The Phantom of the Opera is a 1925 silent horror film directed by Rupert Julian. The film stars Lon Chaney, Mary Philbin, and Norman Kerry. The Phantom of the Opera is based on Gaston Leroux’s novel of the same name.
Director: Rupert Julian (with Lon Chaney, Ernest Laemmle, and Edward Sedgwick)
Production Company: Universal Pictures
Distributor: Universal Pictures
Cast: Lon Chaney, Mary Philbin, Norman Kerry, Arthur Edmund Carewe, Gibson Gowland, John St. Polis, Virginia Pearson
US Box Office: $3,875,000 ($148,300,000 adjusted for inflation)
Film Format: Black & White (Silent) with a few Technicolor scenes
Genre: Horror, Drama
Release Date: September 6, 1925 (premiere); November 15 1925 (general release)
Plot Summary: Christine Daae (Mary Philbin) is a rising starlet at the Paris Opera House in the nineteenth century and she is in a relationship with viscount Raoul de Chagney (Norman Kerry). Christine’s career is secretly helped by Erik (Lon Chaney), the mysterious, masked “Phantom of the Opera” living under the Opera house who is in love with her. The Phantom professes his love for Christine, but she rejects him once she learns that his face is horribly deformed, and she returns to Raoul. The Phantom does not take kindly to Christine’s betrayal and seeks revenge.
Production: In 1922 Universal Pictures president Carl Laemmle met French author Gaston Leroux while on vacation in Paris. Laemmle told Leroux that he admired the Paris Opera House, so Leroux gave Laemmle a copy of his novel The Phantom of the Opera (1910). Laemmle liked the book, so he purchased the film rights. Laemmle chose Rupert Julian to direct The Phantom of the Opera. Julian had a reputation as Universal’s “prestige director” and was well-liked by the company’s producers after he replaced fired director Erich von Stroheim on Merry-Go Round (1923) and completed the project close to its original budget. The Phantom of the Opera‘s original script was written by Elliot J. Clawson, who had worked as the scenario writer for Rupert Julian since 1916. Various other writers worked on the script (and reshoots) as well, including Walter Anthony and Bernard McConville.
Laemmle always intended The Phantom of the Opera to be a vehicle for actor Lon Chaney. Rupert Julian concurred with Laemmle and also thought that the “Phantom” would be a perfect part for Lon Chaney. Chaney frequently portrayed characters who were disfigured, disabled, or otherwise required special makeup to be properly portrayed. Chaney had recently starred as the hunchback Quasimodo in Universal’s The Hunchback of Notre Dam (1923). Mary Philbin was cast as Christine Daae, the main female character. Philbin had previously starred in several drama films for Universal including Merry-Go-Round (1923) and Fools Highway (1924).
Due to the success of The Hunchback of Notre Dam, Universal allowed Lon Chaney to design and apply his own makeup. Chaney based his makeup for the Phantom on artwork that French artist Andre Castaigne created for Gaston Leroux’s novel. Chaney accentuated his cheek bones by stuffing wadding inside his cheeks, wore a bald skullcap to accentuate his forehead, glued his ears to his head, and painted his eye sockets black. He also wore a set of rotting fake teeth and coated his lips with greasepaint. For the character’s nose, Chaney used putty to sharpen it, and used painful wires to pull his nostrils upwards. Chaney initially kept his makeup a secret from the rest of the cast and most of the film crew. Chaney used cameraman Charles Van Enger as a guinea pig to test if the makeup was scary enough. In the scene where Christine pulls off the Phantom’s mask, the look of shock on Mary Philbin’s face is genuine as that was her first time seeing Chaney’s makeup!
Carl Laemmle had a new soundstage “Soundstage 28” built to represent the Paris Opera House in The Phantom of the Opera. As the set was required to support hundreds of extras, it was the first interior film set to be created using steel girders set in concrete. Universal left the set mostly intact following filming and it was reused in many other films including Phantom of the Opera (1943), Universal’s technicolor remake of the 1925 film. In 1965 Alfred Hitchcock restored Soundstage 28 so that it could be used in the finale of his film Torn Curtain (1966). Universal unfortunately demolished Soundstage 28 in 2014, at the time it was the oldest surviving film set.
Production on The Phantom of the Opera began in October of 1924 and the initial shoot had wrapped up by the start of 1925. The scenes set at the Paris Opera were shot on Soundstage 28, and the exterior scenes of the Paris streets were shot at Universal’s outdoor “Universal City” set. Rupert Julian had a poor relationship with most of the cast and crew, especially Lon Chaney. After a while Chaney refused to respond to Julian, so cinematographer Charles Van Engels had to act as an intermediary between the two. Despite this, Chaney still typically did whatever he wanted to on set. Chaney directed several of the scenes that prominently feature the Phantom, including the famous unmasking scene. Julian shot a few scenes of The Phantom of the Opera in Technicolor including the Bal Masque scene and the opera performances, though the Bal Masque scene is the only one which fully survives in color today.
