Phantom of the Opera (1925) [VHS]

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Product Feature

• Phantom of the Opera (1925) [VHS]
• Black and White
• Running time: 79 minutes

Product Description

Phantom of the Opera (1925) [VHS] // The first and the best version of the famous French novel, this classic silent horror film stars Lon Chaney in his most celebrated role. Truly "the man of a thousand faces," Chaney portrays the demented, yet misunderstood phantom who haunts the catacombs of the Grand Paris Opera House and stalks a promising young diva. Chaney's poignant tour-de-force tugs at the heartstrings while sending shivers down the spine.

Phantom of the Opera (1925) [VHS] Review

Length:: 1:34 Mins

*** UPDATED DEC-09-2012: ADDED REVIEW OF 2011 IMAGE/BLACKHAWK BLU-RAY EDITION ***

*** UPDATED DEC-09-2012: ADDED REVIEW OF 1997 IMAGE/BLACKHAWK DVD EDITION ***

*** ORIGINAL REVIEW POSTED SEPT-30-2003: 2003 IMAGE/MILESTONE 2-DISC DVD EDITION ***

I'm lumping my reviews together, just like what Amazon is doing! The above 3 video editions of the Lon Chaney silent classic will be covered in this review. Also, see my video clip at the top of this review to see disc covers, film clip comparisons, etc. (For those who can't see my video clip, especially iOS users who can't see flash video, I posted an external link to the video in the comment section, but you need to go to Amazon's FULL site to see the comment section.)

The 2011 Blu-ray edition of the 1925 Lon Chaney horror classic "The Phantom of the Opera" is produced by Blackhawk Films (owned by restorer David Shepard) and distributed by Image Entertainment. It has no corresponding DVD release. Blackhawk and Image also released the 1997 DVD edition, and this Blu-ray carries over some of its material. The initial release of the Blu-ray on Nov 1, 2011 had several manufacturing defects, but a corrected edition was released soon after. The disc packaging does not indicate which edition is the corrected one. The only way to identify it is to look at the menu screen. The corrected disc has a menu that shows more information about the disc's content, while the uncorrected one only shows the score composers' names. See my video clip above for what they look like. If you got the incorrect edition, ask for a replacement from Image Entertainment by emailing CustomerService@image-entertainment.com

The Blu-ray comes with 3 versions of the silent classic. Listed first in the menu, the "main" version, as it were, seems to be the 24-frame-per-second, 78-minute version that has the best picture quality of the 3 versions. Shown in 1080p high-definition, this is, needless to say, the best-looking version of the film ever. The Technicolor Bal Masque sequence is present as well, as is the re-created hand-tinted red cape of the Phantom at rooftop. 24 fps is, of course, usually the wrong speed for silent films, but it IS the right speed for the 1929 sound version of the film. And the print used for this Blu-ray (and, in fact, most video editions) happens to have come from the sound version, as indicated by the presence of actress Mary Fabian, a well-known soprano at the time who did her own singing for the sound version but DID NOT appear in the original silent version. Also, the 24-fps version includes a vintage score accompaniment by Gaylord Carter that was recorded in 1974 at 24-fps speed. Hence, the 24-fps presentation seems apt here. Besides the Carter score, a more modern-sounding score by the renowned Alloy Orchestra is also included.

A strange thing occurs during the early ballet sequence: the dancers seem to be moving in slow motion for a few seconds. My video clip above shows how it looks. It is present in the corrected Blu-ray release, sadly, as well as the uncorrected one. The 2003 Milestone DVD does not have this problem.

The 2nd version is presented at silent-film frame rate of 20 fps and runs 92-minute. Made from the same print that yielded the 24-fps version (slow-motion dancers and all), the 20-fps version is, however, shown in 1080i (interlaced) and curiously has a lot more print damages. How did the SAME print yield one version with few damages and another with lots of damages? According to the Blu-ray's producer, the non-standard frame rate of 20 fps made it impossible to present it in 1080p and to apply digital cleanup to eliminate print damages on the picture, as it was done for the 24-fps version. But for many people, 20fps is the proper speed for the silent version and they would probably wish that the 20-fps version is the cleaned-up version instead. The 20-fps version is accompanied by Gabriel Thibaudeau's orchestral score (which includes operatic singing), the same score used for the 1997 DVD edition from Blackhawk & Image. An informative full-length audio commentary track by composer and Lon Chaney expert Jon Mirsalis is also included.

The 3rd version is the original 1925 silent version. Well, not really. Original 35mm camera negatives of the silent version no longer survives. What survive are 16mm prints that were made for private collectors in the 1930s, the so-called "Show-at-Home" prints, one of which was used for this Blu-ray. Shown in 480i, the 16mm picture looks unsurprisingly bad, with murky details and print damages galore. It doesn't help that Blackhawk/Image chose to use tinting for this version, and the added colors, especially the darker ones, obscure details even more. The 2003 Milestone DVD, on the other hand, does not have tinting for the 1925 version, and it seems to look better as a result. The Blu-ray's 1925 version includes piano music accompaniment by Frederick Hodges.

The Blu-ray has other supplements as well. It carries over portion of the poorly-scanned still gallery from the 1997 DVD, while adding a few more high-quality scans. Stills that have captions on the 1997 DVD, have none on the Blu-ray. These stills, about 60 or so, comprise of set construction photos, behind-the-scenes photos, vintage movie posters and lobby cards, and hand-tinted screen captures of a surviving French print.

