The original Lon Chaney version of the classic horror story may not be the best introduction to silent films for anyone unaccustomed to the style and pacing of pre-Vitaphone melodrama. Modern audiences are cautioned to approach it as they would any antique museum piece, forgiving the now faded visual splendor and dated histrionics to better appreciate the age and rarity of the artifact itself.
Strictly speaking, the film was never much of a true horror story. Think of it instead as a wayward cousin to Jean Cocteau's 'Beauty and the Beast', with the lovelorn and tragic title character revealed not as an enchanted fairy tale prince, but a disfigured lunatic escaped from the local insane asylum. The Gothic production design is still impressive, but after all these years it's Lon Chaney who carries the film, and his commanding presence is never more obvious than in the pivotal scene when an unsuspecting Mary Philbin unmasks him in his underground lair beneath the Paris Opera House. It's one of the defining moments of our collective movie memory, and deserves to be seen as originally intended: on the big screen with live musical accompaniment (I was fortunate to see the film, in February of 2002, at the Riviera Theatre in North Tonawanda, New York, with the talented Cary Wright on the theater's restored, vintage Wurlitzer organ).
Strictly speaking, the film was never much of a true horror story. Think of it instead as a wayward cousin to Jean Cocteau's 'Beauty and the Beast', with the lovelorn and tragic title character revealed not as an enchanted fairy tale prince, but a disfigured lunatic escaped from the local insane asylum. The Gothic production design is still impressive, but after all these years it's Lon Chaney who carries the film, and his commanding presence is never more obvious than in the pivotal scene when an unsuspecting Mary Philbin unmasks him in his underground lair beneath the Paris Opera House. It's one of the defining moments of our collective movie memory, and deserves to be seen as originally intended: on the big screen with live musical accompaniment (I was fortunate to see the film, in February of 2002, at the Riviera Theatre in North Tonawanda, New York, with the talented Cary Wright on the theater's restored, vintage Wurlitzer organ).