The Phantom of the Opera

Plot

The following synopsis is based on the general release version of 1925, which has additional scenes and sequences in different order than the existing reissue print.

In the 1890s, at the Paris Opera House, Comte Philippe de Chagny and his brother, the Vicomte Raoul de Chagny attend a production of Faust, where the latter's sweetheart, Christine Daaé, may sing. Raoul wishes for Christine to resign and marry him, but she prioritizes her career over their relationship.

Meanwhile, the former management has sold the Opera House. While leaving, they tell the new managers about the Opera Ghost, a phantom who is "the occupant of box No. 5".

Mme. Carlotta, the prima donna, receives a letter from "The Phantom," demanding that Christine replace her the following night, threatening dire consequences if this does not happen. In Christine's dressing room, a voice tells her she must take Carlotta's place and think only of her career and her master.

The following day, Christine reveals to Raoul that she has been tutored by a mysterious voice, the "Spirit of Music," and it is now impossible to stop her career. Raoul says someone is probably playing a joke on her, and she storms off in anger.

That evening, Christine substitutes for Carlotta. During the performance, the managers are startled to see, seated in Box 5, a figure who later disappears. Simon Buquet then finds the body of his brother, stagehand Joseph Buquet, hanging by a noose and vows vengeance. Once again, a note from the Phantom demands Carlotta say she is ill and let Christine replace her. The managers get a similar note, reiterating that if Christine does not sing, they will present Faust in a cursed house.

The following evening, a defiant Carlotta sings. During the performance, the Phantom drops the chandelier hanging from the ceiling onto the audience, killing people. Christine enters a secret door behind the mirror in her dressing room, descending into the lower depths of the Opera. She meets the Phantom, who introduces himself as Erik and declares his love. Christine faints and he carries her to an underground suite fabricated for her comfort. The next day, she finds a note from Erik telling her that she must never look behind his mask. As he is preoccupied playing his organ, Christine playfully tears off his mask, revealing his deformed face. Enraged, the Phantom declares she is now his prisoner. She begs him to let her sing, and he relents, allowing her to visit the surface one last time if she promises not to see Raoul again.

Preproduction

In 1922, Carl Laemmle, the president of Universal Pictures, took a vacation to Paris. During his vacation, Laemmle met the author Gaston Leroux, who was working in the French film industry. Laemmle mentioned to Leroux that he admired the Paris Opera House. Leroux gave Laemmle a copy of his 1910 novel The Phantom of the Opera, which Laemmle read in one night and bought as a vehicle for actor Lon Chaney. Production was scheduled for late 1924 at Universal Studios.

The filmmakers were unfamiliar with the layout of the Paris Opera House and consulted Ben Carré, a French art director who had worked at the opera and was familiar with Leroux's novel. He said that Leroux's depiction of the opera cellars was based more on imagination than fact. Carré created 24 detailed charcoal sketches of the back and below-stage areas of the opera, which the filmmakers replicated. Carré was in Europe when shooting began and had no further involvement with the project. It was not until he was shown a print of the film in the 1970s that he realized that his designs had been incorporated.

The screenplay was written by Elliot J. Clawson, who had worked as director Rupert Julian's scenario writer since 1916. Clawson's first script was a close adaptation of Leroux's book and included scenes from the novel that would not appear in the released film, such as that in which the Phantom summons Christine to her father's grave in Brittany, where he poses in the cemetery as the "Angel of Music" and plays "The Resurrection of Lazarus" on his violin at midnight. The scene was filmed by Julian but excised after he left the project.

Inspired by the novel, Clawson added a lengthy flashback to Persia, where Erik (the Phantom) served as a conjurer and executioner in the court of a depraved sultana, using his Punjab lasso to strangle prisoners. Falling from her favor, Erik was condemned to be eaten alive by ants. He was rescued by the sultana's chief of police, who became Inspector Ledoux in the final version of the film, but the ants had consumed most of his face. The flashback was eliminated during subsequent story conferences, possibly for budgetary reasons. Instead, a line of dialogue was inserted to explain that Erik had been the chief torturer and inquisitor during the Paris Commune, when the opera served as a prison, with no explanation of his damaged face.

