The Phantom of the Opera, Gaston Leroux’s gothic novel, has captivated everybody from Dario Argento to Andrew Lloyd Webber. The most famous adaptation of them all, however, is Rupert Julian’s 1925 silent classic, which starred the inimitable Lon Chaney, then at the peak of his powers and popularity, and whose ghoulish makeup is still mightily impressive to behold almost ninety years on. So, if your abiding memory of the character is Michael Crawford warbling to Sarah Brightman amid great wafts of dry ice on the London stage, or, even worse, Joel Schumacher’s Noughties musical, you’re in for a right treat when you see Chaney’s in full Erik mode.
The BFI have put out Kevin Brownlow’s exquisite restoration of the 1929 Universal rerelease which added a new score, new scenes, sound effects and short dialogue scenes. There’s no soundtrack here except Carl Davis’s excellent accompaniment. (The organ-led segments are particularly divine!)
The restoration has been compiled from three main sources: a 35mm master positive from George Eastman House, a 35mm colour dupe negative (for some of the Masked Ball sequence) and a 35mm dupe negative from a 16mm ‘Show-at-Home’ print which is housed in the UCLA archive. Restoring a picture from the silent era can prove a torturous process for archivists and historians and they often face a struggle in hunting down usable material, given the tragic neglect of early pictures and their lack of appreciation as cultural artefacts (even from the studios that produced them).
Chaney’s performance is immortal and the set design is very impressive, even today. The only real damp squib is Mary Philbin as Christine, the opera diva and the object of the Phantom’s desire. It’s an utterly terrible performance.
Extras
As well as the 1925 release version (which runs to 103 mins), there’s an original 1925 trailer, the 1929 sound reissue trailer, an incredibly exciting glimpse of the lost sound reissue courtesy of a reel (Reel 5) that turned up in the US Library of Congress archives, as well as a short sequence known as ‘The Man with the Lantern’. Also included is Kevin Brownlow’s fantastic feature-length documentary, Lon Chaney: A Thousand Faces. The booklet is jam-packed with extra info about the restoration and transfers and there’s a short memoir by Brownlow detailing his association with the picture; a short piece by Patrick Stanbury, and a review by Geoff Brown from Monthly Film Bulletin (May 1975). For the silent film enthusiast, this is a top release and the restoration and tinting looks absolutely gorgeous.
