Film Review: The Phantom of the Opera (1925)

Universal Pictures in 1930s made a number of classic horror films that would permanently associate that studio with the genre. The seeds for that were sown a decade earlier, during the silent era, when Universal produced The Phantom of the Opera, 1925 film directed by Rupert Julien that would become one of the greatest Hollywood hits of its time and arguably the most iconic film in the career of legendary actor Lon Chaney.

The film is based on 1910 novel by Gaston Leroux. The plot takes place in 19th Century Paris and revolves around grand Paris Opera House, which was built on top of the network of underground tunnels and catacombs, used for torture during troubled revolutionary past. Most of the opera’s staff either ignores and choses not to think about this unpleasant facts, and that involves Christine Daaé (played by Mary Philbin), young, beautiful and talented singer who is an understudy for the house diva Carlotta (played by Virginia Perason). She have been noticed by Vicomte Raoul de Chagny (played by Norman Kerry), young and dashing cavalry officer who wants her to marry him. Christine, however, wants to dedicated herself to the singing career and reveals that she has been tutored by mysterious unseen figure who describes himself as “Spirit of Music”. At the same time opera management hears about mysterious figure called “Phantom” which haunts the opera house, scares and sometimes kills staff, while leaving threatening messages about Carlotta. His latest demand is that Carlotta be replaced by Christina during performance of Faust. When Carlotta performs anyway, huge chandelier falls into the audience, resulting in deaths and injuries. Christine later enters secret corridor and finds Phantom (played by Chaney) who reveals his name to be Erik and declares his love for her. When she removes his mask and reveals his hideously disfigured face, she is disgusted, and Phantom wants to keep her underground. She pleads for her freedom and Erik agrees under condition that she never meets Raoul again. Christina, however, decides to run from Paris with Raoul, but Erik learns about that and plans terrible vengeance.

Rupert Julien, New Zealand director whose career would soon end with an arrival of sound, is credited as director, but the real author of The Phantom of the Opera is producer Carl Laemmle. He launched the project after visiting Paris and meeting Leroux, being fascinated by his novel and easily recognising its melodramatic potential. He turned The Phantom of the Opera into prestige production with immensely high budget which reflected in massive sets in Burbank studio, which represented faithful reconstruction of real life Parisian Opera Garnier. The sets were so massive that they had to be reinforced by concrete, making their subsequent removal impractical. As a result, they were kept and being occasionally reused for other productions until being finally torn down in 2014. Those sets, and especially those depicting Phantom’s underground lair, look quite impressive and this might explain why the audience was thrilled by such spectacle.

That same spectacle, on the other hand, also served the film well by hiding some of the flaws in the uninspiring, melodramatic script authored by number of writers. Character of Christine, although convincingly played by Mary Philbin, is stereotypical, Raoul is bland and the ending seems like an afterthought. This might be explained by extremely complicated and troubled productions, during which Julien got fired from the set. Script was constantly being altered and that, as well as silent Hollywood’s practice of making multiple versions and different cuts of the film, makes The Phantom of the Opera quite confusing for the audience. A good example is character of Ledoux (played by Arthur Edmund Carewe), policeman investigating Phantom’s crimes, who was originally, like in the novel, known as the Persian who had taught Erik his skills; the change in the film was brought simply by adding different intertitles.

What ultimately makes this film is classic is grand performance of Lon Chaney, who clearly shows why he was revered as silent Hollywood’s grandest actor. He clearly portrays Erik as madman and villain, but also adds him a bit of human dimension by motivating his deranged campaign by love for angelic Christine and making audience almost sympathising with his plight. Chaney further contributed to the film by developing special make-up for Erik, making his hideous look as close to the description in Leroux’s novel as possible. The result is another iconic character in history of horror, which helped cement Chaney’s reputation of the “Man with Thousands Faces”. Chaney at the end managed to make The Phantom of the Opera his film, just like his successors Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff would do the same with their own iconic performances in Dracula and Frankenstein.

Many of the film’s flaws will be, at least for viewers accustomed to silent cinema, be compensated by its relatively short running time. In 1929 Universal attempted to further exploit the film by partially reshooting it and adding sound, but that version is now believed to be lost. Instead, the film served as an inspiration for Universal 1930s horror classics, and, more importantly for popular 1986 stage musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber.

RATING: 7/10 (+++)

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