An insane, disfigured
composer known as Erik the Phantom (Lon
Chaney) falls for an understudy performer
there named Christine Dae (Mary Philbin)
and terrorises the lead soprano, until
she flees the opera.
Once Christine has the lead, she seeks
out the Phantom who strangely helped her
but the workers there warn her about his
evil deeds.
The Phantom must have her to be his bride
but wears a mask to hide his monstrous
face.
But Christine is in love with the other
workers at the opera named Raoul (Norman
Kerry) So the Phantom tries to prevent
him from seeing her even if it means
trying to kill him.
Aaah yes... the
original classic horror flick but yet
it's hard to tell if it's a horror at all
due to the opera and dramatic scene's as
it seemed like more of a mystery at
first.
However it stirs up later on when the
Phantom reveals his monstrous face and
torture room. The movie is so old it
wouldn't scare a 5 year old nowadays.
Later on this film would inspire the
popular Broadway musical along with
numerous other remakes.
It still is very entertaining even if
it's a silent film but those one's are
always fun to watch since you can use
your imagination.
The acting is is
hard to tell on a silent film but they
seem to all do well with their actions
especially Lon Chaney as the
Phantom as he showed good energy to his
role by the looks of it.
Mary Philbin had the great looks as
the one who is pitted to be the Phantom's
bride with great horrific reactions and
loving emotions to the one she is really
in love with.
Norman Kerry was another fine
performer showing nice expressions with
pumping energy to his part.
Rupert Julian did
a fine job for a film it's time as he
showed good camera shots looking down on
a stage with some woman dancing and
performing.
There's also a good shot with a set of
lights crashing onto the stage.
We have a nice expressive reaction on Arthur
Edmund Carewe when he tells everyone
about the phantom along with good shots
on the people running or trying to figure
out stuff.
We have many good scene's between Mary
Philbin and Norman Kerry with
their romance towards one another.
We have a great scene between Lon
Chaney as the Phantom and Philbin
with shots on one another of him
begging to be his bride and her acting
hesitant and later on with crazy
situations along with Philbin
passing out.
There's a nice shot on Chaney
playing the organ and later on Philbin
pulling off his mask with a nice close up
shot on Chaney with his
monstrous face and her screaming with him
pointing at her.
We have nice moments with both Kerry
and John St. Polis running in
the Phantom's torture room as well as Chaney
giving an evil look towards Philbin
with her freaking out.
Both Kerry and St.Polis do
well suffocating in a heating room as
well as a good shot on them in a room
with water rising up to them.
We have great shots on the extras playing
townfolks with torches running after Chaney.
We don't have the typical
music for silent films as we have a
terrific classical orchestra performing
for the scne's in this film with some
piano playing too composed by Gustav
Hinrichs.
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