The Phantom of the Opera

Rating:
Summary: 1925 Better than 1929
Review: I am greatly disappointed with the 1929 version of the film. I thought it was going to be better than the silent one because it had sound, but I was wrong. The 1925 version is better than the restored one. Even though the restored version has sound, it takes the orginal and rearranges everything. They took the beginning of the 1925 and put it after Christine sings in the 1929 version. The person who plays Carlotta in the 1925 version is now Carlotta's mother and the Carlotta is different. The four stars is given to the silent 1925, the restored one is given 1 star.

Rating:
Summary: Lon Chaney stars in the first great American horror film
Review: It is a shame that in the popular imagination the classic 1925 silent version of "The Phantom of the Opera" has been reduced to the scene where Christine (Mary Philbin) unmasks the Phantom and reveals Lon Chaney's stunning make-up job. Because there is much more to this film than that sequence and the camera being out of focus as the Phantom moves towards Christine really bugs me. The visuals in this film are stunning, from the cavernous world below the Paris Opera house to the Phantom's entrance as the Red Death during the Masqurade Ball (filmed in Technicolor). For me the most memorable moment and Chaney's best scene comes at the end, when the Phantom is able to hold the mob that has hunted him down at bay because of the threat of what he holds in his hand. Then he starts to laugh at the fools, finally opening his hand to show it is empty and giving himself over to the violence of the mob. The scene is not in Gaston Leroux's 1910 novel, which relates how the bones of Erik were found years after the events told in this story, but it is a worthy addition to the tale. In regards to the famous unmasking scene, I do want to add that Rupert Julian's staging of the scene is really as impressive as the make-up, because the audience gets to see the face of the Phantom before Christine is presented with that horrible visage. I have always thought that Chaney's performance was so indelible that it was the reason that the Claude Reins and Herbert Lom remakes concocted an entirely new story, although it does make sense that when you add sound to the Phantom that you would take full advantage of the opera setting. Final note: When I got to see Michael Crawford perform as the Phantom in the Lloyd-Webber musical, I was not surprised that his outfit as the Red Death was clearly modeled on what Chaney wore in this film.

Rating:
Summary: One of the best
Review: This is a beautiful (an absolutely beautiful) movie, one of the best I've ever seen. Lon Chaney, Sr. does a wonderfully dramatic performance as the tortured Phantom, who kidnapps an opera singer because he loves her. Unfortunately, she doesn't return the love, which drives him to madness.
The only thing that I disliked in the film was that Christine acts a little weird most of the time.
The dialogue is superb, and the Masked Ball scene is only one of the most memorable scenes in this movie

Rating:
Summary: "Totally Phantomic" From a Very Strict Critic Phan!!!
Review: The film The Phantom Of the Opera was first silents I ever seen. What a great one to see. I saw what many still conider to be the Man of Thousand faces. He was the character actor. He was star, part time directer(because the real directer Rupert Julian was such a hack) and something that is foreign for stars today, a makeup artist. Thats right, when you see this film, the incredible skull head Lon wears is his creation. The phantom mask he wears over it is another creation of Chaney. It was made to look like painted on dolls eyes, which as scene changed the mask would change. When you see this film, don't see it look for a exact portayal of the book, because its not. The other actors, Mary Philbin as the lovely Christine Dae, and Norman Kerry as Raoul, the appriately stiff hero. Hopeful you know what the story is about, if you don't....It takes place in 1870 Paris at an famous opera house that is has been taken over by new management, but the twist is, the house is haunted by an opera ghost. At the same, a beautiful understudy for the opera prima donna had been singing lessons form the mysterious ghost. The ghost then proclaims that the star be replaced by Miss Dae or there will consequences. Of course no listens and the star goes on, but then in a well known moment when the phantom causes the chandlier to fall of from the ceiling of the opera house. In a side note, Raoul is the Dae's love interest. This set contains the 1929 restored version, with three soundtracks, one is the silent restored version, the next one is the silent version with a sound effects and diaglog dubbings. The third is with commentary which is very informative in which how this film had different versions, different writters and directors, and how it was a critical flop when it first came out. And how by after world war 2, Universal destroyed many silents because they had no commerical value. The second disk had the most orginal verison they could find, the 1925 unrestored. It actually looks alot scarier with that version and the erie organ soundtrack. This is a classic film that every fan of horror, silents, or just plain love films should see.

