The many phases and faces of the ‘Phantom’

With the opening Dec. 22 of Joel Schumacher’s sumptuous film of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical version of “The Phantom of the Opera,” it’s worth recalling that Gaston Leroux’s 1911 novel has had numerous screen incarnations, starting with the 1925 Lon Chaney silent film.

There’s the lush 1943 Technicolor version; a forgettable 1962 British version made by low-budget horror specialist Hammer Films; an elegant, if highly reworked, 1983 TV movie shot in Hungary; and a 1987 Chinese film version. The star of the “Nightmare on Elm Street” franchise, Robert Englund, appeared in a 1989 made-in-Budapest version, and the result could be pretty much summed up as “Freddy Krueger as the Phantom.”

Yet another TV version appeared in 1990, based on Arthur Kopit’s 1983 stage adaptation, considered a disappointment even though it was directed by Tony Richardson and starred Burt Lancaster. Italian horrormeister Dario Argento also tackled the Phantom, in 1999, but the result was surprisingly lame, lacking in the macabre qualities that are Argento’s trademark.

Other variations include the wonderfully bizarre yet poignant 1937 Chinese film “Song at Midnight”; a 1974 TV movie called “Phantom of Hollywood” with Jack Cassidy as a disfigured, crazed old actor dislodged by the bulldozing of a studio; and Brian De Palma’s zany and inspired 1974 rock version, “Phantom of the Paradise.”

The two “Phantoms” that are most familiar -- and cherished -- are the 1925 and the 1943 versions. Seen back-to-back (both are available on video), they remain enjoyable. Neither is true to the source, and a comparison of the two demonstrates the very different demands of the silent era versus sound.

The 1925 silent, directed by Rupert Julian, reportedly was much tampered with in postproduction, and its story is pared down in the extreme. The amazing thing is how little this matters because the original “Phantom” with its potent beauty and the beast motif works so well visually.

With its stunning play of light and shadow, especially amid art director Ben Carre’s dramatic catacomb sets, it doesn’t matter much what the Phantom’s history really is. (Carre, widely regarded as the cinema’s first true art director, began his career at 16 in 1900 at a Paris atelier, where he learned the art of backdrop painting -- and which provided backdrops for the Paris Opera, which he knew inside and out, above and below, as well as many music halls and even Covent Garden.)

All that’s important is that this tormented masked man (Chaney), who has a lair across the opera’s subterranean lake (which reportedly exists to this day), has fallen in love with Christine Daae (Mary Philbin), a member of the chorus, and, via notes to her, promises to make her a star.

Significantly, her big chance will be as Marguerite in “Faust,” and she doesn’t hesitate to reject her aristocratic suitor (Norman Kerry) as part of her bargain with the Phantom. His subsequent kidnapping of Christine and her inability to resist snatching off his mask come quite early in the film.

A heartbreaking Phantom

The 1943 version has been unfairly dismissed as “more opera than Phantom.” Claude Rains is a heartbreaking Phantom, a middle-aged former violinist at the Opera who has secretly been paying for the singing lessons of Christine (Susanna Foster) when his life is abruptly shattered and his face ruined by a tray of etching acid thrown at him in an unscrupulous music publisher’s office.

Rains’ Phantom is as meticulously motivated as Chaney’s is not.

(Late in life the film’s director, Arthur Lubin, admitted that directing Rains had been a challenge because even though Rains turned 54 in 1943 the actor saw himself as a leading man and felt that the Phantom’s disfigurement would bring that phase of his career to an end. In truth, Rains was always thought of as a distinguished character actor during his Hollywood film career, which he began at age 40. An unpretentious veteran of Abbott and Costello comedies and Maria Montez Technicolor hokum and later the creator of TV’s Mr. Ed, Lubin regarded his “Phantom” as his best film.)

Although a richly detailed period production directed with panache by Lubin, the “Phantom” was nevertheless made under wartime restrictions, which is probably why the elaborate Masked Ball, which Chaney’s Phantom attended as the Red Death, was not duplicated and the eerie underground sequences were rather skimpy. (Lubin was able to use the 1925 set of the Opera Auditorium, which still stands on Stage 28 at Universal, its draperies carefully wrapped in plastic.)

Similarly, because most young Hollywood actors were in the service, Christine’s suitors are middle-age; they are the opera’s star baritone (Nelson Eddy) and an officer of the Surete (Edgar Barrier). Eddy is dignified, but Barrier is hopelessly hammy.

Wisely, the Phantom’s unmasking serves as the film’s climax, and Rains’ scarring is as horrifying as it was 61 years ago because it is so very realistic, thanks to the skills of legendary makeup artist Jack Pierce. Anyone who ever saw either “Phantom” at an impressionable age is likely to remember the experience.

There is a raw, primitive power to Ma Xuei Wei-Bung’s bizarre, one-of-a-kind “Song at Midnight” that makes it even more haunting than either of the two best-known “Phantom” films. In this aspect, it recalls the impact of Chaney’s “The Penalty” (1920), in which Chaney plays a criminal bent upon avenging himself against the doctor who amputated his legs above the knees when he was a child, and by extension, all of society. It is even more electrifying than his “Phantom.”

An extravagant, overwrought yet fascinating feat of the imagination, “Song at Midnight” was an immense hit in its day, spawning a 1941 sequel and the sort of film that would attract a cult following today. Clearly inspired by “The Phantom of the Opera,” it features a turn-of-the-century musical comedy star (Chin Shan), who is also a revolutionary, disfigured by a powerful landlord and his rival for the love of an heiress (Hu Ping), who is driven mad by news of Chin’s death. Actually, Chin lives on, hiding in an old abandoned theater, comforting his Ophelia by his nightly singing of the film’s theme song, which became as popular in China as Lloyd Webber’s “Music of the Night.” The film’s complicated story is set in motion by the arrival of a traveling theatrical company that takes over the theater.

“Song at Midnight” was remade several years ago, but it was not a success. Doubtless there have been other film versions of Leroux’s “The Phantom of the Opera,” and it may well be that the Schumacher-Lloyd Webber interpretation will not be the last.