The film's shooting script and souvenir program are presented as slide-shows of still frames; words are smallish and hard to see even on my 50" screen. The script is shown as scans of typewritten pages; each page is only on the screen for a few seconds. If you pause the screen, the 1080i display may cause text to look slightly garbled due to the interlacing effect. That's 1080i by nature and that's why this kind of things are better shown in progressive 1080p. The script identifies itself as "the fifth revised shooting script circa 1924", and it contains, like typical shooting scripts, scenes not shown in the final movie, such as Christine and Raoul's wedding at a church.

This Blu-ray is NOT a descendant of the 2003 Milestone Blu-ray, as Blackhawk and Milestone are two different entities. This Blu-ray is a descendant of the aforementioned 1997 Image/Blackhawk DVD. The 2003 Milestone DVD is rumored to be succeeded by a Blu-ray edition from Milestone, but no official announcement has been made yet.

*** BELOW IS MY REVIEW OF THE 2003 MILESTONE DVD EDITION FROM SEPT-30-2003 ***

Although marred by static direction and stilted acting, the 1925 silent film THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA is known primarily for the memorable contribution by Lon Chaney as an actor and makeup artist. His moving portrayal of the disfigured escaped convict who haunts Paris Opera House is perhaps the sole reason to watch this film. And his talent as a makeup artist helped create one of the most indelible images in film history: the skull-like head of the phantom that conveys sadness, anger, and horror at the same time. This Region-1-only 2-disc DVD set from The Milestone Company includes two versions of this classic film: the 1925 version that was premiered in New York, and the 1929 re-edited silent version that is most often seen today. The DVD also contains excellent supplements that give us a good overview of the film's rather remarkable history.

The rarely seen 1925 New York premiere version included on this DVD is untinted, runs 107 minutes, and was transferred from the only surviving 16mm reduction print. Its video quality is understandably poor; sharpness and clarity are never satisfactory, and blemishes abound. There are some notable differences between this version and the shorter, 93-min, 1929 re-edited version. In the 1925 version, actors are introduced via their own title cards. There is no "Carlotta's mother" character. Carlotta is played by Virginia Pearson in both the opera and the dramatic scenes. The chandelier sequence is edited more competently and thus played out a little more effectively. There are more scenes in Christine's dressing room, so adequate suspense is built up before she meets the phantom. There is also one crucial scene in a garden that explains why Christine is so enamored to the mysterious voice she hears. In my opinion, the 1925 version is the superior version; it seems more complete and satisfying narratively than the edited 1929 version.

The 1929 edited silent version included on this DVD was transferred from a restored, re-tinted print made by the renowned film restoration company Photoplay Productions. This is the best-looking version of PHANTOM to date. It also looks much sharper and cleaner than the 1997 Image DVD. Both DVDs offer the speed-corrected 1929 version, but the '97 Image DVD opens with a shot of a man holding a lantern walking past the camera, while the Milestone DVD, curiously, omits this so-called "lantern man" shot and opens at the opera house. On both DVDs, the "Bal Masque" scene is shown in two-strip Technicolor, with the color on the Milestone disc looking a little more realistic. Also, in order to duplicate the original film as much as possible, some of the color scenes on the Milestone disc were actually digitally colored (such as the phantom's red cape at the roof of the opera house), because there is no existing color footage for them. On the '97 Image DVD, no digital coloring was used.

There was a "talkie" version of PHANTOM made in 1929, but unfortunately the print of that version was lost. The dialogs and sound effects recorded for that version, however, survived. To give the viewer a taste of the sound version, the Milestone DVD offers something interesting to accompany the 1929 silent version: a soundtrack composed of fragments of existing recordings of the sound version pieced together to fit the silent version as much as possible. The result is still far from being a "talkie" track. It has plenty of sound effects and spoken dialogs, but it has almost no synchronized talking. Inter-titles are still present (because this is still the silent version). There is, however, one opera sequence where the singing of actress Mary Fabian (who did her own singing) is perfectly synchronized with the picture, which is a wonder to watch. The DVD also includes audio-only supplements of recorded dialogs, which give us further glimpses of the talkie version -- and of its rather incompetent voice acting.

Also accompanying the 1929 version is a superb audio commentary by PHANTOM expert Scott MacQueen. He provides a wealth of information about the production history, the backgrounds of the cast and crew, the various versions of the film, the use of color, and the use of sound. He deplores the incompetence of director Rupert Julian, and emphasizes that the true auteurs of the film were Chaney and set designer Ben Carr . He points out that contemporary reviews indicate that the 1925 version contains Technicolor sequences in not only the Bal Masque scene, but also the opera sequences and the auditorium scenes (the extensive use of color must have been quite a spectacle for a silent film back then). He recounts in great details (while speaking at a pretty fast pace) how the various versions of PHANTOM survived over the years -- the existing 1925 version originated from the so-called "Show-at-home" 16mm versions which Universal made for private collectors in the 1930s, while the surviving 1929 version was obtained by a Jim Card at Universal in the 1950s, and the Technicolor sequences was obtained from a 1930 dye transfer copy by restorationist David Shepherd.

To add even more value to an already superb package, the Milestone DVD also includes still-frame reconstructions of the Los Angeles and San Francisco premiere versions of PHANTOM. These were the very first public showings of the film. The Los Angeles version ended not with a chase scene as in later versions, but with the phantom dying alone at his piano.

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