Rating:
Summary: The First Phantom: Lon Cheney..A Collector's Piece
Review: At a moment when the film version of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical adaptation of The Phantom of the Opera is hitting the screen, some viewers may be interested in taking a look at the movie that started it all. Whether or not this DVD set put out by Milestone is really the "Ultimate Edition" Phantom of the Opera I do not claim to know, but it will certainly do until something better comes along. The set consists of a pair of DVDs that offer two versions of the picture. According to the commentary, the 1925 version only survives in a 16mm print held by the UCLA Film and Television Archive, and this is offered on the second disk.
However, after the arrival of sound, in 1929, Universal decided to put out an "improved" reissue of one of its biggest silent hits, with some new footage, and a synchronized music and effects track. Surprisingly, in spite of occasional, rather clumsily interpolated sections of asynchronous dialogue in which voices sometimes supplement the intertitles and sometimes repeat them, the reissue is mainly an improvement. And the Milestone set, by offering both the original release and the reissue, gives viewers a rare opportunity to compare the earlier and later versions of one of most famous American productions of the silent era.
Fortunately, a 35mm copy of the reissue, struck from a negative made in 1930 for the international market, was preserved by the late James Card, the curator of the Eastman House. It is this version, restored by Photoplay Productions, replete with the original tinting and enhanced by restored color sequences, which forms the pièce de résistance of this "Ultimate" Phantom of the Opera. The DVD even offers a pair of soundtracks-the original one from 1930 and a fancier stereo one, with music composed by Carl Davis and performed by the City of Prague Philharmonic. The picture quality of this version, effectively reproduced by the digital processing, will certainly come as a surprise to anyone who has only seen dupey, third or later generation copies of silent classics like The Phantom of the Opera. Especially worth looking at more than once is the sequence of the masked opera ball. With the color restored, this is clearly one of the high points in the early history of horror films.
It would be misleading to call The Phantom of the Opera a great motion picture. Universal was always a rather tacky studio, and the production values of the movie are inferior to those of pictures being made by MGM and Paramount, although some shots of Erik's subterranean realm have a genuine magic. Moreover, the performers are uniformly mediocre, with one spectacular exception. And Phantom of the Opera remains an impressive viewing experience today just because of that one exception: Lon Chaney's superb interpretation of the role of Erik, the phantom of the title. If Helen of Troy's was the face that launched a thousand ships, Lon Chaney's was the face that launched a hit movie, in addition to a couple of remakes, various Phantom wannabes, and, more recently, the Broadway hit.
The first Phantom was putatively directed by a hack named Rupert Julian, who is otherwise remembered for having finished up Merry Go Round after Universal fired Erich von Stroheim. As Scott MacQueen's excellent commentary to the 1929 reissue makes clear, however, Chaney-who could not stand Julian-must have had a considerable influence upon the finished movie. It is only an exercise in frustration to speculate what might have resulted had Chaney been able to collaborate with the gifted and sympathetic Tod Browning, who had just directed him in the perversely entertaining thriller The Unholy Three.
To present day spectators accustomed to scenes of carnage realistically depicted to the last drop of gore, Chaney's makeup will seem only modestly frightening, but that is hardly the point. Chaney invests his role with a carnal intensity screen performers rarely succeeded in doing after sound came in. A shot of his fingers suspended in midair, tentatively gesticulating before he touches the unwitting Christine carries just as much electricity as the famous moment when she undoes his mask and reveals his mutilated face.
More importantly, Chaney gives us a grandiose Romantic villain cut from the same cloth as Byron's Manfred or Charles Robert Maturin's Melmoth. Erik is a great artist and wounded soul-although the movie, unlike Gaston Leroux's 1910 novel, never gets around to explaining why-but also a diabolical madman, who thinks nothing of killing anyone who tries to stand in his way. In a monumental work, The Romantic Agony, Mario Praz showed how this typically Romantic figure filtered into popular literature during the nineteenth century, but Erik was anachronistic in 1910, and even more so in 1925.
The remake with Claude Rains in 1943 already depicted Erik more as a character to be pitied than feared, and the Webber super production turned Leroux's belated, but disturbing Romantic fable into a piece of super slush that might well be titled The Phantom of the Soap Opera. Chaney's genius was to be able to synthesize both sides of Erik's character: he does stir our pity-particularly when a street mob finishes him off at the end-but at the same time he frightens and even repels us. And Chaney stamped his personality on the role as much as Lugosi did on Count Dracula or Karloff on the Frankenstein monster.
This is one of the most outstanding DVD editions of a silent film classic I have ever seen; only some of the Criterion releases can touch it. Apart from the features already mentioned, the set also contains interviews, trailers, and a stills gallery. Now if only TCM would do something comparable for Flesh and the Devil, or Paramount for The Wedding March or The Last Command.



