We have the beautiful protagonist and the deformed antagonist who just wants to do good, by his standards, but because he looks the way he looks, has to resort to other means to get his way. It’s technically a love story with horror undertones, but the way it’s weaved sets it apart from the average. The Phantom of the Opera is very simplistic, with a dash of the melodramatic. It’s not so much that the Phantom had “charms,” because all he did was threaten to blow the place down if Christine didn’t become the main singer. Christine has become a sort of protege of the stranger and the stranger has taken it upon himself to send threatening notes to Carlotta, the current lead opera house singer asking her to step aside and let Christine takeover or else…dire consequences await. Later on Christine’s boyfriend Raoul figures his way into the tale and asks Christine to cease taking guidance from this mysterious figure. All we see is a creepy shadow on the wall that through use of his charms convinces Christine to accept him as her new teacher. Those that have, well, that’s the last thing they ever saw.Īs Christine rehearses, a shadowy figure presents himself (off-screen) as her mentor of sorts. There is a legend that a “phantom” lurks within the opera, but no one has lived (long enough) to see his deformed face. The film opens up and takes place in and around the Paris Opera House where Christine, a beautiful singer performs, although she is not the main attraction just yet. Lon Chaney, Mary Philbin, and Norman Kerry star. The Phantom of the Opera is the 1925 silent film adaption of Gaston Leroux’s gothic novel which funny enough was not even fifteen years old when it was adapted. With that out of the way let’s see how The Phantom of the Opera stacks up on Blu-ray. This stars the man of a thousand faces: Lon Chaney Sr.
Oh, and just to reiterate, this is the ORIGINAL Phantom of the Opera, not the recent Joel Schumacher version with Gerard Butler. We’ll get into it some more in the review. There are two 1929 reissue versions along with the original 1925 version in it’s entirety. What are the odds? The Phantom of the Opera has hit the Blu-ray format in a nice package that contain three different versions of the film. Here we are once again bringing you the latest in Blu-ray reviews and as luck would have it – our second silent film review in a day.
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