The studio considered the novel's ending too subdued, but Clawson's third revised script retained the scene in which Christine kisses the Phantom compassionately. He is profoundly shaken and moans: "Even my own mother would never kiss me." A mob approaches led by Simon (the brother of a stagehand who was murdered earlier by the Phantom). Erik flees the Opera House with Christine. He takes control of a coach, which overturns because of his reckless driving, and he escapes the mob by scaling a bridge with the aid of his strangler's lasso. Waiting for him at the top is Simon, who cuts the lasso. The Phantom suffers a deadly fall, and his dying words are: "All I wanted... was to have a wife like anybody else... and to take her out on Sundays."

Production

Production began in mid-October but encountered many problems. According to director of photography Charles Van Enger, Chaney and the rest of the cast and crew had strained relations with director Rupert Julian. Chaney and Julian eventually stopped communicating, so Van Enger served as a go-between. He would report Julian's directions to Chaney, who responded "Tell him to go to hell." As Van Enger remembered, "Lon did whatever he wanted."

Julian had become Universal's prestige director by completing the Merry-Go-Round (1923) close to budget after original director Eric von Stroheim had been fired. But on the set of The Phantom of the Opera, his lack of skill as a director was obvious to the crew. According to Van Enger, Julian had wanted the screen to turn black after the chandelier falls on the opera audience, but Van Enger ignored him and lit the set with a soft glow so that the aftermath of the fall would be visible.

The ending changed yet again during filming. The scripted chase scene through Paris was discarded in favor of an unscripted and more intimate finale. To save Raoul, Christine agrees to wed Erik and kisses his forehead. Erik is overcome by Christine's purity and his own ugliness. The mob enters his lair under the Opera House, only to find the Phantom slumped dead over his organ, where he had been playing his composition Don Juan Triumphant.

By mid-November 1924, the majority of Chaney's scenes had been filmed. Principal photography was completed just before the end of the year, with 350,000 feet of negative exposed. Editor Gilmore Walker assembled a rough cut of nearly four hours, but the studio demanded a length of no more than 12 reels.

A score was prepared by Joseph Carl Breil. No information about the score survives other than Universal's release: "Presented with augmented concert orchestra, playing the score composed by Briel, composer of music for The Birth of a Nation". The opening-day full-page advertisement in the Call-Bulletin read: "Universal Weekly claimed a 60-piece orchestra. Moving Picture World reported that 'The music from Faust supplied the music [for the picture].'"

The first cut of the film was previewed in Los Angeles on January 26, 1925. Audience reaction was extremely negative; many viewers complained of the film's excessive melodrama and suggested the insertion of comedic elements to relieve the tension. By March, the studio had decided to change the ending so that the Phantom would not be redeemed by a woman's kiss and would thus retain his evil nature through the end of the film. The redemptive ending is now lost, with only a few frames still surviving.

Makeup

Following the success of The Hunchback of Notre Dame in 1923, Chaney was again granted the freedom to create his own makeup, a practice that became nearly as famous as the films in which he starred.

Chaney later commented: "In The Phantom of the Opera, people exclaimed at my weird make-up. I achieved the Death's Head of that role without wearing a mask. It was the use of paints in the right shades and the right places—not the obvious parts of the face—which gave the complete illusion of horror ... It's all a matter of combining paints and lights to form the right illusion."

Chaney used Andre Castaigne's color illustration of the novel as his model for the Phantom's appearance. He raised the contours of his cheekbones by stuffing wadding inside his cheeks. He used a skullcap to raise his forehead height several inches and accentuate the bald dome of the Phantom's skull. Pencil lines masked the join of the skullcap and exaggerated his brow lines. Chaney then glued his ears to his head and painted his eye sockets black, adding white highlights under his eyes for a skeletal effect. He created a skeletal smile by attaching prongs to a set of rotted false teeth and coating his lips with greasepaint. To transform his nose, Chaney applied putty to sharpen its angle and inserted two loops of wire into his nostrils. Guidewires hidden under the putty pulled his nostrils upward. According to cinematographer Charles Van Enger, Chaney suffered from his makeup, especially the wires, which sometimes made him "bleed like hell".

