Halloween Classics XII, Music of the Night

Phantom Month continues, yeah! With a Universal Classic to boot. Does this version stand tall with the other Universal Classics? Or does it fall and crash into a million pieces like the opera house's chandelier? The answer to that may actually surprise you. So, drench your face in acid and throw on an opera mask because I'm about to tell you all about 1943's "Phantom of the Opera."

I hate to say this, but this movie isn't very good. It's certainly not terrible, in fact it starts very strong, but it's just - okay if the Phantom musical has a darker tone than this movie does then you know something went awry. This version of the Phantom clearly wasn't filmed to be a horror movie, or even a Gothic romance, I don't really know what tone they were going for. Romantic comedy maybe? I kept finding myself reminded of "Oklahoma!" for some explicable reason. Yeah I know ...

Okay, I'm being very negative here and super ambiguous so let me explain myself. The movie starts out great, as I mentioned.  Claude Rains plays Erique Claudin, a violinist at the Parisian opera who is losing his ability to play. He's been with the orchestra for 20 years, music has been his life and suddenly his body is betraying him, and because of it he is let go. The scene between Claudin and the maestro may be my favorite in the film, Rains creates a tragic and sympathetic man with his performance, a man who reluctantly accepts that he can no longer fulfill his one true passion. This hit me pretty hard I must admit, as losing the ability to play an instrument is one of my greatest fears and if it ever happened - well it would be hard to bounce back from that - so I for one was immediately taken with this Phantom, but I've always liked this character.

I'd probably break some shit too.

As you can probably tell, this adaptation spends a lot of time on the Phantom's back story, and it deviates from the novel drastically. Previous adaptations I've seen have preferred to keep the Phantom a mystery, drip-feeding little facts and rumors about him as the story progresses. This one instead begins with a Phantom origin story and kind of removes all the mystery immediately. I'm a little torn by this decision actually, I think it's a misstep to remove all the mystique of the Phantom in the very beginning, but I also found this origin compelling and think that it's neat to see a different take on the character. I would have preferred if the film had started with the Phantom in full swing and have us learn about all this as the film progressed.

From here the story follows the overall structure from the 1925 version: the Phantom is obsessed with Christine (DuBois in this version - Boo), and makes demands to put her in the lead. When the managers don't, the Phantom retaliates with murders and bringing the chandelier down on the audience during a packed performance. A big difference here is that Christine only gets glimpses of the Phantom until the climax - she doesn't even know who he is (With an interesting twist on the original protégé plot point) until he drags her down into his sewer dungeon spouting stalkery things about her singing for him forever. This leads the reveal of the Phantom's makeup to be at the climax of the film instead of halfway through. I actually liked this, but the scene where Christine snatches the Phantom's mask off is nowhere near as breathtaking here as it was in 1925 (Though to be fair that's a tough act to follow).

He's basically Two Face in this movie, with acid and all.*

I will say the makeup is still phenomenal though, it looks like something out of a modern horror movie. That Jack Pierce was a madman, and it breaks my heart to hear that the studio made him tone down his original version of the Phantom makeup, because it was too much. Idiots! Gah! Ahem - sorry - anyway, the rest of the production is quite competent as well, the sets are reused from the 1925 film and look fantastic. This may be the only Universal Classic I've ever seen that's in color, and it's clear that this movie had a budget way higher than the other Universal Classics I've talked about so far. Despite this though, the cinematography and music, while great, are not very fitting of the subject matter.

This brings me to my biggest complaint. I think the director was a little too focused on the "Opera" of "Phantom of the Opera." There are many extended scenes from the various operas the cast is performing, and eventually I found myself wondering "Okay, how long is this opera scene going to be?" For example, the scene where the Phantom climbs to the top of the theater to cut the chandelier down, it's during a full performance, so the entire scene is inter-cut with the full on real-time production from the opera. Now, I know that you can't have "Phantom of the Opera" without the "Opera", and more importantly I know this style of scene can be done well: say if the music of this particular opera were especially foreboding - and it built the tension up as the Phantom got closer and closer to his goal of killing all the folks? Yeah, that would totally work, but that's so not what happened here. The tone of this opera - or any opera in this movie for that matter - did not fit the tone of the scene or the movie at all. There is a lot of music in this movie, and none of it feels dark or Gothic or haunting or moody or anything. It's all kinda upbeat, and it just doesn't work. So the Phantom crashes a giant chandelier down, killing many unsuspecting victims, after a happy-go-lucky aria. Go figure.

This should have been the final shot! What were they thinking?**

The cinematography has the same problem, the movie isn't really shot like it knows that this is a darker story. And a lot of the writing and acting has this same problem, where apparently only Rains knew what kind of movie this was supposed to be. This is most obvious with the painful love triangle between Christine, a detective, and the baritone of the opera. That's right they added another love interest to compete with the Phantom, in which Christine does not even consider the Phantom a player as she only knows him as the creepy voice she heard that one time and as the nice violinist from the orchestra. And hey, I could live with this story spun into a oddball supernatural romantic comedy, seriously I could, but even still, if that were the case why is the Phantom not even in the triangle? Even before his face is revealed? And more importantly still, why were we watching so much fucking opera? And I actually like opera! So what the fuck? If I'm saying there's too much music in this movie, then there's a problem. It seems like those making the film were more interested in filming opera scenes with the Phantom as an afterthought, whereas I came here to see the Phantom, and he just happens to be haunting an opera house.

So do I recommend this adaptation of "The Phantom of the Opera?" Unfortunately, I have to say "no," which is so depressing as I think this is a Halloween Classics first. More depressing still is the beginning hints at an extremely tragic tale, which may be hidden in all the opera (Soap and otherwise). If you're looking for something dark and exciting and Halloweeny then stick with another version of the story. If you'd like to watch some intricately filmed opera scenes then give this movie a whirl.


*Yes, the Phantom is not born disfigured in this movie, but is instead made that way by someone throwing acid on his face. Like I said, it's the Two Face origin from "Batman Forever."
**Seriously, this killer shot is followed by a painful "comedic" scene which closes the film. Just another serious misstep.