1001 movies before I die: The Phantom of the Opera (Review)

  If you saw my post about thee book "1001 movies you must see before you die". You'll know that I am atempting to watch all 1001 movies. This is my review of The Phantom of the Opera (movie #26) 

The Phantom of the Opera

What can I say but what a great movie this was. This is one the horror fans should definitely look out for. Although it's not that scary as with the other movies from this era it shaped the horror movies to come.

I really liked Lon Chaney's other movie The Unknown and one reason for that is his preformance. This movie is no different, yet again Chaney gives a exeptional preformance. People often cite him as one of the greatest silent film stars and I can see why.

One of the things that this movie does well is it's set design. The way you never really know where you are because of all the twists and turns, hidden doorways and trapdoors. It really makes you feel like the Phantom is in control all times becuase he knows the ins and outs of this place.

I've heard that there are quite a few cuts of this movie and i'm not sure which one I watched but it's safe to say that it was good. At first I found a version where they had added voiceovers in the later years, but I didn't like that to much and I'm sure that's not the version the book intended for me to watch, so after only a couple of minutes in I found one without the talking. 

The films also has some great use of color. Most of the film was in different single colors but in certain scenes they made the movie full color which really showed the beauty of it's set and constume design.

Score: 8/10