#phantom 1962

[phantom-sith]

One of my Passion Projects that I am still (slowly) working on. Maybe by sharing it here, it can find a bit more love. Anyone want a Leroux-Based Erik trying to figure out how to care for a kid, alone?? Synopsis:

When tragedy befalls the de Chagny family, the Ghost of their past is forced return from the shadows. In the ten years since Erik last saw his beloved Christine, and as they are finally reunited, her life slips away. Shattered, Erik is now left to raise the son he never knew he had. Together, Erik and Charles struggle through their new reality and their grief over Christine.

If only it were that simple. Those behind the de Chagny murders are now hunting down the sole ‘heir.’ The only way to protect Charles is to solve the mystery. In doing so, Erik discovers more of Christine’s secrets that she never had a chance to tell him. Snippet from Chapter 2:

Upon his majestic horse as black as the night around them, Erik broke from the forest to become the wall between mother and child and those who would harm them.

“You!” one of the men exclaimed, as their horses skid to an abrupt halt. “How–?”

“You cannot be rid of me so easily, Monsieur!” Erik’s sonorous voice echoed around them. “Your companions extend their grave invitations to you!”

“We have no qualms with you! Be gone, and we’ll spare your life!”

Erik allowed his voice to come just from him. “You speak as though you are not my prey,” came that growl, a tone that marked him as the Angel of Death.

[nessie665]

The Prophecy by Taylor Swift (2024) / Phantom of The Opera at the Royal Albert Hall (2011) / Phantom of the Opera (1990) / Takarazuka Y&K's Phantom (2004) / The Phantom of the Opera (1962) / The Phantom of the Opera (1989) / The Phantom of the Opera (2004) / Phantom Of The Paradise (1974) / Phantom Of The Opera (1943) / Love Never Dies (2012) / The Phantom of the Opera (1925) 

And I sound like an infant Feeling like the very last drops of an ink pen A greater woman stays cool But I howl like a wolf at the moon A greater woman has faith But even statues crumble if they're made to wait I'm so afraid I sealed my fate No sign of soulmates

[luneemeritus]

[piedalchemist]

Yet in his eyes

All the sadness of the world

Those pleading eyes

That both threaten and adore

[phantomato13]

Decided to compare my height with the Phantoms - Winslow is scary! Jk but wow I never realized how tall some of these guys are.

[weirdlookindog]

Herbert Lom in The Phantom of the Opera (1962)

[nitrateglow]

Spooky Season 2024: 12-22

Phantom of the Mall: Eric's Revenge (dir. Richard Friedman, 1989)

The opening of the new mall is hampered by one thing: a Phantom hiding in the air vents, and committing robbery and murder. It turns out this Phantom is really a teenager named Eric (Derek Rydall) disfigured in a fire set by the mall's developers to clear out any remaining houses impeding their dreams of commercial development. Now, Eric plans on having his revenge and watching over his girlfriend Melody (Kari Whitman), now an employee of the mall. But what will he make of her burgeoning romance with a journalist?

Talk about pure '80s cheese. This film feels like it was made to capitalize on the slasher cycle and the popularity of the Andrew Lloyd Weber Phantom of the Opera megamusical. It's not a particularly good movie, but it is dumb fun. I love how this Phantom makes free use of the goods available in the stores and how he spams his spin kick attack like he's in a video game.

Also, Pauly Shore is in this. He has a great scene talking about subliminal messaging in department stores, but is otherwise the usual Pauly Shore.

Hangover Square (dir. John Brahm, 1945)

Musician George Harvey Bone (Laird Cregar) is disturbed by long sessions in which he blacks out. He fears he may be committing murder, but is reassured by the police when he goes to them that isn't likely. Detective Dr. Allen Middleton (George Saunders) advises the overworked George take a break from composing. George does so by going to a pub where he meets the lovely Netta Longdon (Linda Darnell), a music hall entertainer who dreams of fame. George and Netta enter into a toxic relationship in which she uses him to advance her career while seeing other men on the side. When George discovers her treachery, his blackouts return-- this time in a far more violent form.

I'm starting to become fascinated by John Brahm, a director best remembered for his moody, macabre dramas in the 1940s. Hangover Square was his second and final collaboration with the talented but doomed Laird Cregar, who died two months before the film was released. It's as much a noir as a horror picture, drenched in that chiaroscuro lighting and urban dread so common to the classic cycle.

