There has never been a shortage of video offerings on this classic title, but a while back none of them were really very good. Several Phantom lasers and DVDs have offered differing versions and levels of quality that made figuring out this puzzle picture a major headache. I’d mainly seen pieces of the show on cable television, with crazy over-tinting and sometimes-blurry pictures that didn’t help much.
With the jump to HD video, this double disc set of the original Lon Chaney The Phantom of the Opera regains much of its visual grandeur. The dazzling restored Technicolor sequence never looked better. We can examine details in the specially tinted scenes, and fully appreciate the film’s many elaborate sets. Above all, we get an even better look at Lon Chaney’s fairly incredible makeup creation — a man who looks like a living skull. Although not as extensive as one or two earlier disc offerings, the extras give us an understanding of the shaky production circumstances of this classic-by-default.
Gaston Leroux’s creaky old suspense tale comes off pretty well for a silent show in a musical setting. The Paris Opera House is under new management, but an old curse returns in force. Somewhere down in the vast catacombs once used as torture chambers lurks a madman. Erik, known as The Phantom (Lon Chaney) is deliriously in love with the singing understudy Christine Daaé (Mary Philbin), and devises a bizarre method of shaping her destiny. A voice heard through the dressing room wall implores Christine to follow ‘the Spirit of Music’ and realize a fabulous career. Although she appreciates the mysterious music lessons, Christine’s heart belongs to the handsome Vicompte Raoul de Chagny (Norman Kerry). Meanwhile, Erik continues to murder stagehands that discover his secret passageways. Contacting the opera managers, he demands that the reigning opera diva Carlotta (Virginia Pearson) call in sick. If she doesn’t allow Christine to sing in her place, The Phantom threatens horrible consequences.
As a Grand Guignol case of amour fou, Leroux’s The Phantom of the Opera ought to be a gold-plated classic. Yet no film version to date has taken full advantage of its possibilities — and the stage musical may have spoiled the property for the next fifty years. The show creaks with hammy, unlikely characters, but that’s part of its appeal. Those able to enter its giddy Belle Epoque world will find rich melodramatic twists and a fairy tale-like simplicity of theme. A deformed, deranged madman uses both inspiration and extortion to propel a young singer into the limelight — and then seeks to collect her love in return. Much like Beauty and the Beast, there’s a balance between horror and pathos, gratitude and revulsion.
Universal’s lavish ‘Super-Jewel’ production is filmed rather haphazardly by a director acknowledged by most of his peers as a genuine hack. Beyond individually beautiful images, some of which are more amazing in stills than in the movie itself, the movie doesn’t pull us into its fantasy. There are some good designs with light and shadow — ballerinas silhouetted on a wall, a hanging corpse — but these isolated pictorials don’t build the kind of excitement seen in silent horrors by Paul Leni and F.W. Murnau. Even the famed chandelier murder scene is starved for suspense direction.
The Phantom sleeps in a bed that looks like a coffin, while Christine is given a bed in the shape of a dream boat. But these details don’t resonate with deeper meaning. The same goes for the secret passageways and the spectral voices from the walls. Even the ‘fire and water’ torture chamber seems as perfunctory as something in a serial adventure. Director Rupert Julien does nothing with actors or atmosphere, shooting events head-on and taking little advantage of Ben Carré’s lavish settings. Some of the action is good, with an exciting final scene when Erik is pursued through the streets. But we watch this show now for the isolated pleasure of appreciating Lon Chaney.
The one element that comes fully to life is Lon Chaney — the star, the phenomenon. Chaney’s Phantom is a magnificent creation, perhaps the greatest makeup achievement of all time. His pantomime informs Erik the Phantom, sometimes against the grain of the perfunctory script and indifferent direction — it’s likely that Chaney himself dictated the angles on his character, as they’re so much more expressive than the rest of the movie.
Erik is only partly explained; I’m still unclear exactly how he came to be. We’re told that he’s both a criminal madman and a practitioner of the Black Arts! As filtered through Chaney’s performance, Erik would for the most part seem to be a lovesick ghoul who laughs at restraining orders. He’s a dark exaggeration of a genius unloved and despised, who takes out his egocentric rage on the world around him.
The classic unmasking scene is a dilly, and still bests the follow-up shock moments in excellent horror like The Mystery of the Wax Museum. It’s a double-whammy, as Erik is revealed first to us, and then a couple of seconds later, to the clueless Christine standing behind him. Chaney understands the searing grandeur of the moment. Erik’s madness seems to leap out of his face and take control of his whole body.