When audiences first saw the film, they were said to have screamed or fainted during the scene in which Christine pulls the concealing mask away, revealing his skull-like features.

Chaney's appearance as the Phantom in the film has been the most accurate depiction of the title character based on the description provided in the novel, in which the Phantom is described with a skull-like face with a few wisps of black hair on top of his head. As in the novel, Chaney's Phantom has been deformed since birth, rather than having been disfigured by acid or fire, as in later adaptations of The Phantom of the Opera.

Soundstage 28

Laemmle commissioned the construction of a set of the Paris Opera House. Because it would have to support hundreds of extras, Stage 28 on the Universal Studios lot became the first soundstage to be created with steel girders set in concrete. Until the time of its demolition on September 23, 2014, the stage still contained portions of the Opera House set, and it was the world's oldest surviving structure built for a specific film. It was shown in hundreds of films and television series. In preparation for the demolition of Stage 28, the Paris Opera House set was preserved and placed into storage.

Reception

Initial response

In a contemporary review for The New York Times, critic Mordaunt Hall wrote:"The Phantom of the Opera" is an ultra fantastic melodrama, an ambitious production in which there is much to marvel at in the scenic effects. It has been produced with a sort of mechanical precision, and the story reminds one somewhat of a writer who always seeks for alliterative combinations. The narrative could have been fashioned in a more subtle manner and would then have been more interesting to the few. As it stands it will strike popular fancy, and the stage settings will appeal to everybody. In this presentation one perceives an effect of the interior of the Paris Opera, with people peering from the boxes and flocks of faces in the orchestra seats. There is the giant curtain which swings to with a graceful sweep, and a decorative and glistening central chandelier. All this is pictured in color, some of it a trifle weak, but most of the scenes quite effective.Time praised the sets but felt the picture was "only pretty good". Variety wrote: "The Phantom of the Opera is not a bad film from a technical viewpoint, but revolving around the terrifying of all inmates of the Grand Opera House in Paris by a criminally insane mind behind a hideous face, the combination makes a welsh rarebit look foolish as a sleep destroyer."

Modern response

Roger Ebert awarded the film four out of four stars, writing: "It creates beneath the opera one of the most grotesque places in the cinema, and Chaney's performance transforms an absurd character into a haunting one." Adrian Warren of PopMatters gave the film 8/10 stars, summarizing, "Overall, The Phantom of the Opera is terrific: unsettling, beautifully shot and imbued with a dense and shadowy Gothic atmosphere. With such a strong technical and visual grounding it would have been difficult for Chaney to totally muck things up, and his performance is indeed integral, elevating an already solid horror drama into the realms of legendary cinema." Time Out gave the film a mostly positive review, criticizing the film's "hobbling exposition", but praised Chaney's performance as being the best version of the title character, as well as the film's climax.

TV Guide gave the film 4/5 stars, stating, "One of the most famous horror movies of all time, The Phantom of the Opera still manages to frighten after more than 60 years." On Rotten Tomatoes, The Phantom of the Opera holds an approval rating of 90% based on 50 reviews from June 2002 to October 2020, with a weighted average rating of 8.3/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Decades later, it still retains its ability to scare – and Lon Chaney's performance remains one of the benchmarks of the horror genre."

1929 reissue with sound

After the successful introduction of sound pictures during the 1928–29 release season, Universal announced that it had secured the rights to a sequel to The Phantom of the Opera from the Gaston Leroux estate. Entitled The Return of the Phantom, Leroux was hired to write the treatment for the film, in which the phantom would survive his fate and return to again stalk Christine. Leroux wrote the treatment with a tongue-in-cheek, self aware and satirical style, and the film would contain sound and would be filmed in color. Universal could not use Chaney in the film as he was now under contract at MGM.

