Norma Desmond has a quote in Sunset Blvd. She says, “We didn’t need dialogue, we had faces.” This line sums up silent films. It also sums up Lon Chaney’s career. He could with any expression, sum up his character’s feelings. There is no better example of this than his greatest role, in The Phantom of the Opera. Chaney plays Eric the Phantom. He haunts the Paris opera house, causing major disruptions. The new owners laugh about the stories. There are some in the Opera company, who claim to have seen him. One man, a stagehand, claims to have seen him, and tells stories, that drive the performer into near hysteria.
Eric is content to sit in box number 5 where he watches opera performances. It delights him to scare people with his mysterious appearances. This changes when he becomes obsessed with Christine Daae. She is a singer that the phantom believes has pure talent. He comes to see her one night. Eric promises to make her a great singer. He asks that she go with him. she does this willingly. The phantom has a mask on his face. He tells Christine that she cannot see his face. This woman disobeys and after a few attempts, she pulls off his mask. She sees a horribly scarred and disfigured face. This causes her to faint. This scene is a classic, not only in a silent movie, but also in the annals of horror. This moment is why Chaney stands out. He looks directly at Christine and demands she look at him.
Eric later appears at a costume ball as The Red Death and demands that Christine take the place of the star of the Opera, Faust, Carlotta,(Mary Fabian). Carlotta had withdrawn earlier after a threatening letter from The Phantom. She has recovered from a mysterious illness and will perform. The Phantom, enraged, sabotages a chandelier, causing it to fall onstage. Christine who was released by Eric, is now taken in the confusion. Her fiance, Vicomte Raoul de Chagny,(Norman Kerry), along with Inspector Ledoux,(Arthur Edmund Carewe), pursue the phantom into the bowels of the Opera house. The phantom has prepared traps for uninvited guests. The pursuers come upon both. One is a room that heats to unbearable temperatures. The other is a water trap that will drown them. Christine begs the phantom to save the men. He does. However the pursuers catch up to Eric, but he escapes to the streets above with Christine. He steals a carriage trying to elude his pursuers. The phantom is going too fast and the carriage overturns, and Christine gets away. The phantom must now try to escape to safety.
The interesting thing about The Phantom of the Opera, is how it was filmed. A technicolor process was used for the appearance of The Red Death. This makes the scene very effective. Most of the movie is tinted, and doesn’t look faded like many very old movies do. The Opera house set is magnificent. It paved the way for many spectacular sets of epic films. The director, Rupert Julian, handles this type of film well. Unfortunately he clashed with the actors, and was replaced. There is a story that Lon Chaney filled in for Julian. This is not verified. Chaney could have done this. His acting skills were incredible,and he had a feel for the material. This movie would not be the same without Lon Chaney. It was later remade by Universal studios, with Claude Rains as the phantom. It was filmed in color,and there is a musical feel to it. Despite Rains horror background, it isn’t as good. Lon Chaney, was the greatest actor of the silent film era. Actors have been known to do many things in their roles. Lon Chaney went above and beyond for Eric the Phantom. He used extreme and uncomfortable methods to shape the character’s deformed face. This included inserting hooks into his nose, to make the phantom’s face look like a skull. Today these type of effects,are done by makeup artists or CGI. When Lon Chaney worked in Hollywood, actors could apply their own makeup. Chaney would draw the concept of the character, and go from there. He was a hard working actor, who started on the stage. The Phantom of the Opera, made him a legend. It also paved the way for the studio to be the home of the greatest screen monsters ever created.