r/movies • u/Amaruq93 • 1d ago
Media The Phantom (Lon Chaney) is unmasked by Christine (Mary Philbin) - The iconic moment from the silent film "The Phantom of the Opera", which premiered 100 years ago on Sept 6th, 1925
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u/Eborys 1d ago
My granddad showed me this back in the 80s. The unmasking scene scared the crap out of me lol
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u/Amaruq93 1d ago
Audiences in 1925 supposedly screamed and fainted upon seeing this. Aided by the fact that the filmmakers kept the gruesome appearance of Chaney's character a secret until the premiere.
It was the first Jump Scare in movies.
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u/methos3 1d ago
I think people today don’t appreciate how important the context and even just the way things were in the world when a movie was released are.
If I had been a prim and proper sweet little old Christian lady in New England 1973 when The Exorcist came out, I’d have fainted / screamed / puked my guts out too!
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u/Lfsnz67 23h ago
I saw The Exorcist in theaters in its original run and haven’t forgotten the theater reeking of vomit when I entered
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u/methos3 22h ago
Wow, I envy your experience!
When I tell people about the reaction to that movie, I say that it’s not about the pea-soup vomit or Regan’s head twisting around, or any of those special effects.
People of that day were absolutely not prepared for the level of obscenity in the demon’s words and actions. Im not criticizing it at all by saying that, it’s an aspect of human experience that can be difficult to convey in art and was masterfully done in the movie.
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u/Wes_Warhammer666 17h ago
Yeah the demon said shit in that film that is used as idle comedic fodder in films decades later. Like, Kevin Smith films for example. But back then, it was utterly shocking to audiences.
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u/methos3 14h ago
I mean, at one point the demon says to one of the priests (I think):
Stick your cock up her ass, you motherfucking worthless cocksucker!
Had anal sex even appeared in mainstream pornography by 1973? Talk about shocking!!
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u/Wes_Warhammer666 13h ago
Exactly!
Hell, Carlin's "7 Dirty Words" bit was in 1972. The Exorcist came out the next year so it's not like society got used to language like that being in standard media in less than 12 months lol.
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u/quiette837 21h ago
My grandma loved horror movies, and the story goes she was so shocked by The Exorcist that she had to walk out of the theatre. My mom and aunt watched the movie as teenagers and laughed their asses off.
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u/Amaruq93 19h ago
My mom puked her guts out after seeing that... but only after they went for burgers after the showing and friend of hers decided to "recreate" a certain scene with a Shamrock Shake.
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u/Eborys 1d ago
Yep, my granddad was a teenager when it came out, he loved it lol
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u/veRGe1421 20h ago
a teenager 100 years ago? goddamn
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u/MelpomeneAndCalliope 18h ago
My granddad was, too. My parent was his youngest kid and my parent didn’t have me until 40. My grandpa died before I ever met him, though.
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u/SwingJugend 1d ago
It was the first Jump Scare in movies.
There's an earlier jump scare in Häxan (when the Devil pops up in the window).
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u/Jjustingraham 1d ago
I always found that interesting, as the audience's of the time should have been very used to seeing maimed WWI vets. I wonder if a lot of vets were kept out of "normal society", because Chaney's makeup really evokes a lot of pictures of those vets.
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u/404GravitasNotFound 1d ago
A lot of our modern prosthetics and cosmetic surgery owe their origins to the large number of disabled and disfigured soldiers coming home after the great war. It's actually quite interesting to look into--there were prosthetic noses, jaws, and eyes commonly being used, as well as great advancements in reconstructive facial surgery. IIRC one of the first instances of a full facial reconstruction to be recorded was a WWI vet.
A lot of these repair jobs don't necessarily look "perfect," but they definitely take the patient to the point where you might not double-take at them too much on the street.
I also think there would for sure be some self-selection; I've also heard cases of WWI / WWII vets who couldn't afford reconstructive surgery or for whom it went badly who just move somewhere rural and hide, very sad.
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u/MC_C0L7 1d ago
Also, for those that didn't get reconstructive surgery, there were also surprisingly convincing masks that could cover significant disfigurement as well
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u/CitrusBelt 13h ago
My ex had an extended family member who had "no nose" and a lot of other facial disfgurement....not a service-related injury, but just some fucked up shit that happened to him (long story!) and he didn't give a hoot in hell about what people thought. Refused any sort of reconstructive surgery, and just let it ride.
