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.