Gaston Leroux’s: the phantom of the opera - Which is the best movie version?

Last month I posted an article (link) in which I shortly highlighted all the things I liked and disliked about the various adaptations of Agatha Christie’s ‘And then there were none’. Eventually I pinpointed a (for want of  a better word) ‘winner’. The movie I liked best of all.

The minute I pressed the ‘publish’ button my mind was already brewing with ideas for this article. Because apart from Christie’s masterpiece there is another, often adapted, book that I’ve seen every single version of: Gaston Leroux’s: ‘Le Fantôme de l'Opéra’ or The phantom of the opera.

The story

A young girl Christine gets a job at the Paris opera. But in the catacombs of the opera a disfigured man wearing an opera mask has been spotted at times. This man people call ‘the phantom’. Any unfortunate soul who has seen his face, people whisper, will suffer a ghastly death.

The phantom, Enrique as his name is, decides to secretly teach Christine to become a professional singer. Meanwhile he falls for her. While she in turn has affection for the handsome suitor Raul. How long before the possessive madness of Enrique becomes a danger to all?

The story use the classic notion of a love-triangle the French use in all their stories:

Esmeralda, Quasimodo and Phoebus.

Belle, the beast and Gaston.

And now Christine, Erique and Raul.

Why this story?

What is it that I find so great about this story? I’ve already given the answer in the above little side-note. In the Hunchback of the Notre Dame or Beauty and the Beast it are the ‘ugly’ that are good and the handsome that are evil.

This notion returns in various fairytales like Snow white in which the desire for beauty actually causes some pretty vile acts.

Going back to other stories in Western history it are always this same notion returning over and over: Lady Macbeth in the Scottish play, Grendel’s mother in Beowulf and of course a fallen angel formally called ‘Lightbringer’ or ‘Lucifer’.

Now this isn’t always the case of course: Richard III still has a hunchback. Scar still has his scar in The lion King. And many-a Bond villain has one or two defects.

However, I argue, hardly any story plays with this notion of right and wrong so well as The phantom of the opera does. The phantom is kind with Christine but utterly villainous, demented, when he deals with other people. He is two sides of the same coin: he is a full human being.

A few months ago I reviewed the movie Wonder (2017). My conclusion was that the hero of the movie (a disfigured boy) hardly had to fight for his place in the world – people fought for him. Moreover, the movie hardly shows the mental impact disfigurement (or not knowing your place in the world) gives a person.

The Phantom of the opera, to me, is a two-hundred-year-old book that answers the question Wonder could not.

Yes disfigurement gives quite an impact. And yes if people treat you like a villain you are more than likely to become one. But yes, that doesn’t mean you will lose every single bit of goodness in your heart.

So that’s what The Phantom of the Opera is to me it’s pretty much a character study of a man forced to become a villain but never born as one.

Naturally ‘character study’ is far too much credit.

The Phantom of the Opera is still basically a cardboard villain in the original book.

But what I wish to highlight here is how I preceive the character.

Which version is best?

I gave you my reasons why this movie resonates with me. Now let me give you each and every version (par one or two entries) and let me tell you about them.

There are a LOT of parodies in the world ranging from the

1955 Phantom of the Operetta,

1961 Phantom of the horse opera (featuring Woodie Woodpecker),

1974 The phantom of Paradise,

1974 The Phantom of Hollywood,

The Animaniacs

and the brilliant duo Julie Andrews & Carol Burnett with their Phantom of the Opry (link).

I won’t be looking at these adaptations though (even though a lot of these parodies are better than some on this list).

The 1928-version (+the 1931) remake.

Already a double bill. The point, here, being that the original movie was silent and then, when sound came to be, the studio dubbed this movie and re-released it with sound.

If memory serves Chaney didn’t want to do the voice work for the re-release.

This is the famous Lon Chaney-movie. The man with a thousand-faces truly cemented his name in history here as he plays the tragic villain.

Making good use of the shadow-spiel this version has a constant element of ‘lurking’ hanging over it. ‘The straw in the water’-scene, for instance, is a brilliant example.

The Phantom knows the way could be anywhere and strike at anytime. He is in complete control. And the one minute he ‘let’s go’ he is unmasked and chased by an angry mob.