Universal later scrapped the sequel and instead opted to reissue The Phantom of the Opera with a new synchronized score and sound-effects track, as well as several new dialog sequences. Directors Ernst Laemmle and Frank McCormick reshot nearly half of the film with sound in August 1929. Some scenes, including the graveyard and original "Bal Masqué" scenes, were excised for the release and are now presumed lost. The footage that was reused from the original film was scored with music arranged by Joseph Cherniavsky with sound effects. Mary Philbin and Norman Kerry reprised their roles for the sound reshoot, and Edward Martindel, George B. Williams, Phillips Smalley, Ray Holderness and Edward Davis were added to the cast to replace actors who were unavailable. Universal was contractually unable to loop Chaney's dialogue, so another character was introduced who acts as a messenger for the Phantom in some scenes. Because Chaney's talkie debut was eagerly anticipated by filmgoers, advertisements emphasized: "Lon Chaney's portrayal is a silent one!"

The sound version of Phantom opened on December 15, 1929. While a financial success, earning an additional million dollars for the studio, this version of the film received a generally lukewarm reception, with many audiences underwhelmed and confused. Lon Chaney was reportedly angered by the decision to proceed without him and to give his dialogue to the new assistant character. This strained Chaney's relationship with Universal and contributed to his hesitance to appear in Dracula (1931).

The sound version is currently believed lost, as Universal's archived reels were destroyed in a studio fire in 1948, although the soundtrack discs survived. Fans have produced extensive reconstructions since the film fell into the public domain.

Differences from the novel

Although the 1925 adaptation is often considered the most faithful, it contains some significant plot differences from the original novel.

In the film, M. Debienne and M. Poligny transfer ownership of the opera to M. Montcharmin and M. Richard, while in the novel they are simply the old and new managers.

The character of Ledoux is not a mysterious Persian and is no longer a onetime acquaintance of the Phantom. He is now a French detective of the secret police. This character change was not originally scripted but performed during the title-card editing process.

The Phantom has no longer studied in Persia in his past. Rather, he is an escapee from Devil's Island and an expert in witchcraft.

The filmmakers initially intended to preserve the original ending of the novel and filmed scenes in which the Phantom dies of a broken heart at his organ after Christine leaves his lair. Because of the preview audience's poor reaction, the studio changed the ending to a more exciting chase sequence. Edward Sedgwick was hired to provide a climactic chase scene with an ending in which the Phantom, after having saved Ledoux and Raoul, kidnaps Christine in Raoul's carriage. He is hunted and cornered by an angry mob who beat him to death and throw him into the Seine.

Preservation and home-video status

The finest quality print of the film existing was struck from an original camera negative for George Eastman House in the early 1950s by Universal Pictures. The original 1925 version survives only in 16mm "Show-At-Home" prints created by Universal for home movie use in the 1930s. There are several versions of these prints, but none of them are complete. All are from the original domestic camera negative.

Because of the better quality of the Eastman House print, many home video releases have opted to use it as the basis of their transfers. This version has singer Mary Fabian in the role of Carlotta. In the reedited version, Virginia Pearson, who played Carlotta in the 1925 film, is credited and referred to as "Carlotta's Mother" instead. Most of the silent footage in the 1929 version is actually from a second camera, used to photograph the film for foreign markets and second negatives; careful examination of the two versions shows similar shots are slightly askew in composition in the 1929 version. In 2009, ReelClassicDVD issued a special edition multi-disc DVD set which included a matched shot side-by-side comparison of the two versions, editing the 1925 Show-At-Home print's narrative and continuity to match the Eastman House print.

