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.
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 Ledoux 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 Christine Dae and Victomte Raoul de
Chagny with
their romance towards one another.
A great scene between the Phantom and Christine with shots on one another of him
begging to be his bride and her acting
hesitant and later on with crazy
situations along with her passing out.
There's a nice shot on the Phantom playing the organ and later on and Christine pulling off his mask with a nice close up
shot on him with his
monstrous face and her screaming with him
pointing at her.
We have nice moments with both Victomte and Comte Philip de
Chagny running in
the Phantom's torture room as well as this maniac giving an evil look towards Christine with her freaking out.
Both Victomte and Comte look impressive by 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
townfolks with torches running after the Phantom.
Bottom line: 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 (The
Phantom) as he showed good energy to his
role by the looks of it.
Mary Philbin (Christine Dae) 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 (Victomte Raoul de
Chagny) was another fine
performer showing nice expressions with
pumping energy to his part.
We don't have the typical
music for silent films as we have a
terrific classical orchestra performing
for the scene's in this film with some
piano playing too composed by Gustav
Hinrichs. |
