The Phantom Of The Opera - 1929 Re-release (1925) ***1/2
I've seen the 1925 version of The Phantom Of The Opera a few times now. The second screen adaptation of Gaston Leroux's 1910 novel (the first 1916 adaptation is considered a lost film)—I've never flat-out loved the film, but I love certain elements.
Lon Chaney and his famous makeup rightfully deserve a place in film history. The production design, featuring a number of large-scale sets, is also particularly impressive for such an early film, and the Technicolor ball sequence has always stunned me (example in the last screenshot below). Seeing that sequence (along with the notorious unmasking scene) must have been absolutely fantastic in 1925 (or 1929, when the film was re-released).
The rest of the film and the story itself are good, I've just never particularly connected with it or the characters in the same way that I do another classic 1920s silent, Nosferatu (1922) (review)—a film that truly moves me. But I won't deny that POTO '25 is an important film and one that I'm happy to revisit every decade or so.
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Lon Chaney and his famous makeup rightfully deserve a place in film history. The production design, featuring a number of large-scale sets, is also particularly impressive for such an early film, and the Technicolor ball sequence has always stunned me (example in the last screenshot below). Seeing that sequence (along with the notorious unmasking scene) must have been absolutely fantastic in 1925 (or 1929, when the film was re-released).
The rest of the film and the story itself are good, I've just never particularly connected with it or the characters in the same way that I do another classic 1920s silent, Nosferatu (1922) (review)—a film that truly moves me. But I won't deny that POTO '25 is an important film and one that I'm happy to revisit every decade or so.
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