The unmasking-scene of this 90-year old movie set the standard for the later adaptations.

The 1945-version.

If Lon Chaney’s version depended on the ‘unmasking’-scene the Claude Rains version actually considers it an afterthought. The movie even does away with the Phantom being part of a love triangle.

Here the Phantom is an aging violinist who does his best to (covertly) pay for the musical education of a young woman. It is strongly suggested that he is in fact her father.

However, as fate has it he becomes disfigured and has to find refuge in the cellars of the opera house. From the shadows there he continues his quest to help this girl.

The contrast with the previous version (and the many that would follow) couldn’t be greater: paternal love. It’s the version that served most of the inspiration to the later Broadway musical (even the shot of the solo mask amidst the rubble has directly been copied onto the Webber production poster).

Making good use of the sound-effects of the day this version is the first true version that places opera on the forefront. But, alas the bombastic music chosen for this adaptation all lose against a simple nursery song.

The Phantom here is a tragic figure full of weaknesses and a mind that slowly deranges.

The 1961-version.

The Hammer version. But strangely enough Hammer never truly makes use of all the silly booby traps it could use. It’s actually rather tame with a distinctive heart. Herbert Lom follows Rain’s footsteps as a disfigured genius wanting to hear his opera brought to life. I did enjoy the choice for the opera: Joan of Arc instead of Faust as both a kind of female empowerment and an allusion to a woman hearing ‘God/Maria’s voice.

Even though the book's original choice for Faust stays the most fitting.

This version is filled to the brim with those little ‘Hammer tricks’ of dark corridors and shocking revelations and it is a feast for the Technicolor eyes. Though, of course, it’s a bit grim.

The 1983-version.

This time the story takes us to Budapest. And this time the story is centred comfortably around revenge. The phantom (Maximilian Schell) sees his deceased wife in the (ever so beautiful) Jane Seymore: deaths follow. Like the 1962-version this movie too ends with the falling chandelier as the finale.

This is one of those very divisive movies. It tries to strike the balance between being totally different and yet rather similar in thematic.

I for one didn’t enjoy this leap to 1900’s Budapest. But of all the versions listed this is the one I’ll most likely change my mind about in the future.

The 1988-version.

An animated movie which, strangely enough, is the most faithful adaptation of the book. For starters: the phantom does walk around with his mask off for most of the time.

The reason for this is twofold: ever since Disney was/(is) controlling the world with

one successful animated adaptation after another other studios wanted to try their hand at the craft of telling stories.

The second reason was the sudden realization of the early 1980s that kids and television were a perfect mix.

Apart from turning the children into consumers voices spoke up to educate children as well:

that’s why there were so many cartoons about classic tales like: 20.000 leagues under the sea, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Moby Dick.

Even though the craft behind it nowhere near the Disney standard (but it does look better than Disney’s Xerography-mess of a movie Oliver and Company released in cinemas the same year) it is quite an enthralling version.

This ‘mere’ cartoon shouldn’t be dismissed. The power of cartoons manages to make the horrible look acceptable (a trick Disney later used for its adaptation of The hunchback of the Notre Dame). No parent would let a child watch any ‘real’ version of the Phantom – but a cartoon, that’s fine. Even though I’m sure this version will terrify children as well.

The 1989-version.

I believe this adaptation truly got its cues from the Giallo horror genre. This version of The phantom looks marvellous but at the same time takes the story further away from the source than ever before. 

Just the casting of Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund) himself, setting the tale in London and New York, and upping the blood and gore tells you that ‘staying true to the story’ isn’t what this movie was striving at.

An original take on the story it certainly is!

The 1990-version.

I love this adaptation to bits. I wrote lengthily about it here: (link). True my love for this adaptation makes this whole article a bit pointless. But, then again, this mini-series does differ quite a bit from the original book. So much so that it might not ‘win out’ in this particular election.

The 1998-version.

The Argento version! Dario Argento has never been the one for subtle executions.

His most famous one took place on a beautiful empty square but was utterly gruesome.