Cregar is astonishing in the lead role. Though handsome, he was a bigger man, so Hollywood refused to allow him to transition into leading man parts. He is marvelous here, passionate and sensitive, yet also sinister once his jealous rage takes over. I've seen Cregar in multiple films and he was truly fantastic, able to be comic as well as dramatic. Hollywood didn't deserve him.

Lastly, Linda Darnell's character sings this really catchy song when Cregar first sees her. I saw this film weeks ago but it is STILL STUCK IN MY HEAD.

The Sealed Room (dir. DW Griffith, 1909)

In some nondescript time period (everyone's dressed like it's either the early 18th century or the middle ages), a king (Arthur V. Johnson) learns his mistress (Marion Leonard) is smooching with a musician (Henry B. Walthall). Jealous to the point of rage, he has the couple sealed in a small room where they suffocate to death.

The Sealed Room is a gem from the nickelodeon era, though I admit my liking for it comes from how extra all the performances are, even by the standards of the early silent period.

It also has one of my favorite instances of what I like to call "silent film logic"-- that is, scenes featuring action that would be very loud in real life, but in a silent film, you may not think about it as much. Here, the king has the lovers walled up alive in a small room, where they lounge unaware. And yet, there's workers slapping up a brick wall not ten feet away from them! It's very amusing.

Frankenhooker (dir. Frank Henenlotter, 1990)

When his girlfriend Elizabeth (Patty Mullen) gets hacked to death by an automatic lawnmower he built, medical student Jeffrey (James Lorinz) decides to resurrect her by killing sex workers for their shapely body parts then sewing Elizabeth's severed head on top. He does this by having his victims smoke explosive crack.

No, I'm not making this up.

I first heard about Frankenhooker from James Rolfe of Angry Video Game Nerd fame. It sounded so insane that I knew I had to watch it. It's-- well, it's definitely a bizarre movie with lots of crude humor and pitch black jokes.

Would you believe me if I said it was kind of an unsung feminist work? I definitely did not expect THAT angle coming in, but that messaging is definitely there. Jeffrey is a villain-protagonist through and through, even before he starts committing murder. We learn he was already demanding Elizabeth modify her appearance to suit his tastes before she got killed. He views women as more a collection of body parts than proper people. However, his misogyny does catch up with him in the end and his fate at the resurrected Elizabeth's hands is the very definition of irony. I don't want to spoil it.

It's definitely not for everyone, but if you have a sick sense of humor and some friends that share that humor, you'll have a good time.

Friday the 13th: Part 2 (dir. Steve Miner, 1981)

A summer camp close to the infamous Camp Crystal Lake is about to open. Little do the young, horny counselors know, Jason (Warrington Gillette and Steve Daskewicz)-- the boy that allegedly drowned long ago-- is still alive and he's mad his mama got decapitated in the previous film. Lots of people die.

I confess I have a hard time getting into these Friday the 13th films. I've read it took a few entries for the series to find its footing as gloriously dumb schlock, but the first one and this sequel were mostly boring for me. About all I liked was the last twenty minutes, when the heroine's background in child psychology comes into play. Otherwise, this gets a big meh from me. Not horrible, but nothing I can imagine I'll ever rewatch.

Corridor of Mirrors (dir. Terence Young, 1948)

A party girl (Edana Romney) becomes involved with a Renaissance era-obessed artist (Eric Portman). Their fetishistic relationship leads to heartbreak and murder.

Already discussed this one is great detail at my Wordpress blog. It's a great romantic thriller in the vein of Vertigo and Rebecca.

The Old Dark House (dir. James Whale, 1932)

During a thunderstorm, a group of unwary British travelers are marooned at the crumbling mansion of the Femm family, a collection of eccentrics who may be insane. Everything goes wrong: the hulking butler gets drunk and preys on the women visitors, the area may flood, the lights go out, and there may be a homicidal maniac imprisoned in one of the rooms upstairs. Will anyone survive the night?

I have raved about this film for a long time now. It's truly a favorite of mine in general, not just for the Halloween season. Both witty and chilling, it's an atmospheric masterpiece. The damp and mold are palpable.

What fascinates me most is the Femm family itself and the gaps in their backstory. This is one movie where I feel like there's a Tolstoyan novel's worth of drama with the Femms. It's hinted that the 102-year-old patriarch of the house (played in drag by actress Elspeth Dudgeon) used to host orgies there. The death of the seductive sister Rebecca at the age of 21 may or may not have been due to inter-family foul play. Morgan the butler has a close, even weirdly tender relationship with the homicidally insane brother Saul, suggesting a myriad of possible connections between them. It's very interesting-- I like that the movie doesn't fill in all the blanks.