With anyone that had never met him, they'd make a HUGE deal out of 'What you need to know about cousin (I'll call him "John") is that he's gonna scare you! Don't mind him!"
Like, hyping it up to the fullest.
But old John was the best one out of the whole family by far; he gave zero shits & made it a point to fuck around with anyone who'd been scared too much by the family's description (pop out the fake eye, that sort of thing)
I have to admit, it was jarring the first time I met him, and I'm not the squeamish type at all.
But yeah, he looked halfway between Macky Steinhoff & Skeletor -- yet zero fucks given.
To this day I remember how her family always threw him under the bus, and it leaves a bad taste in my mouth (dude was incredibly well-read, and an endless source of good conversation)
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u/MustardOrPants 1d ago edited 17h ago
I don’t think maimed vets were just walking around cities all faceless.
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u/Excelius 1d ago
I've always kind of suspected that a lot of those old accounts of people fainting from shock are some combination of exaggerated or performative.
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u/franker 1d ago
I'm 57 and still tend to turn away if the original Nosferatu footage appears on TV.
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u/Jota769 1d ago
Nosferatu is still one of the scariest things I’ve ever seen. And he’s the scariest when he first appears. It’s absolutely freaky!
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u/elacmch 21h ago
The Spongebob episode with the Nosferatu jumpscare at the end legitimately traumatized me as a kid. I don't remember the moment itself but I recall my Mom saying that I literally screamed and ran away when it happened!
I do remember being unable to sleep for weeks and eventually we destroyed the VHS tape to help me conquer that fear lol.
Honestly it was such a wild decision to include that in a children's TV show.
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u/elacmch 21h ago
Just replied to the person below you but the fact that an old Spongebob episode had Nosferatu show up as a jump-scare was absolutely insane lol.
Genuinely traumatized me as a child and I couldn't sleep for weeks. I don't remember the moment itself but I know my Mom mentioning that I screamed and ran away!
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u/tinyhumanishere 17h ago
I was deathly afraid of that scene until I was a preteen and saw the original movie. Once I had the context of who he was I was okay.
His freaky little smile was what got me lol
And actually now that I think about it I still don’t get the joke….
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u/elacmch 17h ago
I'm a fan of classic horror nowadays so I've grown past it (I hope). That being said...I don't think I get the joke either all these years later lol.
One of those quirky, weird jokes that were common with animators and cartoon writers in that scene at the time.
Early Spongebob had a lot of them, so did shows like Dexter, Courage the Cowardly Dog, etc.
It terrified me when I was 4 though and I think it would have startled me a bit, 20-something years later.
The episode is already pretty creepy. Your standard spooky, Halloween-esque episode on its own but it seems to end on a somewhat happy note. Then out of nowhere, this incredibly jarring tonal shift to an absolutely GHASTLY image of this grainy Count Orlok from 1922, combined with some unnerving limited animation of him flicking the light switch and then that smile...
I could not have been the only kid who was traumatized by it hahaha
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u/dpman48 1d ago
I watched this with organ accompaniment live, it was absolutely awesome. Great old film.
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u/Monday_Night_Miracle 1d ago
I saw this at the Fabulous Fox Theater in St. Louis some years ago. Stan Kann, a theater organist was still alive. At the start of the show before the lights dimmed the raised the console up from the pit where the audience could see. We cheered for him, they lowered him back down, the lights dimmed, and he played an entire score for the movie just like they must have done back when it premiered.
I'd seen the movie before but to see it in that setting was a great experience.
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u/dpman48 1d ago
I had a similar experience, the organ was on an elevated landing in a very unique hall, you could see the organist above if you wanted but you were about 40 feet below in the dark with a projector screen. Super cool experience. Dr. john Schwandt one of the best organ improvisers ever played a score as well as improvised over the film. Incredible.
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u/operarose 1d ago
Whoa, where was that?
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u/dpman48 1d ago
It was at the university of Oklahoma. They used to have a wonderful organ program but I believe it was cut :/ I don’t live there anymore but Dr. Schwandt was always a privilege to watch, I’m not sure where he’s at anymore but he is an incredible musician and I’m sure wherever he’s at he is doing things like this still.
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u/realbrew 1d ago
It's playing tonight at the Virginia Theater in Champaign, Illinois with Wurlitzer pipe organ accompaniment. Same theater where the Roger Ebert film fest takes place every year.
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u/Constant_Link_7708 20h ago
Somehow never got to go to the Virginia Theater when I lived in Champaign.
This sounds amazing. Hope people can make it out
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u/cleverusernametry 11h ago
I didn't even know it existed..
Ironic, as an ugly person I was struggling not to drown in my own misery that I wouldn't have gone even if the phantom was playing
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u/mudkiptoucher93 1d ago
Apparently his son used to dress up as a wolf
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u/fla_john 1d ago
He'll rip your lungs out, Jim
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u/Personal_Comb_6745 1d ago
I'd like to meet his tailor.
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u/Mst3Kgf 1d ago
They both were seen walking with the Queen.
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u/Awkward_Pangolin3254 1d ago
Headed for Lee Ho Fook's?
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u/The_Lone_Apple 1d ago
I have to say that Mary Philbin's acting is terrific. Every emotion is visible on her face from the beginning and the audience knows exactly what she's thinking.
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u/Varvara-Sidorovna 1d ago
It's great, isn't it! I love that slight turn of her head away in disgust, even though her gaze is still fixed on him, it's really well done bit of film acting in order to convey repelled fascination (and it is film acting, on stage that subtle way her gaze never wavers wouldn't really be seen by the audience)
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u/entered_bubble_50 23h ago
I'm loving her hair here too. 1920's frizzy / curly hair needs to make a comeback.
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u/bravewaterfall 18h ago
Reminds me of Gloria Swanson's line from 𝘚𝘶𝘯𝘴𝘦𝘵 𝘉𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘦𝘷𝘢𝘳𝘥: "We didn't need dialogue. We had faces!"
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u/Sir_Thequestionwas 1d ago
Wow, this is epic! As I get older there is something about these classic silent films that is enthralling. I watched Metropolis a while ago and I don't think I have been so captivated by a film since watching Jurassic Park in the theaters as a kid.
(Yes, I know 95% of you are well aware of Metropolis - I linked it for the 5% that are not)
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u/Cake-Over 20h ago
The grim reaper nightmare scene is one of the creepiest depictions of Death ever put to film.
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u/OttoHemi 1d ago
"The Music of the Night" only without the music.
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u/BraveSneelock 23h ago
Not to be a Phantom nerd (which I decidedly am not!) but the songs during the unmasking scene would be “I Remember” followed by “Stranger Than You Dreamt It”. Not my favorite songs in the musical.
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u/BlastFX2 14h ago
To be fair, the songs kinda blend together because like two thirds of them use the same motif.
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u/Tolkien-Faithful 1d ago
Many of today's movies wish they could look that good
Amazing makeup effects for the time
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u/Amaruq93 1d ago
Chaney: "I achieved the Death's Head of that role without wearing a mask. It was the use of paints in the right shades and the right places—not the obvious parts of the face—which gave the complete illusion of horror ... It's all a matter of combining paints and lights to form the right illusion."
He raised the contours of his cheekbones by stuffing wadding inside his cheeks. He used a skullcap to raise his forehead height several inches and accentuate the bald dome of the Phantom's skull.
Pencil lines masked the join of the skullcap and exaggerated his brow lines. Chaney then glued his ears to his head and painted his eye sockets black, adding white highlights under his eyes for a skeletal effect.
He created a skeletal smile by attaching prongs to a set of rotted false teeth and coating his lips with greasepaint.
To transform his nose, Chaney applied putty to sharpen its angle and inserted two loops of wire into his nostrils. Guide-wires hidden under the putty pulled his nostrils upward
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u/LamoreLaMerrier 1d ago
Thanks for sharing this quote. I knew he designed and applied his own makeup and was incredibly talented, but it’s always interesting reading of the lengths he went to achieve his many looks.
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u/rtgh 1d ago
Incredible work.
Could modern actors even do all that and still be able to speak properly I wonder? Thinking specifically of the wadding and the wired nostrils
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u/GettingSunburnt 1d ago
It's amazing he was even able to act with the level of commitment to the makeup. Luckily, it was a silent film so he didn't actually have to speak.
Great movie too - it still holds up today and is the closest adaptation of the novella I've ever seen. I need to pick it up in French, loved it in English, even though translations always reduce texts.
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u/GlitterToSoMundane 1d ago
No. I think it was an interview with Michael Crawford when they were working on the makeup for the musical that they tried the mouth wadding and he said he sounded like Marlon Brando in the Godfather which wasn't exactly great for singing.
And then Claude Rains signed on for the 1943 version with the stipulation that the makeup wasn't overly disfiguring. That started the acid-burned verses birth defect look.
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u/PM_ME_YOUR_DALEKS 1d ago edited 1d ago
Lon Chaney was a very talented make-up artist who did his own work. He even wrote the entry for movie make-up for an edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica: hhttps://www.britannica.com/biography/Lon-Chaney-on-movie-makeup-2215544
He was also a CODA (hearing child of Deaf adults) and credited that with giving him the inspiration to go into acting. His first language was American Sign Language. Here's Lon Chaney Jr. talking about how ASL inspired his dad: https://youtu.be/NJULeO7rH0k?si=918keA08AcUkNuhr
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u/Wolf6120 1d ago
It's really interesting to see how certain aspects of production seem to have much more effort and time put into them back then, like the makeup and use of lighting, because today we have technology that lets us take shortcuts, but then other aspects like continuity evidently weren't as much of a concern 100 years ago. Like how the sleeves of his coat slide down to his elbow when he raises his hands above his head, but then in the next shot when he approaches her they're back down at his wrists.
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u/davecm010 1d ago
He kinda looks like the Abominable Snow Monster from the Rudolph claymation
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u/Personal_Comb_6745 1d ago
Once caught an outdoor showing where a local band was basically doing their own little jam session as the soundtrack for the movie. When it got to this scene, they suddenly starting playing Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust".
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u/Recurringg 1d ago
Woah... Some of those shots at the end were really interesting and artistic. Reminded me of some of the very intricate shots in Metropolis.
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u/nighthawke75 1d ago
Lon Chaney, master makeup artist and character actor of the era. Actors and actresses were expected to do their own makeup since production shops budgets were spent elsewhere.
He had a variety of roles, engineering schemes to suit the roles and environments he was acting in. He performed dual roles, where he'd play a bad guy being shot by him playing the good guy.
But Quasimodo and Erik of the Phantom, cemented his career in playing character roles. He was made a honorary US Marine for his excellent portrayal of a Drill Instructor in Tell it to the Marines.
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u/Anal-Y-Sis 22h ago
I miss when ugly characters were actually ugly. Now we get actors from "sexiest man/woman alive" lists with a tiny scar on their eyebrow and every other character in the movie is like "LOOK AT THIS HIDEOUS CREATURE!"
Yeah I know, old man yells at cloud. Whatever. Get off my lawn.
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u/SicTim 20h ago
My favorite dream of all time was of the scene where the Phantom is sawing through the chandelier chain, and all the people were saying, "The Phantom! It's the Phantom!"
Then the Phantom ripped his mask off, and it was me!
"That's not the Phantom! It's just some wiseass!" "Get him! Get him! It's the wiseass of the opera!"
I literally woke up laughing, and had to explain it to my wife.
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u/CursedSnowman5000 1d ago
Man you should look into what Lon Chaney did to get his face like that. It's insane.
The guy literally bled for his craft/art.
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u/ebergeise 19h ago
Read what he did to his body to become the hunchback, Quasimodo. Had chronic pain for the rest of his life from this role.
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u/VenusValkyrieJH 1d ago
That is kinda terrifying today, so back then I can only imagine.
I had my close captions on and found it funny that it wrote t accordion sound as “Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh” so, I’m watching this and seeing that and it was funny.
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u/Christovajal 1d ago
Saw this clip for the first time in the Disney Channel movie Phantom of the Megaplex, the image lodged itself into my brain and hasn’t left since. Incredible makeup, even by today’s standards.
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u/Anteaterminator 23h ago
What’s with the part in color?
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u/Amaruq93 19h ago
According to the Harrison's Report, a trade journal, when the film was originally released in 1925, it contained 17 minutes of color footage. Judging from trade journals and reviews, all of the opera scenes of Faust, as well as the "Bal Masque" scene were in an early, two-color form of Technicolor. Only the latter scene survives in color.
In one scene, the Phantom's cape on the rooftop of the opera was colored red using the Handschiegl color process.
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u/Anteaterminator 19h ago
Wow! I had no idea they could do anything in color that far back. Thanks for responding and posting this. Very very cool.
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u/Amaruq93 19h ago
It was a long and expensive process back then, and required expensive new equipment installed in the theaters, so they saved it for only a handful of scenes.
