The Phantom of the Opera (1925)
A disfigured musician living beneath the Paris Opera grooms a young soprano into a star, then drags her to his lair when she recoils from his face. Chaney designed his own skull-like make-up in secret; the unmasking still lands, and the Technicolor masquerade sequence survives in colour.
“The Man of a Thousand Faces” at his most famous. Audiences reportedly screamed at the reveal in 1925 — it holds up.
Background
Lon Chaney designed his own make-up for the Phantom and kept it secret until the film opened, so that audiences saw the unmasking without warning. Universal built a huge replica of the Paris Opera House on its studio lot, and the soundstage housing it stood for decades until it was demolished in 2014. The Masquerade Ball and other sequences were filmed in two-colour Technicolor. Rupert Julian is credited as director, but other hands worked on the film, and it exists in more than one version.
What to watch for
The film is based on Gaston Leroux’s 1910 novel, and Chaney’s performance, which is both frightening and sympathetic, is its greatest strength. Look for the moment when Mary Philbin reaches for the mask, and for the sequence on the roof of the opera house. Chaney had made his name playing physically transformed outcasts, and here he creates one of the most enduring screen monsters. The film is a good example of silent-era spectacle and of how much a performer could convey without dialogue.
