Phantom of the Opera

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Jay W "The Phantom of the Opera" exists in a special gray area of classic Universal Monsters. The 1925 silent film stars Lon Chaney, the father of "the Wolfman". This one from 1943 stars Claude Rains, who also starred as "The Invisible Man". In a way the Phantom can be seen as both the first of the classic monsters and one of the last of their kind. I admire the fact that, even though is a "remake" of the 1925 film it feels like a completely different film. It would have been so easy for producers to just take the same story, put in color and sound and call it a day. But instead they went above and beyond and crafted a more fleshed out story for the Phantom. And when the story focuses on the backstory of the phantom, it is really good. When the film does the opera parts, it is a real drag. Of course, that will all vary depending on how much you like watching people sing boldly in Italian. Those scenes were just too many and too long. Changing the origin of the phantom does present its own problems, for example his relation to that of Christine suffers due to the change. Claude Raines does a good job as the Phantom. But, knowing how well he can laugh maniacally, I was hoping for a bit more of his over the top villainous performance. There is a running gag about a love triangle for Christine that gets a good number of laughs. Overall, it is admiral how much new they bring to the Phantom story. The movie just suffers from pacing problems, spending too much time focusing on the wrong things. Enough so, that the movie feels like it ends just when the story gets going. But it is good enough that you could call me a fan of the Phantom. Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 11/21/24 Full Review Andrew L The first half hour of the film gives an origin of The Phantom and how he came to be. How the police couldn't figure out that Claude Rains's character of Enrique Claudin was The Phantom from the very beginning is the biggest mystery of this movie. Rated 2/5 Stars •  Rated 2 out of 5 stars 07/04/24 Full Review Valerii Ege D Worldwide's third, second English adaptation. Captive Wild Woman was the boring movie in Universal Horror, but I am changing my mind; this movie, is hard to finish. Even worse, the process of the story changed. Rated 1/5 Stars •  Rated 1 out of 5 stars 09/19/23 Full Review Liam D The most forgotten member of the universal monsters has one of the best movies all down to the beautiful Oscar winning Cinematography, great writing and symphonic performance by Claude Reins (The Greatest Story Ever Told, The Lost World) Rated 5/5 Stars •  Rated 5 out of 5 stars 01/08/23 Full Review Audience Member The novel's 1943 adaptation holds zero thrills or surprises and simply plays like a romantic drama with overstretched musical numbers, out-of-place comic reliefs and very little interplay between Erique and Christine. The creation of an origin story for the Phantom wasn't a bad idea, so it's a shame that the result is uninspired and unconvincing. As for the second half, it has no menace or suspense and leads to an anemic climax. In short, all the mystique is gone and everything is watered down. Rated 1.5/5 Stars •  Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars 02/11/23 Full Review Audience Member i personally loved this movie the acid effects were awesome and the story line was perfect Rated 5/5 Stars •  Rated 5 out of 5 stars 02/25/23 Full Review Read all reviews

Phantom of the Opera

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