It’s from the Claude Rains version in the 1940’s…and strangely, it’s the one that everyone seems to remember despite, IMHO, being the WORST VERSION EVER.
Actually, I got the impression that everyone, even Christine, knew that Piagiani had been replaced by the Phantom. The two voices are so different and piagni was rather portly. The police looked like they were getting ready to pounce, though I’m not quite sure what they were waiting for.
Wow, that’s some powerful juju that movie has…seeing as I’ve never seen it! Still, the trope caught me. Thanks for knowing what I was thinking. I must go read the book again.
As HPL has already noted, the revised plot of wronged-composer-burned-with-acid first appeared in the Claude Rains remake, and was carried through several others versions (which is why a version you never saw worked such strong juju that you knew of it, I suspect). It was used in the 1962 Herbert Lom remake (which is, I submit, worse than the Claude Rains version, although by no means the worst. I think the 1990s Richard Englund version wins that crown, hans down.) and in the very weird Phantom of the Paradise update. I’d despaired of the original story ever getting to the screen again, until he Andrew Lloyd webber play came out. Even if you never saw any of these versions, you probably imbibed the idea through cultural diffusion – I’ve seen referemnces to it in many places. In he Mad magazine satire of Darkman, for instance, The Joker (from Batman) and The Phantom comment that the titular character shouldn’t complain about getting his face scorched with acid – look what it did for their areers. Heck, look at Darkman even without the satire – the film is practically The Phantom as comic-book hero.
It’s been mre than 15 years since I read the book, but I’m pretty sure there was no acid-scarring needed.
Just saw the movie this weekend, and loved it. I have long loved the score, but I’ve never seen the stage version, so there were some surprises for me. For example, I thought the chandelier was the end of the first act, where everyone screams! And I thought a lot of the songs at the end were after the Phantom had taken Christine to his cavern, not part of the Don Juan opera. (They sure didn’t sound like the other parts of that opera.)
Christine was fabulous throughout–you believed she could be drawn in, and you believed that other people would think she had been dreaming. We also didn’t care so much for the Phantom, but thought he got better towards the end fo the movie.
Our biggest silly moment was when Raoul leaves the Phantom in the graveyard. “Sure, you killed people, and you threaten my beloved, but I’m going to leave you here, not tie you up or anything, because the movie isn’t over yet. Just promise not to do it again, okay?”
Please tell me that doesn’t happen that way in the stage version.
Also, why weren’t Christine and Raoul in masks for the masquarade?
Who was the old woman at the auction–Mde Giry, or her daughter? If Mde, shouldn’t she look older? If it was her daughter, that would be okay, age-wise.
There were two great shots near the beginning. I was blown away by the postcard becoming the opera house, and zooming in. Beautifully done. And I liked Christine’s triumph, then moving down through the opera house to the Phantom’s lair–I’ve seen this technique elsewhere, but still enjoy it, and this was nicely done.
It did have a lavish look altogether, although one could see the Moulin Rouge effect.
We had a giggle in the middle, when the one guy moons–we imagined his resume–“I played the man in the moon in Phantom!”
In the stage version, it did. The Phantom had a line while La Carlotta was croaking, singing “She’s singing to bring down the chandelier!” And then the chandelier…didn’t fall. But it fell a few moments later, when everyone screamed during the hastily wrought ballet from Act III. This line was cut, as well as Firmin (or was it Andre? They’re like Rosencranz and Gildenstern, really) during “Masquerade”, singing the toast “To a prosperous year - to a new chandelier!”
It does come off a sort of a premature climax. I liked the movie’s placement of it better, actually.
No, in the stage play it was actually silly for a different reason. The Phanton didn’t drive Christine to the graveyard, we don’t know how she got there. She’s there, she sings her lament, and she goes back to the opera house. Again. What the heck was the point of her asking Raoul to “order your fine horses, be waiting at the door! And soon, you’ll be beside me, you’ll guard me and you’ll guide me” if she didn’t leave?!? And stay left? Jeebus, girl, the Phantom’s killing your co-workers, and you keep going back to work? Two words, m’dear: Vienna Opera. Paris isn’t the only city in the world.
'Cause they’re just too pretty to cover up. Really? I don’t know.
It wasn’t clear, although I assumed it was Meg (the daughter), since she was of a similar age to Raoul.