But when this movie sprung some kind of rat-catching-kebab-machine on me I did start to wonder whether or not the master of 80s horror had lost his touch a bit. The movie doesn’t truly get any better but it has its occasional charms (Julian Sands is always a hoot).

The 2004-version.

The musical; there it is. And it’s actually pretty good.

I won’t spend a lot of time on the stage sequel: Love never dies except for the fact that

I actually enjoy the song: The beauty underneath. The rest of that show, however, is ludicrous.

True you have to get used to Andrew Lloyd Webber’s annoying habit of having characters SING ALL THE TIME –which doesn’t always work. But that’s a leftover from the stage that doesn’t translate itself to movie that easily.

Another thing you have to accept are the two male leads (Gerard Butler and Patrick Wilson) in their parts. Both of them are miscast and have, ever since, shown themselves far more capable in other fields of filmmaking (Butler in action and Wilson in pretty much everything else).

But apart from that you have Emmy Rossum shining as the ultimate Christine starting off naive but slowly learning to stand her ground against the possessive Phantom.

What makes this movie work is the great camerawork and the lavish sets. Yet, Schumacher’s version never forgets what its adapting (e.g. the candle-holding hands): the stage version. That; one could also consider a critique; that nowadays when people talk about ‘the phantom’ they refer to the stage-play instead of the original book.

Conclusion: which is best?

Let me immediately disqualify the 1990 miniseries for (being awesome) not being a movie. That makes my choice a bit harder.

Which brings me to the rest of this list. Now this is going to get personal, it’s my opinion after all:

I think I’ve already let shine through that, when it comes to The Phantom, I prefer the tragic tale over horror and bloodshed. So that a secure exit for Argento and Englund.

Also, I like the phantom to be a bit more insane than Butler’s singing rendition. Nor do I want him to sacrifice himself in a final act of goodness. So that’s an exit for the 2004, 1983 and 1963 version.

Then, finally, there’s my desire for a strong element of love being present at the core of the story (either attraction or paternal). Which all brings me to the 1943 Claude Rains version as my ultimate Phantom version.

The fact that it also has a wonderfully haunting theme-song only adds to the enjoyment of the movie.

Omissions: I haven’t seen the Chinese 1937 Ye ban ge sheng, or the Argentinian 1960 El Fantasma de la Ópera yet.

A quiet place – a review

In 2020 the world is overrun with carnivorous monsters that hunt on sound and are almost undefeatable. One young family tries its best to survive by adapting to the rules of this new world: by not making a sound.

There is a sub-genre in horror science fiction I always lovingly call the ‘depressing as heck’-genre. Movie like The road, Maggie and now a quiet place all take place on the American countryside and are more often than not depressing as heck. Just seeing a grain silo pop up automatically makes me rethink the possibly of a happy ending.

Just in case you wondered where The walking dead got its cues from.

That is also the strength of A quiet place. Partly because of the movies that came before this really is one of those movies that could go any path it wants. In short: anybody can die.

In this sense it is a bit annoying that the path this movie takes is actually rather trodden (and marked with sand).

The same old story

After we get to know the family the monsters attack and the plot moves rather smoothly into the well known survival-tropes comprised of a (obligatory) split up family each experiencing a variety of (well crafted) scare-scenes– with the main plotline almost like an afterthought.

In fact, I would argue that the scene this movie ends with could be a very original movie on its own.

Like any gimmick-based thriller A quiet place is comprised of various scenes making good use of the ‘make no sound’-angle. Like Don’t breath two years back.

The ‘blind’-version of this gimmick has also been used in various movies like:
Blind Fury and  Wait until dark.

But to get to those scenes the movie uses some rather questionable techniques. Namely a sudden nail (that, in any construction-sense, has no place to be there), a faulty door and, of course, a rather unwise pregnancy.

Now, this pregnancy thing is up for discussion. This is a religious family. Plus they did plan ahead on what to do when this loud baby comes. But for me seeing the female lead pregnant struck me a bit as: ‘really? That’s the wisest thing to do?’

Why this story?

Why does a movie follow certain characters to tell a story? The reason for this is simple because the experiences of this particular set of characters are important. Titanic could have followed Jack’s best friend as the main character but then the movie would have been over the minute the poor man got hit by that smokestack. So the movie needs to follow characters that have been on the ship from A to Z.

A quiet place has the same underlining reason. There is a reason why the main character is deaf. Not only does this allow certain nicely constructed suspense scenes. But she is also the key to solving this global problem. The story of John Smith in downtown L.A. is far less important to tell if all he does is run and hide.

The zombie game

Nathan Fillion once said in an interview that he’s a fan of the show The walking dead. And like any fan he enjoys fantasising what he would do in a zombie apocalypse and what people he could use in his group (a doctor, a technician, et cetera).

For those people that don’t really contribute anything he has another solution: “Tasty”.

The joke is of course that we humans love to fantasize about imaginary adventures. The zombies will never come and still we all have a well thought out plan in our minds.

I argue, however, that this ‘mindgame’ sometimes intervenes with the enjoyment of a movie. In A quiet place the main characters have to stay silent all the time. But anybody who has ever gone camping knows that mother nature is one loud mother. So why not use that?

Go to a place where it is ear deafening loud and live there.

Naturally going into this movie with this mindset automatically makes the movie harder to watch. So you have to let go. But, unfortunately, every time a character makes a mistake the little voice in the back of my head screams: “See, told you!”

The monsters

The monsters actually look very impressive and menacing. Like a lovechild between Cloverfield and those Lickers from Resident Evil. I especially enjoyed the thought out biology of the beings.

Having that said it is a bit convenient that these super-hearing creatures can’t smell or feel –not even sonar.

And yes, I thought it was hilarious that these aliens got destroyed the same way those aliens in Mars Attacks! met their maker.

As a filmmaker you have to make a choices. Concerning the monsters two choices I wish to highlight here. First I wonder whether the monsters were shown too much?

In the famous monster-movies from the past the beasty was hardly ever shown. Always lurking in the shadows, a glimmer here a part there –in a word fetishistic.

'Fetish' as in cutting up the bigger picture in smaller ones not to get contro
 over it but rather to make it bigger than life.

In A quiet place, however, -after the build up- the monster is shown all the time with three emphasizing shots of its inner ear. A bit too much for my taste. But, then again, if the monsters looked terrible it would have been far more of a problem. Luckily the monsters look impressive.

A second choice I wonder about is the use of night. It is common knowledge that tension works better in dimly lit rooms rather than broad daylight. Also CGI (the monsters) works far better in shadows.

Still, here we have monsters that don’t really use a biological hunting clock They attack day and night. So I wonder why this movie didn’t take the chance of creating some scares in the daytime?

Acting and directing

The acting then is absolutely fine. The kids: Millicent Simmonds and Noah Jupe play the high standards that child-actors are required to nowadays; Crying on cue, panic in the eyes.

I always think about that child-actress character in Notting Hill 
with a resume the size of a phonebook.

The (real-life couple) John Krasinski and Emily Blunt top it off as the loving parents willing to do anything for their children but also knowing that the kids can fend for themselves.

Krasinski also took on directing duties and for a first movie A quiet place is quite the achievement. My nitpickings aside Krasinski manages to let visuals tell the tale. With hardly any dialogue in the movie he has to. There are only one or two shots that I felt were a bit below par (a sudden meeting with a tractor). But overall he lets the camera do most of the telling from a respectable distance discarding the less important parts of the frame while making full use of the set design and the actors in them.

I did, however, have my doubts about some of the sound-design. Certain actions that should have made sound apparently didn’t.

Conclusion

A quiet place is a bit of a hit and miss for me. It has an interesting gimmick at its core and more than enough drama and character-work to make it interesting. However, in the end it is just another survive-monsters movie and I can’t get rid of the feeling that this movie could’ve been a bit more. Still a solid movie for a creepy night out; just stay quiet!

Mixed tape movies: Time travel without time machines

In the eighties it was the-thing-to-do to make a mixed tape (like an mp3 but touchable, always in need of a pencil and definitely cooler). On it you would make a little playlist of all the cool songs. Now the trick was to make each song correspond with the rest of the tape. In this post I will try to do the same with movies.

