The Phantom of the Opera (1925 film)

Did You Know?

• In a contemporary review, The New York Times critic Mordaunt Hall called the film an ultra fantastic melodrama.
• Universal announced a sequel titled The Return of the Phantom, with Gaston Leroux writing a tongue-in-cheek treatment, but Lon Chaney was under contract at MGM and could not appear.
• The character of Ledoux was changed from a mysterious Persian to a French detective of the secret police during the title-card editing process.

Plot

In the 1890s, at the Paris Opera House, Comte Philippe de Chagny and his brother, the Vicomte Raoul de Chagny, attend a production of Faust. Raoul's sweetheart, Christine Daaé, sings, but she prioritizes her career over marrying him. The former management sells the Opera House and warns the new managers about the Opera Ghost, who occupies box No. 5. Prima donna Mme.

Carlotta receives a letter from the Phantom demanding that Christine replace her. In her dressing room, a voice tells Christine she must take Carlotta's place. Christine reveals to Raoul that she has been tutored by a mysterious voice, the Spirit of Music. Christine substitutes for Carlotta, and during the performance, a figure appears in Box 5 and later disappears.

Stagehand Joseph Buquet is found hanged. The Phantom demands Carlotta say she is ill; when she defies him, the Phantom drops the chandelier onto the audience. Christine enters a secret door behind her mirror and descends to the lower depths, where she meets the Phantom, who calls himself Erik. He declares his love, and she faints.

He carries her to an underground suite. The next day, Christine tears off his mask, revealing his deformed face. Enraged, the Phantom declares her his prisoner. She begs to sing, and he allows her to visit the surface one last time if she promises not to see Raoul again.

Preproduction

Universal Pictures president Carl Laemmle picked up a copy of Gaston Leroux's novel The Phantom of the Opera during a 1922 Paris trip, after meeting the author and mentioning his admiration for the Paris Opera House. He read it in a single night and secured the rights as a starring role for Lon Chaney, with production set for late 1924. Since the studio team didn't know the opera house's layout, they brought in French art director Ben Carré, who had worked there and knew the book.

Carré noted that Leroux's opera cellars were more imaginative than factual, and he produced 24 charcoal sketches of the backstage and underground areas, which were faithfully built. Carré was abroad when filming started and didn't see his designs used until a 1970s screening. Screenwriter Elliot J. Clawson, who had collaborated with director Rupert Julian since 1916, wrote a first draft closely following the novel. It included a scene where the Phantom lures Christine to her father's grave in Brittany, playing violin as the "Angel of Music," which was filmed but later cut.

Clawson also added a Persian flashback showing Erik as a court conjurer and executioner using a Punjab lasso, condemned to be eaten by ants that disfigured his face. This sequence was dropped, likely to save money, and replaced with a line stating Erik was a torturer during the Paris Commune, with no mention of his scars.

Production

Production on the 1925 Phantom of the Opera kicked off in mid-October and quickly turned chaotic. Cinematographer Charles Van Enger later recalled that Lon Chaney and the rest of the cast had a tense relationship with director Rupert Julian. The two men stopped speaking entirely, forcing Van Enger to act as a messenger. When Van Enger passed along Julian’s instructions, Chaney would reply, “Tell him to go to hell,” and did whatever he pleased.

Julian had earned prestige at Universal by finishing Merry-Go-Round on budget, but on this set his inexperience showed. Van Enger ignored Julian’s order to black out the screen after the chandelier crash, instead keeping a soft glow so the aftermath was visible. The finale was also reworked mid-shoot: the planned Paris chase was scrapped for an improvised, intimate scene where Christine agrees to marry Erik and kisses his forehead. Overcome by her purity and his own deformity, Erik is found dead by the mob, slumped over his organ playing Don Juan Triumphant.

By mid-November 1924, most of Chaney’s scenes were done, and principal photography wrapped before year’s end, with 350,000 feet of negative shot. Editor Gilmore Walker assembled a rough cut nearly four hours long, but the studio demanded no more than 12 reels. Joseph Carl Breil composed the score, though only Universal’s promotional notes survive.

Preservation and home-video status

The finest quality print of the film was struck from an original camera negative for George Eastman House in the early 1950s by Universal Pictures. The original 1925 version survives only in 16mm Show-At-Home prints created by Universal for home movie use in the 1930s. These prints are incomplete but come from the original domestic camera negative. Many home video releases use the Eastman House print, which features singer Mary Fabian as Carlotta; in the reedited version, Virginia Pearson is credited as Carlotta's Mother.

Most silent footage in the 1929 version comes from a second camera used for foreign markets. In 2009, ReelClassicDVD issued a multi-disc DVD set with a side-by-side comparison of the two versions. For the 2003 Image Entertainment–Photoplay Productions DVD set, the 1929 soundtrack was reedited to fit the Eastman House print, but problems remain: there is no corresponding man with lantern sequence on the sound discs, and dialogue scenes are generally shorter.

The soundtrack on the DVD set runs more slowly than the originally recorded speed. On November 1, 2011, Image Entertainment released a Blu-ray version produced by Film Preservation Associates.