For the 2003 Image Entertainment–Photoplay Productions two-disc DVD set, the 1929 soundtrack was reedited in an attempt to fit the Eastman House print as best as possible. However, there are some problems with this attempt. There is no corresponding "man with lantern" sequence on the sound discs. While the "music and effect" reels without dialogue seem to follow the discs fairly closely, the scenes with dialogue (which at one point constituted about 60% of the film) are generally shorter than their corresponding sequences on the discs. Also, since the sound discs were synchronized with a projection speed of 24 frames per second (the established speed for sound film), and the film on the DVD is presented at a slower frame rate (to reproduce natural speed), the soundtrack on the DVD set has been altered to run more slowly than the originally recorded speed. A trailer for the sound reissue, included for the first time on the DVD set, runs at the faster sound film speed, with the audio at the correct pitch.

On November 1, 2011, Image Entertainment released a new Blu-ray version of Phantom, produced by Film Preservation Associates, the film preservation company owned by David Shepard.

Eastman House print mystery

James Card, the curator of the Eastman House, obtained the Eastman print from a 35mm acetate print in 1950 from Universal. It is uncertain for what purpose the negative used to strike the Eastman House print was produced, as it includes footage from the 1929 sound reissue, and shows few signs of wear or damage. The fact that the print originally had a title card with a Western Electric Sound System credit, however, prove that it was intended as some sort of sound version. The removed title card included credits for cameramen, synchronization and score. Current extant copies of the Eastman print have a jump cut in the titles where this title once was.

For unknown reasons, an opening prologue showing a man with a lantern has been added—using a single continuous take—but no corresponding title cards or dialogue survive. This shot seems to have been a talking sequence, but it appears in the original 1925 version, shorter in duration and using a different, close-up shot of the man with the lantern. The opening title sequence, the lantern man, the footage of Mary Fabian performing as Carlotta and Mary Philbin's opera performances are photographed at 24 frames per second (sound film speed), and therefore were shot after the film's original release. It is possible that the lantern man is meant to be Joseph Buquet, but the brief remaining close-up footage of the man from the 1925 version does not appear to be of Bernard Siegel, who plays Buquet. The man who appears in the reshot footage could be a different actor as well, but as there is no close-up of the man in this version, and the atmospheric lighting partially obscures his face, it is difficult to be certain.

While it was common practice to simultaneously shoot footage with multiple cameras for prints intended for domestic and foreign markets, the film is one of few for which footage of both versions survives (others include Buster Keaton's Steamboat Bill, Jr. and Charlie Chaplin's The Gold Rush). Comparisons of the two versions (both in black and white and in color) yield:

Footage of most of the scenes shot from two slightly different angles

Different takes for similar scenes

24 fps sound scenes replacing silent scene footage

Color preservation

According to Harrison's Reports, when the film was originally released, it contained 17 minutes of color footage that was retained in the 1930 partially sound version. Technicolor's records show 497 feet of color footage. Judging from trade journals and reviews, all of the opera scenes of Faust as well as the "Bal Masqué" scene were shot in Process 2 Technicolor (a two-color system). Prizmacolor sequences were also shot for the "Soldier's Night" introduction. Until recently, only the "Bal Masqué" scene survived in color; however in 2020, color footage of the ballet scene was found by the Dutch archive Eye Filmmuseum and uploaded to YouTube. In the scene on the rooftop of the opera, the Phantom's cape was colored red, using the Handschiegl color process. This effect has been replicated by computer colorization in the 1996 restoration by Kevin Brownlow's Photoplay Productions.

As with many silent films, black-and-white footage was tinted various colors to provide mood. These included amber for interiors, blue for night scenes, green for mysterious moods, red for fire and yellow (sunshine) for daylight exteriors.

Legacy

In 1998, The Phantom of the Opera was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry, having been deemed "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant". It was included at No. 52, on Bravo's The 100 Scariest Movie Moments list.

The film is listed in the film reference book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die.

In the United States, the film is in the public domain because Universal did not renew the copyright in 1953.

An animatronic based on Lon Chaney's Phantom can be seen playing a fiery organ near the start of the Monsters Unchained: The Frankenstein Experiment ride at Universal Epic Universe.