Rating:
Summary: The Ultimate Lon Chaney Version...
Review: This is the best version of Lon Chaney's The Phantom of the Opera I've seen. Before the DVD, I'd only viewed a VHS copy which I purchased in the "ten dollars or less" bin. If that is the only way you've seen the movie, you MUST WATCH THE DVD. For instance, there was considerable use of primitive Technicolor in this film; much of the movie is b&w, but during the masked-ball sequence, the Phantom makes quite an entrance as Red Death. Some of the color has proven irreparable, but the restorers have digitally colorized some sequences to try to recapture the original feel of the film.

The DVD set includes two discs - the 1925 version and the 1929 version. To really appreciate the movie, YOU MUST WATCH WITH THE AUDIO COMMENTARY TRACK! We find out all the trouble (and there was a lot of it) that went into this movie. For instance, the director (Rupert Julien) had no talent! The studio kept botching the project, which is why there are umpteen different versions. The commentator points out all of Julien's mistakes and the differences between the different versions. As originally conceived, the movie was supposed to be ALMOST exactly like the book (which is why the Persian is in it). Then, the geniuses in the studio wanted it altered and a version was shot which was NOTHING LIKE the book - this version was a comedy about Raoul. Then, the different versions were pulled together. The Persian was changed to a police inspector who wears an Astrakhan cap and eye makeup for no reason. The Rat Catcher is still there, but unexplained. Tragically, Erik's backstory (as in ALL versions) is ruined: he becomes merely an escapee from Devil's Island. However, only this version and the Andrew Lloyd Weber version have a Phantom who was born disfigured and not the victim of acid-in-the-face.

What is amazing - listening to the commentary - is just how good the movie turned out to be. It remained somewhat faithful to the book, retaining the best set pieces - the secret passages, box 5, the underground lake, the lair, the torture chamber, the horse, the masked ball, and (of course) the chandelier. We are told that the true auteurs of this movie are the set designer and Lon Chaney himself. This is Chaney's best performance and best makeup. He really looks like the Phantom is described in the book. He also designed his own mask with a whisk of linen at the bottom to show when he speaks. Chaney supposedly directed his sequences himself, which seems likely because they are - by far - the best parts of the film. Regardless of its shortcomings, the unmasking of the Phantom remains one of the greatest moments in silent cinema.