I’d like to see someone take the 1927 version (still the best, although it has its bad moments as well… the Phantom’s mask is laughable.), and put the Lloyd Webber music to it. If well done, it would be worth watching.
(Note to purists: This would not replace the 1927 film, it would just be an interesting take on it, much like the Georgi Moroder score and re-edit of Metropolis – you can take it or leave it as you see fit.)
Thanks so much, WhyNot!
One last question: I know I have seen the arms holding torches lighting a passage somewhere before. (I’m thinking this was a “homage,” not a steal.)
I’m thinking maybe, the silent version of Dracula?
Can anybody identify this for me?
Are you talking about the mask that he wears to “pass”, or his “real” face. Because the Phantom’s real face in the 1927 version isn’t a mask…it’s Lon Chaney’s real face, mechanically distorted and made up.
Well, in the book, the Graveyard sequence is actually closer to the movie. Christine goes to the graveyard to mourn her dead father, and some creepy things, notably skulls seeminglying moving on their own, start to happen.
In the musical, they’re rehearsing for Don Juan and then Christine finds herself in the graveyard, only to return at the end. It’s either a flashback or fantasy(but since the phantom is throwing fireballs, I’ll go with fantasy)
One thing that did bug me about the movie, though.
At the end of Don Juan, The Phantom makes his escape from the bridge via the trap door. I’m assuming the bridge was built by stagehands or such from plans included with the school of Don Juan. With that assumption in mind, shouldn’t somebody have noticed that they were building a trap door into it and wondered what it was going to be used for?
I haven’t seen PotO, so I’m not sure if you’re talking about people holding torches in a passage or actual arms (or arm-shaped holders) on the wall.
I don’t remember anything resembling either being in Nosferatu, but Cocteau’s La Belle et la bete (Beauty and the Beast) has the latter.
[hijack]
It’s a direct lift from Jean Cocteau’s 1946 Beauty and the Beast. The Beast has similar candleholders in his home.
[/hijack]
…
SONDHEIM RULES!
Thanks, Lamia and Tracy Lord, that must have been it.
As to the trap door, Mde Giry does mention that the Phantom is a genius at engineering and architecture.
The reveal of Lon Chaney’s Phantom makeup is one of the pinacles of cinematic history.
The mask he wears when out in public (sort of like a Cupie doll with a handkerchief over the mouth that flutters in and out as he breaths) is laughable – especially when he is ernestly talking to Christine. The fluttering is especially funny as it is completely silent!
I know that. I never said he couldn’t do it. I’m just saying is that I was under the impression the Set for “Dan Juan” was built per his instructions by those working at the opera, and thus, you’d think somebody would have noticed the fact there’s a big trap door with no (apparent) obvious purpose on the bridge.
Actually, I’m going to go farther and say that it does seem a bit interesting that nobody noticed the ring of fire on the floor was centered around a trap door in the stage, just under the bridge, and somehow nobody noticed this combination as a possible escape route.
Actually, it’s always seemed to me that Don Juan Triumphant is one of those operas that was going to end up with SOMEBODY in Hell, and I think that was to be the stage business for it. Or else why have all the flames and red and Satanic-type imagery? That was how I rationalized the existence of that device without comment, anyway…that it was supposed to be used at some point in the legitimate opera.
I just thought he came in during the night before and set up his escape.
Well I saw it a second time and I’ve come to some conclusions.
Joel Schumacher is a hack.
He really has a thing for giant statues. (see the two Batman films he made)
The ‘monkey’s’ name was Rosebud.
Although similar, I still prefer the Pirates of the Caribbean boat ride to the Phantom’s boat ride.
It’s a shame that the Mystery Inc kids couldn’t have been brought in to catch the Phantom during Don Juan. They would have had the sense to have Shaggy dress as Christine on stage and intentional hilarity would have ensued. Then when the mask is pulled off if the proper Phantom face was there Fred and Daphne faint, Velma throws up and Shaggy and Scooby do that thing where they run in place, in mid-air for three seconds and then zoom off at incredible speed.
ALW really wrote this about him and Sarah viewing himself as the Phantom. He doesn’t really understand or maybe he just doesn’t like the Raul character. That’s why Raul sucks. He just isn’t written as well as the Phantom.
That’s funny, because I’ve always seen him as a human version of one of Brian Froud’s goblins, actually… 