A Game of Death (dir. Robert Wise, 1945)

Don Rainsford (John Loder), big game hunter extraordinaire, finds himself shipwrecked on a mysterious island. The owner is Erich Kriegler (Edgar Barrier), an urbane German who also enjoys hunting, though with a slight difference-- he likes hunting humans. Teaming up with other shipwreck survivors Ellen (Audrey Long) and Robert (Russell Wade), Don tries finding a way to escape before they become Kriegler's next wall trophies.

This movie is a pallid, watered down, shot-for-shot remake of The Most Dangerous Game, one of the crown jewels of 1930s horror, so of course, I am not fond of it. And yet, I rewatch it every few years, so it must have something going for it. So instead of tearing into it as I normally do, I'll list a few things I think are actually good about it:

I like that the main character initially tries tricking Kriegler into thinking he will hunt people with him. Very pro-active.

I think Kriegler is a good villain. Not as memorably deranged and campy as Leslie Banks' Zaroff in the original film, but chilling in a more low-key way. His "the strong deserve to prey upon the weak" philosophy fits in nicely with Nazi ideologies-- no doubt what this wartime horror flick intended.

Um... I think Audrey Long is really pretty. I like her flow-y outfits.

... Yeah, that's it.

The Most Dangerous Game (dir. Ernest B. Schoedsack and Irving Pichel, 1932)

All-American big game hunter Bob Rainsford (Joel McCrea) is shipwrecked on the unlisted island of Count Zaroff (Leslie Banks), a Russian aristocrat and master sportsman who claims he now hunts "the most dangerous game" of all. Being a himbo, it takes Bob a while before he realizes that game is human beings. Unwilling to hunt alongside Zaroff when given the offer, Rainsford and fellow prisoner Eve Trowbridge (Fay Wray) wage a game with Zaroff: let loose into the island's thick jungle, if they survive the night without Zaroff or the terrain killing them, they'll go free. If not, Rainsford dies and Eve will become a rather different kind of quarry for the evil count.

Now, here's my favorite "hunter hunts people" movie! While "The Most Dangerous Game" has been adapted and ripped off multiple times for a century, the original is still hard to beat. The castle set drips with gothic grandeur. The jungle soundstage is thick and suffocating, and once the chase intensifies, it becomes like something out of a nightmare.

I actually think the climactic hunt is among the greatest sequences in all cinema. The editing is so dynamic and the images are brilliant. And when you consider this is still an early talkie, when films were still trying to rediscover their footing after silent cinema came to an end, it becomes even more remarkable.

Going on Letterboxd, I was shocked to find a lot of people on there have mixed to negative opinions about this movie, largely because they think it's too over the top and that it's messaging is too on the nose.

I mean-- yes, these things are true, but I don't see them as flaws. It probably helps that I love camp and melodrama, and am not ashamed to admit it. And regardless of the fervent camp on display, I still think the trophy room scene is creepy and the chase is super intense. I have probably seen this movie close to a hundred times and yet, the chase still has me shouting at the TV, willing the characters to run faster. That's damn fine filmmaking.

The Haunting (dir. Robert Wise, 1963)

A researcher of the paranormal brings a motley crew of ordinary people into the allegedly haunted Hill House. Both potential ghosts and the neuroses of the visitors bring on sinister events and ultimately tragedy.

I love this movie more and more. I already wrote a bit about my reaction this time around, though since then, I started rereading the source novel, Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House. Obviously, the book delves more deeply into Eleanor's psyche, but the film does a fantastic job of this as well. Given film is a visual medium, it can be a challenge to depict a character's interior state without delving into expressionism and this film does that well.

The Phantom of the Opera (dir. Terence Fisher, 1962)

Aspiring songstress Christine Charles (Heather Sears) and producer Harry Hunter (Edward de Souza) are drawn into a mystery at the London Opera House. A phantom is sabotaging any attempt to produce Joan of Arc: A Tragedy, a show allegedly written by the cold, snobby, rapey Lord Ambrose (Michael Gough). After some investigating, it turns out the Phantom (Herbert Lom) was once the meek-mannered Professor Petrie, whose music was stolen by Ambrose. Now, he wants only to see his opera done justice and only Christine's voice can make that happen.

I am very fond of this version of The Phantom of the Opera even though I think it has a myriad of dramatic flaws. Let's get the flaws out the way first. I think the film is a bit repetitive in retelling us Petrie's story over and over, at first through onscreen description and then through filmed depiction. I also think the ending is anti-climactic, like the writers didn't want to go the usual route of making the Phantom a homicidal maniac but they weren't sure how to make a properly dramatic finish without that characterization.

