The 1925 Classic Silent Film from Universal Studios.

(Photo from Perry's Complete Phantom)



This was the first Phantom film starring Lon Chaney as the Phantom, Mary Philbin as Christine, and Norma Kerry as Raoul. Besides Universal's 1943 remake, this is perhaps the most readily available.

My review


This version just happens to be one of my favorites; the story line stays very close to Gaston Leroux's novel.

The character of the Persian is not omitted, (although he is made out to be the Inspector of the Paris Police), the torture chamber is included, the Rat Catcher is there, and even the small details like the scene where the Phantom leads Christine down below on a horse, and the grasshopper and
the scorpion have not been left out.

What particularly attracts me to this version is the 'Descent to the Lake' scene. Perhaps the reason why is that one of the actual set designers from the Paris Opera itself helped to design it  thus making it seem so realistic to the original building! 

The only changes to the original story are, the Persian as an Inspector, as mentioned above, Erik is supposed to be an escaped convict from the dreaded prison colony Devil's Island, and a mob headed by Joseph Buquet's brother seeking revenge (?!) hunt Erik out of the cellars and kill him, which I think is a particularly heartless scene. 

I definitely would recommend this movie - though I must give a word of warning when considering to buy a copy.

Be careful; some copies don't have the original background music and omit some other details. The first copy I got had no music at all, but it included the coloured Red Death scene. When I found another copy for sale, I thought it would have the original music, but it actually had
background music 'cobbled' together from Holst's Planet Suite and Bach's Tocatta and Fugue in D minor. I hadn't really noticed until I found a copy of an old Werlitzer moive -organ record that  had snippets of the original music. What made matters worse was that this second copy didn't even include colour in the Red Death scene. Before you buy, try to find out about that particular version first. 

This is the second version I got with the 'cobbled' music and the red Death scene with no colour. Just to let you know! Unfortunately, I no longer have my first copy, so I don't know what company that one was from.

Sovereign Marketing Multimedia's version. 

© Orbit Media 1997.