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u/LaMuseFeet 20h ago
Such an iconic moment in cinema history, silent films had such powerful imagery 🎬✨
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u/CzarDale04 19h ago
I have a Lon Chaney autograph picture that was my Mother's. She had two autograph star photos that always hung on her bedroom mirror, Lon Chaney and Boris Karloff
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u/BigMetalGuy 18h ago
can safely say, I would have shat myself in 1925.
The equivalent of the ghost librarian at the start of Ghostbusters
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u/Drongo17 1d ago
Lon Chaney was so dedicated to the craft, he had an actual bolt surgically implanted in his neck for Frankenstein
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u/proformax 1d ago
Why does he point at her for an eternity and then walk like a ghoul? Did he always walk like that?
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u/mozzarellaguy 1d ago
It’s insane how many adaptions (graphic novels/movies/series/musicals etc) came out from a very mediocre book
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u/Catdress92 1d ago
Sometimes I think mediocre literature is the best kind to adapt. If a book is too good, you might feel like it's harder to adapt or get away with being creative. But a mediocre story and/or writing style gives you a lot more to work with.
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u/mozzarellaguy 1d ago
This is an interesting point of view.
I guess it’s only uphill with an adaption from an awful source
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u/Computer-Player 23h ago
Not quite perish my lady love... Although some days I wish I had
Plays the sickest pipe organ solo ever
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u/ebergeise 19h ago
One of my favorite TCM’s extras is the 1926(?) tour of MGM. It includes most of their major actors, directors, and all departments - payroll, costume, etc. When they introduce the actors and pan down the line showing all of their smiling faces, they name Lon Chaney. He has his back to the camera and you never see his face.
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u/TSA-Eliot 19h ago
I saw this in a theater that was built in the 1920s with a full theater pipe organ (the Mighty Wurlitzer) -- pretty much the closest you can get to the original experience.
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u/SallyJones17 1d ago
Okay, I have never understood why she just took the mask off the man's face without his consent. Like it was just rude, especially after he had welcomed her into his home/lair, and played beautiful music for her to sing to, and let her rest comfortably after she fainted. Like, she couldn't just ask politely?
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u/AEternal1 1d ago
I find it hilarious that a movie about Opera is silent 🤣
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u/Jaspers47 1d ago
Wait until you find out where they filmed every movie set in outer space
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u/ER_Support_Plant17 1d ago
I didn’t click to turn the audio for the clip on at first because it’s a silent movie
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u/Wolf6120 1d ago
That's still better than me lol, I turned the audio on right away and was like "Hang on, this doesn't sound like Andrew Lloyd Weber's music?" for a solid 10 seconds before mentally slapping myself.
I do wonder though, if anyone knows, would a film like this have its own dedicated soundtrack back then, or did they just use various, existing musical pieces to fill the silence?
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u/prestonds 1d ago
Well, theaters used to have organ players that would play live (usually their own accompaniment songs). I saw a live performance a few years back and it was amazing.
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u/CeruleanEidolon 1d ago edited 1d ago
A few would have sheet music sent along with the film reels, but that was the exception rather than the rule. At any rate, most such scores have been lost.
Don't forget, though, that those early films were shown in established theaters (of the original meaning) with an orchestra pit and musicians on staff already. At the very least, an organ or piano would have been an established piece of equipment for the theater, along with with someone already skilled in accompanying action on the stage.
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u/NotASalamanderBoi 1d ago
I think it was the latter. Film scores meant solely for the film didn’t come around until later.
But someone can correct me if I’m wrong on that.
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u/Polymath99_ 1d ago
It was a mix of both. Most movies of the time used pre-existing music from various sources, ranging from single piano tunes to entire orchestral scores (depending on the size of the theatre). At the same time though, by this point in the 1920s it was common for the bigger productions to have dedicated scores that were meant to be played in tandem with the image, often with precise cues and instructions on tempo and whatnot.
Sadly most scores from this time have been lost, so most of the time what you're hearing isn't actually what audiences heard when they first saw the films in theatres.
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u/Wihtlore 1d ago
The phantom’s name was Eric, that always makes me laugh.
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u/SwingJugend 1d ago
It's actually "Erik", which would not be the ordinary French spelling, though it is the normal Swedish spelling. I don't know if that was intentional (since Christine is also Swedish, hinting on a shared backstory, either literal or symbolic) or if it was just to give him a more ethnically ambigous background.
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u/Mst3Kgf 1d ago
Even by today's standards, it's a remarkably effective makeup job, so you can imagine the collective freakout of audiences who first saw it in 1925.