The first cut of The Phantom of the Opera was shown to test audiences on January 26, 1925. The initial reaction was negative, a common complaint was that the film was too serious and needed humor. Carl Laemmle assigned Edward Sedgwick, who was known for directing Western films, to reshoot a majority of The Phantom of the Opera. Laemmle and Sedgwick wanted to turn the film into more of an action-comedy. Many of the new scenes featured comic relief characters portrayed by Chester Conklin, Vola Vale, and Ward Crane. Sedgwick’s version also replaced the original tragic ending with an exciting chase finale. This version of the film was shown to test audiences on April 26, and also received a negative reaction. Laemmle decided to remove most of Sedgwick’s material. The third cut of The Phantom of the Opera included most of the material shot by Robert Julian (but still cut a few subplots), along with a few comedic moments and the chase finale directed by Sedgwick.
Fun Facts and Trivia: One of the ballerinas in the film was played by Carla Laemmle, the niece of producer Carl Laemmle. She was about fifteen years old during filming and appeared in a few other Universal films including Dracula (1931). Laemmle, who died in 2014, was the last surviving cast member of The Phantom of the Opera. Norman Kerry and Mary Philbin starred together in four feature-length films: Merry-Go-Round (1923), Fifth Avenue Models (1925), The Phantom of the Opera, and Love Me and the World is Mine (1927). They additionally made cameo appearances in The Thrill Chaser (1923) and short film The City of Stars (1924).
Carlotta was played by Virginia Pearson in the original 1925 cut of The Phantom of the Opera, however opera singer Mary Fabian played the character in the 1929 sound version. The silent scenes of Pearson singing on stage were replaced by new sound footage of Fabian singing. The scenes where Pearson’s Carlotta talks to the Paris Opera House managers in their office remained in the 1929 version, but the intertitles referred to this character as “Carlotta’s Mother” and Pearson was credited as such in the opening credits.
Reception: After the reshoot and the re-edit, The Phantom of the Opera finally had its New York premiere on September 6, 1925, months after the original planned premiere. The film went into wide release in November. The Phantom of the Opera was a box office success for Universal and was very popular with viewers. The film helped to cement Lon Chaney’s status as an early horror star and his reputation as “The Man of a Thousand Faces.”
The Phantom of the Opera received mixed reviews from critics on its original release. Robert E. Sherwood of LIFE magazine gave the film a positive review. He thought that The Phantom of the Opera had a more consistently thrilling story than The Hunchback of Notre Dam, and he wrote, “It is spook melodrama at its wildest and weirdest, and it is beautifully done.” In a mildly positive review, Mordaunt Hall of The New York Times praised the film’s spectacle, but thought that the story and acting could have been better. The critics at Variety were strongly critical of The Phantom of the Opera‘s acting. They thought that Philbin and Kerry were bland, and that Chaney didn’t have much to do besides look scary. TIME magazine praised Chaney’s makeup but thought that the film on the whole was just average.
In 1929 Universal decided to rerelease a sound version of The Phantom of the Opera. This version of the film featured a fully synchronized score and sound effects, it also featured newly shot sound scenes directed by Ernest Laemmle. Laemmle reshot slightly less than half of The Phantom of the Opera in sound. Mary Philbin and Norman Kerry reprised their roles for the sound release, but most of the other cast members had to be replaced by lookalikes. Lon Chaney could not shoot any new scenes as he had since signed a contract with MGM. Footage of Chaney’s character couldn’t even be dubbed over as his MGM contract stipulated that his upcoming film The Unholy Three (1930) was to be the first film to feature Chaney speaking. This version of the film received a negative response from viewers who were disappointed that Chaney’s Phantom didn’t talk. Today the most widely available public domain version of The Phantom of the Opera combines footage from the 1925 theatrical and 1929 sound versions (though it is fully silent).
The Phantom of the Opera has received primarily positive reviews in retrospect. Roger Ebert gave the film a perfect score. Ebert praised the films sets and Lon Chaney’s performance. Matt Brunson of Film Frenzy praised The Phantom of the Opera for its spectacle and epic scale. Keith Phipps of AV Club praised Chaney’s performance and his excellent makeup work. In 2001, the American Film Institute listed The Phantom of the Opera as the 83rd most thrilling American film ever made. AFI previously included The Phantom of the Opera as one of the 400 nominees for its 1998 list of the top 100 Greatest American films of all time.
Why You Should See It: The Phantom of the Opera is a good classic horror film. Lon Chaney’s makeup in the film is fantastic and he gives a good performance as the Phantom. Chaney’s facial expressions and mannerisms make the character sympathetic, even though all the other characters are terrified of the Phantom. The set design and Charles Van Enger’s cinematography are both really good. For its time The Phantom of the Opera had a big budget, and I appreciate all the effort that Universal put into the film.