached that a Sequel with comparable production values was
a bad financial risk. The proposed Sequel’s script then was revised to be a
stand-alone story and was cheaply produced. Boris Karloff (whom Universal was
refusing to give a contract to at the time) starred as a heavily re-written
Erik character. It was not much beloved at the time and rarely seen today.
There were more “Phantoms” over the next forty years, I’m skipping them. I’m
jumping to the late 1980s:
“The
Phantom of the Opera” (1986 stage musical): Among the most beloved of all
of Playwright/Composer Andrew Loyd Weber’s plays, and enjoying record-breaking
runs on both London’s West End and New York City’s Broadway. I have to admit I’m
not a big Weber fan and don’t consider this to be near his best score, so I was
underwhelmed. True, it does go back to the source material after sixty years of
adaptations straying farther-and-farther away from it, but it also continues
the well-established pattern of emphasizing lavishness over dread, and making
Erik, originally played by Michael Crawford both on the West End and Broadway, less
disfigured and more romantic. Its success created a quickly proliferating deluge
of “The Phantom of …” related media.
“Opera” (1987) and “Phantom of the
Opera” (1998): Director Dario Argento is considered by many to be among the
greatest of all Horror film directors, he seems to have made “Opera” to express
his disdain for the Weber musical. It is not a Direct Adaptation, by instead a
new story that wore its influences on its sleeve. The movie is a marginal
Whodunnit set (mostly) in an Opera House. Erik is reduced to a more
conventionally sadistic Serial Killer (I shouldn’t reveal Whodunnit) whose obsession
with the Christine-Character named Betty (Cristina Marsillach), is not about
turning into a great singer, but destroying her life by slowly torturing her
and killing everyone who cares for her (late in the film we learn this is related
to the Killer’s long-standing beef against Betty’s mother). Though the Erik-character
gets short shrift, the Christine-character gets far better development than in
most Direct Adaptations. It is exceptionally brutal and, if possible, even more
lavish than the Weber. Its musical decisions more creative than Weber’s
compositions, and marked by witty intertwining of classical Opera and Heavy
Metal. It is considered Argento’s last great feature before his much-talked-about
decline.
When Argento returned to the subject a
decade later he made what he claimed to be a Direct Adaptation of the Novel,
but it wasn’t. Though this Phantom is probably the most Narcissistic and Homicidal
Monster of all adaptations since the first Universal, Argento’s films often
included a strange identification with their Serial Killers, and in this
version being a Narcissistic and Homicidal Monster is treated as a good thing. This
Eric (Julian Sands) is handsome and unscarred and Christine (the Director’s
daughter Asia Argento), isn’t being manipulated, her love for him is her own
choice, deep and sincere, she chooses him over Raoul (Andrea Di Stefano). In
the end, the Phantom dies heroically, protecting Christine from the Police. “Variety”
summarized it this way, “…clumsy plotting, its often unintentionally hilarious
dialogue and some howlingly bad acting…” and it is considered by many to be
Argento’s worst film (though those people probably haven’t seen his “Dracula” (2012)).
You might notice that the “Evolution
of the Character” is in my mind was actually a “de-Evolution.” Which brings us
to our next travesty…
“The
Phantom of the Opera” (2004): After more than a
decade in development hell, Playwright/Composer Webber’s musical got a
big-screen adaptation. Weber choose Joel Schumacher to Direct based on how
Schumacher incorporated music into the Horror film, “Lost Boys” (1987), and
yes, that film does have an exceptionally good soundtrack, but it is hard for
me to imagine how Weber failed to notice how stupid and un-scary it was.
Schumacher’s resume is loaded
with visual excesses that seem to fulfill no narrative purpose and melodramatic
over-inflation of simplistic themes, and that is exactly what he brought to
this “The Phantom of …” This version is trapped uncomfortably between Chaney
and Rains, as Critic Carina Chocano pointed out, Gerard
Butler as the Phantom was, “uncommonly attractive for a horribly disfigured
man. In fact, as horribly disfigured men go, he’s a total babe.” Though his
face is mutilated, Actor Butler is better looking than even Actor Sands. There
are impressive visuals and maybe for the first time ever, the comedy is actually
funny, but there is zero suspense.
Trailer:
The Phantom of the
Opera (1925) - Original trailer
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