cinema history class: phantom of the opera (1925)

The session: Happy (Belated) 100th Birthday to the Phantom of the Opera
Keith shows us three classic Lon Chaney silent films and a documentary about his career

As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL.

Week 1: Phantom of the Opera (1925)
Directed by Rupert Julian

My Level of Prior Knowledge:
I'd seen a few versions of Phantom, and I knew of this version. But I had never seen it before.

Plot Synopsis:
A mysterious, disfigured man secretly living beneath the Paris Opera House becomes obsessed with a young soprano and manipulates events to make her a star. He haunts the opera with threats and sabotage while demanding her devotion.

Reaction and Other Folderol:
I’m very aware, watching something like this, that I’m bringing a 1970s–1980s movie brain to a 1925 film. I’m used to decades of technical advancement—better cameras, better editing, better everything. But that’s kind of the point: those later filmmakers got to stand on the shoulders of giants. Lon Chaney didn’t have that luxury. And yet, the visuals here are striking in ways that still land. The sets feel expansive, the compositions are deliberate, and the famous moments don’t feel like museum pieces—they feel like someone figuring out, in real time, how to make cinema unsettling.

And then there’s Chaney himself. The performance is great, but it’s the makeup—and how it’s used—that really sticks. The design is grotesque, but it’s the interplay with shadow that elevates it. The face isn’t just revealed; it’s unleashed. Even now, you can see how carefully it’s staged for maximum impact. It’s not just “good for its time.” It’s good, period.

There’s also a rough edge here that I kind of appreciate—something that later, code-era movies tended to sand down. This version feels a little more jagged, a little less concerned with smoothing everything into something polite or morally tidy. The tone can lurch, the emotions can spike, and the whole thing has a slightly unhinged quality that works in its favor. It feels closer to something raw and theatrical, rather than something carefully regulated.

All of which makes it hard for me to “grade” in the usual sense. I’m not really comparing it to its contemporaries—I’m comparing it to everything that came after it, which isn’t exactly fair. But given how much of this feels foundational—how much of it is first draft of the language of horror filmmaking—I’m comfortable just going with a 10. Just like Joe!