Review #1,320: 'The Phantom of the Opera' (1925)

Silent movie star and all-round horror icon Lon Chaney was known as the 'Man of a Thousand Faces'. His gift for make-up and prosthetic work meant that he was able to transform himself into some of the most iconic characters of the silent era, such as the masked Phantom of Phantom of the Opera, and Quasimodo in 1923's The Hunchback of Notre Dame. But Chaney didn't become a legend simply for his skills with a make-up brush, he was also a damn fine actor. Having grown up with two deaf parents, Chaney became incredibly skilled at pantomime, something that would benefit him when he was eventually promoted to silent film. The Phantom himself is what people remember and take away from the story, not the plot, the dialogue or the songs of Andrew Lloyd Webber's later musical adaptation, and much of this is thanks to Chaney's memorable incarnation, which was only the second on film (1916's Das Phantom der Oper is now lost).

Adapted from Gaston Leroux's 1910 novel Le Fantome de l'Opera, the story is centred around Paris Opera House, which has recently been acquired by two men who laugh off any suggestion that a cloaked ghost known as 'The Phantom' stalks the halls at night. The new season is about to open with Faust, led by prima donna Carlotta (Mary Fabian), whose understudy Christine Daae (Mary Philbin) has made a rapid rise from a mere chorus girl to potential star-in-waiting. Somebody is clearly a fan of Christine, as Carlotta's mother (Virginia Pearson) receives a letter demanding that Christine be given the lead, otherwise a great tragedy will befall her daughter. The note is signed by the Phantom, but Carlotta sings anyway. Soon enough, she is taken ill, and Christine steps in to wow the audience and her fiance Vicomte Raoul de Chagny (Norman Kerry). Visited by the shadowed Phantom late one night, she is told that she has been touched with a divine voice, and nothing can now stop her career, as long as she agrees to obey the wishes of her new master.

She soon discovers that these wishes involve her heading through a secret passage into the catacombs beneath the Opera House and living out her days in solitude with a disfigured creature who hopes she will return his love. The Opera House was built upon some kind of palace complete with torture chambers, and Christine is whisked off on horseback and gondola to the Phantom's secret lair. This sequence is captured with a dream-like quality, blurring the lines between reality and nightmare, although it has a sense of eerie beauty to it also. The eventual unmasking of Phantom, or Erik as he reveals himself to be, is one of the most famous images in cinema. Even though you know the moment is coming, Chaney's expression of shock and rage at being revealed to the world still has the ability to send a shiver down the spine. It is a shot that wouldn't have had quite the same impact if not for Chaney's involvement, and the actor also manages to squeeze some sympathy out of his bitter, twisted and completely insane romantic. It's far from the best chiller to emerge from the silent era, but it is undoubtedly one of the most influential.


Directed by: Rupert Julian
Starring: Lon Chaney, Mary Philbin, Norman Kerry, Arthur Edmund Carewe, Gibson Gowland
Country: USA

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,200: 'The Unholy Three' (1925)

Before he gifted the world of horror with two stone-cold classics (1931's Dracula and 1932's Freaks), director Tod Browning was an incredibly prolific film-maker, churning out melodramas, thrillers and horror pictures by the dozen. One of his best during the silent period was The Unholy Three, a rather twisted crime drama set around a group of ex-circus freaks who come up with a plan to steal their fortune. It's a premise that would have any cinephile salivating, especially with genre legend and 'Man of a Thousand Faces' Lon Chaney playing the lead and the film's relative obscurity. While it's no masterpiece like Freaks, it explores a different side to the circus performer: one that is dissatisfied, restless, and capable of going to extreme lengths to earn their riches.

After getting kicked out of the side-show following a mass brawl, three disgruntled performers hatch a cunning plan to rob some rick folk blind. Ventriloquist Echo (Chaney) will assume the disguise of Granny O'Grady, a nice old lady who runs a pet store specialising in parrots. The animals do not talk, but Echo uses his ventriloquist skills to convince the moustache-twirling customers otherwise. When the unhappy purchaser later calls the store to complain, Granny O'Grady will snoop out the place, paving the way for horseshoe-bending strongman Hercules (Victor McLaglen) and short-tempered midget Tweedledee (Harry Earles) to sneak in and steal any spied valuables. There's also an escape plan in mild-mannered store manager Hector (Matt Moore), who the three will lay the blame on should the heat turn up. But when Echo's girlfriend Rosie (Mae Busch) falls for Hector, the plan quickly starts to fall apart.

There are a lot of things about The Unholy Three that are utterly ridiculous, such as Echo's needlessly convoluted plan, and the idea that anyone would buy the cigar-chomping Earles as a baby in a cart. Yet the flaws are really the reason to love the film that much more. There is a morbid fascination to be had with watching these idiots repeatedly shoot themselves in the foot and quickly resort to cold-blood murder. Chaney really was the man of a thousand faces; effortlessly convincing as both a harmless old lady and a sympathetic anti-hero, and Earles - who would later appear in Freaks - is great fun, delivering what is undoubtedly the film's greatest line ("If you tip that boob off to who we are, I'll lay some lilies under your chin!"). The strange premise and macabre characters proved a hit with the audience, and catapulted Browning into the big leagues. It may lack the edge of his later movies, but The Unholy Three retains a ghoulish quality a whole 92 years after its release.


