Phantom of the Opera 1925

Phantom of the Opera 1925

      This week's film was the 1925 version of Phantom of the Opera. You know, the classic novel written by Gaston Leroux and turned into several great movies and musicals . . . well this film isn't one of those. Seriously, this movie was terrible even by 1920s standards. I mean it was legitimately awful.

     To start it's still in the silent film period, which isn't to say all silent films are bad (remember The Artist?) however, this is a story about a freaking opera! Singing and music and mysterious voices from the walls are central to the plot! All things that are pretty tough to convey in a silent film. 

      

       Of course, all that could be managed with a good musical score right? Right? 

      Right! It probably could, if Phantom of the Opera had a good musical score, but it doesn't. The music itself isn't that bad, but there is no scoring whatsoever. There isn't even a semblance of accompaniment. It's just a twenty-minute sequence of three orchestral pieces put on repeat. And most of that twenty minutes is just upbeat fluff. The music only matches the tone of the film in a few places. Luckily the famous unmasking scene is one of those places.

    That unmasking scene has long been considered one of the greatest scenes in film history, and it is. It's a great piece of film. That scene alone proved that Lon Chaney was the Phantom of the Opera. Even after 90 years, four film remakes, and a popular musical; Lon Chaney's face is probably what comes to mind when you think of Phantom of the Opera. By the way Gerard Butler and Robert Englund have also played the phantom on the big screen, but despite success in other films neither was able to match Chaney's silent portrayal of the villain.

Here's Lon Chaney showing Mary Philbin how to do The Thriller.

And in this candid photo you can clearly see how pissed Chaney is that Mary Philbin broke into his trailer and ate the last jelly donut . . . again.

     Aside from the music, what really sticks out in this film is the complete ludicrousness of the plot. Basically, we have Christine, a talented singer who doesn't get the lead role because the owner of the opera house gives it to his daughter. So, instead of joining another opera house or bitching to her coworkers about nepotism like the rest of us, Christine decides to turn to the shadowy opera phantom for help, and the phantom is quick to respond.

"Hey, mister Phantom, want to help me send death threats to the the skank who stole my part?"

"DEATH THREATS! MY FAVORITE!"

     Surprise, surprise, it turns out the disfigured madman who lives in the catacombs beneath the old opera house isn't playing with a full deck. He drops a chandelier on the star of the show so that Christine can take her place on stage. Then after the show, he invites her to come chill with him in his subterranean torture chambers/fetish shrine. Of course, like the rest of us, Christine was brought up to believe that it was rude to refuse an invitation, so she follows the shadowy murderer into the basement.

I mean, who wouldn't? He probably has candy down there . . . candy and Mario Kart.

     

     It probably takes a lot of trust to follow a masked psycho into a basement like that. The kind of trust that you don't see outside of Jonestown, The Manson Family, or The Church of Scientology. Basically, the conclusion that I'm trying to reach is that Christine is Tom Cruise with the exception that I think Tom Cruise spends more time in creepy basement sex dungeons.

    And the Phantom of the Opera? According to Celebrity Look-Alike Generator, The Phantom of the Opera is Joe Biden.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame

The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923)

MAJOR SPOILERS!

            What can I say about this film? I guess I’ll start by saying that if you’re reading this you’re probably under seventy and you probably aren't an expert in French Literature. (I've been trying to draw the Septuagenarian-French-Lit Crowd, but it’s so hard to pull them away from writing Three Musketeers fan-fiction.)

"...then Porthos and Athos crossed swords while D'Artagnan watched."

      But, since you're reading this and not writing musketeer fan-fic or a treatise on Sarte I'm guessing that your closest experience with Victor Hugo's gothic classic is the 1996 Disney version and maybe passing The Hunchback of Notre Dame in Barnes & Noble and thinking "that is WAY too long to read."

Watch the characters sing, dance, and enjoy living in a world where people don't die horrible, horrible deaths.

        Here's the part where I repeat what your high school English teacher probably told you a thousand times. AT THE END OF THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME ALL THE MAIN CHARACTERS ARE DEAD!

       Let's do a quick bodycount:

         Captain Phoebus: Murdered by Frollo.

         Clopin: Gets melted when Quasimodo pours molten lead on him. (I would have like to see Disney animate that part and put it in the DVD special features by the way.)

         Esmeralda: Tortured and hanged.

         Archdeacon Frollo: Pushed off the cathedral by Quasimodo.

         Quasimodo: Crawls into the ditch where they toss Esmeralda's body and dies of thirst.

      I know right now you are probably thinking "well of course Disney changed the story. They wanted to market it to kids and their parents." And you would be right. The problem is that Disney isn't the first to butcher The Hunchback. The 1939 version did too. Even the 1923 version made changes to make the movie more palatable to an American audience.

       The changes aren't as major as the ones made by Disney, but the film ends with Esmeralda and Captain Phoebus still alive and kissing on the cathedral steps. And while Quasimodo dies, Frollo lives because in the movie he isn't the bad guy. Instead the studio made Frollo's drunken brother the villain and Frollo himself is hardly in the movie at all. I guess the studio didn't want to give people the impression that the 1400s Catholic Church was in any way corrupt. 

Besides, Frollo didn't have much time to murder guard captains 

and rape gypsies when he had the boys choir to worry about.

     However, minor changes aside, I think the 1923 Hunchback of Notre Dame preserves the real moral of the book. Like all literature set in France, the moral of the story is that France is a terrible place full of awful, awful people and if you go there, you will be tortured and killed for next to no reason.

"zat will teach you to order red vine with fish! Auh hau hau!"

    

     Now, I know not that many people really care about the Hollywoodization of classic literature, and in the grand scheme of things it really isn't that big a deal. However, these stories are part of our culture. They help shape the lens through which we view the world. If they are changing, it means the way we look at the world is changing, and maybe that isn't always a good thing. 

     

     Also, I think changing a tragic ending to a happy one is an insult to the intelligence of the American people. Contrary to popular belief, I think Americans are smart. I think Americans want smart entertainment. I think they want entertainment that not only amuses them but makes them think and makes them feel. Changing French tragedy into Hollywood romance is Hollywood's way of telling us that they think we're stupid. Their line of thinking is that Americans can't handle a grown-up ending, so they'll give us a dumbed-down happy ending to get us to buy more movie tickets. And as long as Hollywood thinks like that we're going to keep seeing rehashed pieces of garbage in the theaters.

Make your own joke here. This is an easy target, and also I didn't watch it.

    

  

    (If you're into silent films or you just got high and are looking for a way to kill an hour and a half, the title of this article is a hyperlink to the original film.)

Nosferatu

Nosferatu (1922)

            This German horror flick has been on my “need to watch” list for quite a while. Yes, I have a written list of “must see” silent films. That should give you a good picture of how epicly exciting my life is. (After I'm done editing this I'll probably organize my stamp collection in descending order from most boring to slightly less boring.) Anywho, here are some thoughts on Nosferatu.

            First off, the movie is called Nosferatu because the studio couldn't get the rights to Bram Stoker’s Dracula. The Stoker family sued the filmmakers for copyright infringement anyways and ordered that the film be destroyed. However, one copy survived to be passed down to us and stand as a testament to the great things that can be achieved through copyright infringement. 

        Secondly, and I know he's an unholy abomination and all, but I kind of feel bad for ol' Nosfer. He's tall, gangly, unpopular. He looks a lot like I did in high school actually.

Try picking up girls in your mom's station wagon looking like this.

       Also, I'll say this for Nosferatu, however dated the film making techniques it used become, the image of Nosferatu is profoundly creepy, and for a film shot in 1922 to still be creepy to our modern, investigative-murder-porn society is a true testament to the power of German expressionism.

      Nosferatu is exactly what a vampire movie should be. It's scary, it's unsettling, it's vaguely anti-semitic.

It doesn't romanticize the vampire, but demonizes it. Unlike other vampires, Nosferatu's existence is depicted as evil rather than morally neutral. Of course, I wouldn't mention any of these other vampires by name.

I mean come on! Nosferatu totally wore the black jacket first. Also, Edward is one of those vampires who peeks in high school. Nosferatu is the kind of satanic abomination girls don't appreciate until they're in their thirties and are ready to settle down.

          The last thing I'll say about Nosferatu is that he's skinny enough to lose a tug-of-war to Angelina Jolie. The dude is skin and bones. Now, I'm not a doctor, but I'd venture to say that a diet consisting solely on the blood of the innocent might not have sufficient protein and carbs. But hey, if you're trying to lose some quick weight before beach season the Nosferatu Diet might be for you!

I mean look at that thigh-gap. Is eternal damnation and separation from all light and human connection worth being a size zero? Most Americans say "yes!"

      Which brings me to my last point. Who is the real monster? Nosferatu, or the society that forces him to conform to an unrealistic standard of beauty?

Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde

Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde

            This is the first part of a blog I'm starting on classic horror films. Recently I found a humble bundle of 50 classic horror films, so now I plan on watching one every week and blogging about them. It should take about one year. I'm watching them in chronological order, and that makes the first film Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde (1920) starring John Barrymore.

 Mr. Barrymore making a face that I can only describe as "extremely rapey." He makes this face for about half the film.

            

          Anyone familiar with the story of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde probably knows that it's intimately related to Victorian culture and the dualities of life in 1880s England. It's the story of a good man who creates a potion to separate the good and evil parts of his psyche into two separate beings. What results is the creation of Mr. Hyde, his evil self and an ensuing battle between the two halves for control of Dr. Jekyll's body and soul.

            The film is an interesting look into the past--the 1920s imitating the 1880s. A lot of the film revolves around Hyde's descent into hedonism through alcohol and women. I can't help but wonder if the film's 1880s brothels are not stand-ins for the speak-easies of 1920.

            In some ways perhaps prohibition was our country's national Jekyll/Hyde complex. Sure, in the voting booth we proudly swore off alcohol and happily smashed barrels of Templeton Rye in the streets, but in the dark places, the basements and back rooms we kept our secret reserves of Canadian Whiskey for enjoyment away from prying eyes. And, what is the violence of prohibition era criminals and our lasting fascination with their stories if not the specter of Mr. Hyde. The dark fantasy which we, the honest, hardworking Dr. Jekylls of the world, wistfully dream about.

            P.S.

            I promise not all my posts will be as serious as this one. I just couldn’t come up with anything funny to write J 

    Also, here is a link to the whole movie if you decide you have nothing better to do with your time than watch silent films on Youtube (God knows I don't).

Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde 1920

An Introduction

        Last week I was on vacation in Missouri, and my wife wanted to go shopping with her sister and her cousin. Not wanting to sit on a bench outside Express for four hours, I wandered into a multimedia store. While perusing through the shelves of movies I came across a collection of classic horror films--50 movies for $8. Eat your hearts out, extreme couponers! Naturally, I purchased the bundle, and now I'm starting a project to watch one film each week, in chronological order, and blog about that weeks movie. The first film on the list: Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde starring John Barrymore circa 1922.