Every once in a while I will select a general topic and select movies to accompany it. As you can see the more child-friendly movies are at the start of the day, but  when night falls: ‘here be monsters’. Please feel free to give suggestions of other unknown movies.

One rule though: Auteur themes like ‘Shakespeare’ or ‘James Bond’ are not allowed. ‘Spy-movies’, naturally, are.

Theme: Time travel without time machines.

Now I wanted to focus on time travel without a time machine. There is a fine art in designing a time machine but sometime merely jumping into a lake is enough to make it happen. This has the additional benefit of our ‘hero’ literally accidentally traveling through time with all the consequences that follow. So here are several noteworthy time travel movies. 

08:00-10:00

Catweazle: Let’s start with a couple of episodes of mr. Electrickery. Catweazle the (not-so) wise tries to escape the angry mob and jumps into a lake only to find himself in the future. This character is hilarious for all ages. Even if the seventies are –thank God- long behind us.

10:00-12:00 

The Navigator - A medieval odyssey: A nice little Australian movie about some monks trying to find their promised land through history. It is a bit too dark for a children’s movie but, then again, I’m sure most kids can handle that.

12:00-14:00

Just visiting: A classic fish out of water comedy. It’s hilarious but, unfortunately, not very noteworthy. It’s the ultimate relax after a hard day’s work movie. Then why did I include it? Because every list gets better with Jean Reno and (in this version) Christina Applegate.

14:00-16:00 
Groundhog day: Waking up each day on the same day until you learn your way.

According to calculations a mere 2500 years (link).

Bill Murray undergoes this ordeal in one of the last movies that actually dared to make fun of suicide. Groundhog day is a great movie, a modern classic that has put Punxsutawney on the world map. Or, at least…we know it exists.

16:00-17:00 
Edge of Tomorrow: The action version of Groundhog day. An underappreciated gem in the Tom Cruise portofolio. Truly this is one of his better movies of the last few year. Tom Cruise plays somewhat of a coward (at least for the start of the movie before he ‘evolves’ into classic Tom Cruise) who accidentally swallows some alien goo that makes him relive a day time and again. A power he then uses to destroy the aliens.

17:00-19:00 
Frequency: Can the past be changed? That’s what Frequency explores in a wonderfully solid script. Truly there isn’t a word out of place that would unbalance this movie.

Well, maybe two: “remember yahoo.”

A detective discovers that he can talk to his long-dead father through time through  a ham radio. But by saving his father he also saves a highly dangerous serial killer. The game is on, depending on the frequency.

19:00-21:00 
12:01: The dark version of Groundhog day. Now a man wakes up on the same day every day to prevent a murder from happening. This is a movie that gets a bit dragged down by the ending (it’s not the perfect ending you hoped for). But ‘till then you have a great movie set before you. Especially Robin Bartlett is brilliant as the ‘boss you love to hate’.

21:00-23:00 
The butterfly effect: Timetravel through reading this time 'round. This is a strange movie for me because the original version I saw had a vastly different ending than the one later released for television. If you own the DVD you can choose to let it end happy or sad. I’m a romantic at heart; I prefer happy.

23:00-01:00 
Donnie Darko: This movie had a brilliant website attached to it that I actually frequented even though I had seen the movie to bits. The whole movie is, pretty much, a train of thought with some philosophy thrown into it. Yes it is a strange tale but oh so brilliantly provocatively intriguing. 

01:00-03:00 
Triangle: One of my all-time favorites.

I didn’t make my schema for nothing link.

A time travel tale that deals with ‘growth’, ‘remorse’ and some cold blooded murder all set on a spooky ship called the Aeolus. Go aboard and have a hell of a time.

Honorable mentions: 

Dark: The German Netflix series Dark has a nice take on time travel. I you want to spent a few hours in the bleak unforgiving town of Winden yhen this is it (and yes I do mean bleak).

Forever young: This isn’t really a time travel movie but rather a person from the past in a wrong time. Mel Gibson is said person and his bond with Elijah ‘Frodo’ Wood is a wonderful friendship to behold. 

Blast from the past: Like Gibson above Brendan Frasier is the ‘odd one out’ here. But this movie is completely stolen by the brilliant Christopher Walken who manages to play paranoia into the extreme.