Directed by: Tod Browning
Starring: Lon Chaney, Mae Busch, Matt Moore, Victor McLaglen, Harry Earles
Country: USA

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #273: 'Tartuffe' (1925)

The film begins with the story of a rich man being given a slow premature death by his money-grubbing housekeeper. The elderly man has shunned his actor grandson, who visits him and, after discovering the housekeepers use of poison, is sent away. He returns disguised as a travelling cinema worker, who, upon getting into his grandfather's house, proceeds to show them the story of Herr Tartuff. Rich landowner Herr Orgon (Werner Krauss) brings his new friend and religious fanatic Tartuffe (Emil Jannings) home, much to the dismay of Orgon's wife Frau Elmire (Lil Dagover). After she spurns Tartuffe's sexual advances, she sets out to prove to Orgon that Tartuffe is an imposter who is seeking to inherit Orgon's vast estate.

Why director F.W. Murnau decided to use the film-within-a-film device in his adaptation of Moliere's famous play, I'm not sure. Maybe it was to put his own new spin on what is now a well-known story and moral tale, or perhaps it is just to bring it up to date. Either way, it's an effective device, and allows Murnau to advertise his unbelievably advanced film-making techniques and ideas. His better known classics such as Nosferatu (1922) and Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927) showed his ability for expressionism and breakthrough techniques, but Tartuffe displays his eye for the science of cinema. Every frame, every camera movement, and every cut is sheer beauty. And everything is helped by one of the giants of silent cinema, Emil Jannings.

Tartuffe is an absolute monster, and it needed a true monster to play him. Jannings is colossal - his hulking frame making him look like a kind of evil spectre, capable of anything (what a shame that Jannings would later commit career suicide by becoming Goebbels pet propaganda tool). The film takes some surprising risks (for its time) as well. During the opening scenes, before we are introduced to Tartuffe, we see the young grandson being booted out of the house. Then something amazing happens - he walks up to the camera and looks at us, the audience, smiling. He assures us that the matter is not finished, and that he will be back to avenge his grandfather. This was back in a time where directors felt they had to have the characters looking a certain way went conversing, and that camera shots had to be at a certain level, for fear the audience simply wouldn't understand what was happening. Directors were simply terrified to try new techniques, but not Murnau.

There is also a shocking scene involving the first exchanges between Tartuffe and Elmire. She is in the midst of demanding him to leave, when the camera droops down from her face, and lingers on her cleavage, which is slightly visible due to the way she is looking down upon Tartuffe. All is seen from Tartuffe's point of view, and this happens a number of times. Surprisingly saucy given it's age. Murnau is simply a genius, and you can watch almost any of his films to realise this. Tartuffe is not his best, and even if it seems to be breathlessly sprinting for the end in the final ten minutes, it is still a brilliant film.


Directed by: F.W. Murnau
Starring: Emil Jannings, Werner Krauss, Lil Dagover
Country: Germany

Rating: *****

Tom Gillespie

Review #175: 'Strike' (1925)

In the Soviet Union in 1903, the workers of a factory are tired of poor wages, hard living, and harsh treatment by their superiors. Talk of a strike is rife, and when one innocent worker is accused of theft, he hangs himself on the production line and unwittingly becomes a martyr. The strike is decided, and the workers gather in masses to discuss their terms. Meanwhile, the fat cats upstairs are in uproar that the strike has been called, and employ a number of secret agents with animal code names to infiltrate, brutalise and spy on the strikers. As the workers begin to fight amongst themselves, the bosses tactics become increasingly brutal, especially when the police are called in.

Sergei Eisenstein is one of the Soviet Union's greatest ever filmmakers, and arguably one the world's greatest. This was his first feature-length film (he made The Battleship Potemkin (1925) later that year, one of the best and most influential films ever made) and his trickery and style is awe-inspiring, given his inexperience and the fact that cinema was still in its early stages. The most effective technique Eisenstein plays is in the early scenes, where he juxtaposes different animals with the key players (Eisenstein was known as the 'King of Montage'). For example, there is an owl, always watching, thinking and cunning, turning into a wild-eye spy; a fox, misleadingly beautiful and sly, becoming a shapeshifting and handsome con-artist - and dancing bears, that portray the workers. The use of this is at its most powerful at the end, when the police move in to overthrow the strike, cut with scenes of a cow having its throat cut, blood gushing out of its wound as it slowly dies.

It's an incredibly stylish piece for its day and moves along at an alarming pace, even when compared to some films today. It never slows down to develop any characters, instead using its revolutionary and Communist themes to play the main role, with the characters being mere pawns in a more important overlying theme. It's clear where Eisenstein's stance is, which does also work against the film. The factory bigwigs are no more than faceless fat men in expensive suits, drinking champagne and smoking cigars all day, laughing at the misfortune of the workers. There is also a scene where one wipes his shoes clean with the workers wage demands. By today's standards, it seems a bit stereotypical, and the metaphors quite obvious. But this is an alarmingly stylish debut from a truly great film-maker, that is both exciting, and come the end, really quite shocking.


Directed by: Sergei M. Eisenstein
Starring: Grigori Aleksandrov, Maksim Shtraukh, Mikhail Gomorov
Country: Soviet Union

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie