Plot Details: This opinion reveals everything about the movie''s plot.
In 1890’s France, the Paris Opera House is said to be cursed. Handing over the reigns to its new owners, the former owners warn them good luck with the ghost. The new owners laugh it off, insisting they’re not children, but when the star of their current production of FAUST barges in with a letter warning her not to go on that night, that instead Christine Daae will be performing as Marguerite, things might not be as silly as they’d thought.
Carlotta does indeed fake illness and Christine performs to a standing ovation. When she returns to her dressing room, she’s met by her beloved, Raoul. Only Christine tells him she’ll never leave the opera and he must forget their love. Raoul, confused, leaves and Christine is left with the voice of her “master” telling her that soon all her dreams will be fulfilled, but that she must promise to give up all worldly possessions and live only for her art.
Christine agrees and the phantom voice (which has let Christine believe he is a disembodied angel) tells her that soon he will be flesh and they’ll meet face to face.
When Carlotta’s next warning comes, she ignores it and takes the stage, only to have the phantom punish her and the theatre owners by dropping a huge crystal chandelier on the crowd. In all the chaos, he steals Christine away and takes her to his underground lair where he reveals himself to her. He’s Erik, a disfigured musician who’s devoted to Christine and her talent. She’ll be safe, he promises her, as long as she doesn’t touch his mask.
Of course, she touches his mask. Horrified by his appearance, Christine begs to be let loose. Because he’s apparently smart only in regards to music, Erik agrees to let her go long enough to perform once more, but that afterward she must return to him. Instead, Christine seeks Raoul’s help. They plan their escape, but Christine is also not the brightest bulb because Erik hears them plotting and makes the first move, snatching her again and leading Raoul and Ledoux (a member of the secret police who’s been tracking Erik) into the depths of the cellars beneath the opera house which he’s got booby-trapped.
In the end, Erik lets Raoul and Ledoux live, but only if Christine promises to do whatever he says. The final chase leaves Christine in Raoul’s arms and Erik beaten by an angry mob and tossed into the river.
I’ve wanted for years to see this movie. Now that I have, I can cross it off the list and probably never watch it again.
Not that it wasn’t good, I did enjoy the movie. But it did have a few things against it and, unfortunately, they’re kinda big. First, it’s a silent movie and I’ve got nothing against silent movies, but there is so much of the effect that’s lost by watching it with the sound off and an unrelated soundtrack playing in the back. So much of the mood is lost with the absence of sound effects. And the performances, I believe, are less effective when we only see them mouth the words, and have to read them for ourselves afterward. Also--and I didn’t know this until recently--silent movies don’t give you cards for all the dialogue. You only read the important lines, just enough to follow the story. So for the bulk of the movie, we’re listening to a classical score and watching a bunch of people run around and mouth stuff we’re not privy to. It can be very frustrating.
And on that note we come to our second con. The length. THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA--the DVD version--has a run time of an hour and 47 minutes. It would have been shorter had we not kept cutting to dialogue cards, but also there was a bit too much focus on the opera performances. You ever tried to watch an opera being performed . . . silently? Talk about tedious. In a silent movie, especially, it’s important to keep things moving.
It’s not all dull and drawn out, though. The 1925 Lon Chaney version of THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA is famous for a reason.
First there’s the obvious, Chaney’s make-up. Lon Chaney was, simply, a make-up genius. He designed his look for this movie himself, based primarily on the description from the original novel by Gaston Leroux. Remember, this was 1925. The Phantom make-up would be a sight to see in today’s world, never mind almost a hundred years ago. And even creepier is the Phantom’s public mask, the one he wears when he first reveals himself to Christine. We’re all familiar with Broadway version, the slanted half-mask. The movie version is similar, white, featureless. But this version covers the top half of his face to just below the nose, with a strip of gauze or something across his mouth. It moves when he breathes, and it’s a strange, unsettling effect. More, though, are the eyes. The mask appears to have painted eyes, with very thin, barely visible slits for Erik to see through, and the thing stares with this very empty and chilling gaze. For me, the public mask was more frightening than the make-up job.
Second, THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA didn’t rely only on a horrific monster, it offered more to its audience. In this 1925 silent movie, several scenes were filmed in color. Today, only one scene, presumably, remains, the Bal Masque with Erik dressed as the Red Death, in full color red cape with a skull mask. For me, this one scene probably made the entire movie worth it. At first I thought it must be a re-shoot, added much later, but research indicates these color inserts were original to the production and that blows my mind. I didn’t even know they had color technology in 1925. It had to been expensive, but it paid off.
Mary Philbin as Christine was probably my least favorite performance in the movie. I know it was silent and she had to be expressive to compensate for the lack of screams or gasps from her character, but good Lord. Shatner coulda taken “hamming it up” lessons from Philbin. Norman Kerry was stiff and straight, portraying Raoul as an uptight, proper gentleman with nary a hair out of place and his mustache perfectly waxed. He also looked exactly like Kevin Kline and that kept distracting me, as well.
THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA was obviously a lavish production. The makers did an excellent job. I think the thing that really holds this back from being a 5-star movie was the length. The pacing is just off and the lack of sound throws it off even more. We could have some great establishing shots of the opera house, some wonderful performance shots of FAUST, but without sound it’s just static and bogs down an already long movie. They could have lost some of Carlotta’s performance and instead shown more of the history between Erik and Christine; we never see the beginning of their relationship, we don’t know what he’s done to help her. We don’t know if he’s coaching her on her performance or if the extent of his contribution is only threatening Carlotta. When the movie starts, we assume his disembodied voice has been talking to her for some time, but we don’t know anything for sure. These are some important questions and with a little editing of the unimportant scenes we could have learned the answers without adding another 20 minutes to the movie.
Technically, THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA is great. The make-up, the use of color for effect. The performances weren’t exceptional. Chaney is very expressive in his Phantom get-up and at times scary as hell, but he’s also subject to the silent movie wide-eyed gasp. The plot needed some straightening and better explanations. In the end it’s a pretty good movie, but pretty good is all. It could have been great, the makings were there from the beginning. Unfortunately, unanswered questions and drawn out unimportant scenes throw it off and we lose a star for unrealized potential.
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