Rating:
Summary: silent but still good
Review: but it's close. Sure it has some little flaws, overly melodramatic moments and plot holes, but the Phamtom remains an absolute landmark in films. Chaney's make-up is still absolutely unsurpassed, 80 years after the fact -- astonishing when you consider all the technology and make-up we have today vs. Lon's "tackle box." And Chaney's performance is also mesmerizing, one of his very best. The unmasking scene, no matter how many times you've seen it, still jolts you not once but twice; once for ourselves, then through Christine. This has, long ago, gone beyond just a movie; it's beyond essential; something that must be experienced. Quite simply, anyone who doesn't have a copy of this in their own collection cannot, truthfully in any way, be called a movie fan, or someone who genuinely appreciates film.

Rating:
Summary: FILM PlAYS BETTER WITH MUSIC ADDED
Review: I have seen the silent Phantom of The Opera version many times over the years and i much prefer it with an added musical score. I swear the sets we see for tHe Paris opera house are the same as the ones later used in Tod Browning's Dracula (starring Bela Lugosi). As for the plot very well crafted. acting is very good (though the pretty lady who screams when she first sees the Phantom unmasked is a little too expressive). Superb makeup job by Chaney on Chaney.

Rating:
Summary: Troubling transfer (2-disc Milestone set)
Review: This edition's greatest asset is its second disc, which contains the original 1925 general release version of PHANTOM. Interestingly, the version known by most people is the completely reworked 1929 reissue. The 1925 version is 107 minutes to the reissue's 94, has more logical plotting, better choices of takes and camera positions, and is overall far superior to the 1929 reissue. Sadly, there are no good extant sources for the original 1925 version, and this DVD is made from all that exists: a grainy, blurred version, with a few scenes of questionable origin. Still, it's the only 1925 version available and probably in the best condition we will have. The score, by Jon Mirsalis, is quite fine.

The more highly touted aspect of this set is its first disc, a restored version of the 1929-30 reissue from the best sources. It is a direct transfer from PAL to NTSC of the 1996 Photoplay restoration, complete with its fine, specially composed orchestral score by Carl Davis. Additionally, 1930 sound excerpts are available on a separate synchronized audio track. A commentary track by expert Scott MacQueen is very informative.

However, one must be cautioned that there are severe problems with this transfer. "Motion blur," a jerky ghosting effect, accompanies nearly all movement. No other version is afflicted with this defect, including the original 1996 Photoplay restoration which is the source for this DVD. It is possible that the PAL-to-NTSC transfer caused the problem; it already involves a 4% reduction in speed: the original 1996 restoration runs 90 minutes while this one runs 94. Since silent film projection speeds vary, this wouldn't be a problem except that Carl Davis' score is also slowed by 4% and plays a semi-tone flat on this DVD! The slowing inherent in the PAL-to-NTSC conversion may also account for the visual problems I observed. The 1996 restoration itself omits a 2-minute 1929 prologue apparently intended to be seen with sound, but no sound survives. Although its omission may therefore seem logical, this is the only edition to cut the scene. I would have preferred that it had at least occupied an appendix in a set marketed as an "ultimate edition."

This set can really only be recommended for the wonderful extras and especially for the 1925 version, currently unavailable elsewhere. The transfer of the Photoplay reissue restoration is very disappointing after one has seen the original visually uncompromised 1996 print at its intended speed and pitch.

Rating:
Summary: The best version , by far !
Review: Consider this one as the best of Lon Chaney silent films . Never before and hardly since there has been a version so magnificently mounted and idiomatic expressive , and personally I guess the plot fits adequately to mude movies , due his own nature allows . A musician hides in the bowels of a cavernous opera house waiting for his revenge moment . You had to wait until 1974 for De Palma to obtain a worthable second place FORTY NINE YEARS after . But is more than just to recognize the enormous and expert merit made by Claude Rains in the 1943 version .
The makeup is silmply magic . Directed by Rupert Julian a real and forgotten master director.
A personal advise to get involved in this surrealist mood ; watch first The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari , The hands of Orlac at first , and once you are completely in expressionist waters , watch it . Otherwise , if you watch without the necessary requirements about the artistic meaning and certain visual , cinematic and light and shadows affects clues , may be you make a wrong statement . due a breakthrough with the fundaments of this genre