That out the way, this is a unique, even refreshing retelling in many ways. The Phantom/Christine relationship is no longer one of unrequited love-- in fact, Petrie seems wholly uninterested in romance or sex at all. He views Christine and himself as victims of the truly despicable Lord Ambrose: Petrie had his music stolen and Christine was sexually harrassed. Therefore, it is up to the two of them to wrest the opera back from Amrbose's influence and make it the production Petrie wanted. Petrie is one hard taskmaster. He is relentless in training Christine and at one point throws filthy sewer-water in her face when she faints.

But the Phantom is hardly an out and out villain here. He doesn't even kill people-- he has a convenient hunchbacked assistant to do that. No, the real baddie is Ambrose, among the nastiest villains in the Hammer canon. Ambrose never even kills anyone, yet he makes the blood boil with his wanton cruelty. Michael Gough (who I always remember best as Alfred in the Tim Burton Batman movies, as well as Batman Forever and Batman and Robin) is so good at being bad.

This version of POTO also has my favorite version of the Phantom's compositions. Usually, he writes a "burning" piece called Don Juan Triumphant, fitting his romantic obsession with Christine. Here, Petrie writes an opera about Joan of Arc, a virginal saint persecuted by powerful men-- a fitting subject for Petrie given his own persecution by an aristocrat. Joan's aria "I Hear Your Voice" is gorgeous and always brings me to tears, it's that beautiful.

Not a perfect film, but still a very good one.

[oakendesk]

movie poster - The Phantom Of The Opera - Jun 1962

artist unknown

[roadimusprime]

Phantom adaptation memes

[abonnymouse]

I love the 1962 version kidnapping because it's like the Opposite of the ALW musical. No sexy candles and hypnotic music here, just Erik's butler dragging Christine's floppy body into a hole.

[faneth]

i had no idea that phantom of the opera 1962 has such a gorgeous poster! i have no choice but to put it on my wall

[horrorcryingscreencaps]

[blackghostm2oart]

Almost forgot

Here’s the doodle of 1962 Phantom

Since the mask doesn’t offer much, I’ve tried to draw his face… The poor fucker already has a fucked up face, my inability to capture it made it even worse (how is this even possible???). Don’t really like how it came out… >:(

My yapping about the film

[blackghostm2o]

Guess who has just watched PotO 1962. :)

Here the characters are BRI’ISH (I’m an unfunny mf, ik): we have Harry Hunter (Raoul) and Christine Charles, idk if the phantom is British tho… Professor Petri/ Petrie (?)

Idk if this is meant to be a remake of the 1943 one, but it looks like it: here Petri gets disfigured by acid (like in 1943), but it’s caused by himself, he wanted to put out a fire in the printing place but used acid which mixed with the flames and got on his face :| . He caused the fire because he was burning the opera that was actually stolen to him (unlike in 1943, In which Erique gets mad and kills the dude). The scene of him running away in pain is better in the 1943 version (in my humble opinion). Petri gets saved by a random mute (the same dude that will kill him…). He doesn’t do the dirty job, the killings are done by this mute (alas… I would have preferred if the Phantom did them himself)

Petri is crazy… I mean… Erik by default is not really sane, but I think that Petri is a bit more on the deeper end, he is very rough with Christine (and consider that in the novel Erik isn’t always very delicate)… Like full on slaps her because she was singing like shit and throws water at her to wake her up… Probably because there’s no element of love here, he just wants to hear his opera being sang beautifully before dying and him crying while seeing it confirms this (compared to Leroux Erik that loved her a lot, but his emotional immaturity made him behave in a similar way and after he is shown apologising and being a pathetic wet cat, sorry not sorry).

I like Harry, a nice gentleman. He helped Christine to get out of the lord Ambrose’s talons (that disgusting mf). Searched for her when she disappeared, fought and was really reasonable with Petri when he implored to teach Christine.

Idk if I like or dislike Petri’s mask… It doesn’t have a cool or beautiful design, it’s really ugly actually… But its rudimentary design is appealing in a way… It could show his desperate condition, he was forced to become an outcast by HIS OWN actions, he is horribly disfigured… Why bother with a beautiful mask? Just cover the markings that ruined your life, don’t even try to get back to the world of beauty you knew (probably I’m just overthinking it, idk), or maybe they just wanted a creepy mask.

The chandelier was dropped on Petri, he saved Christine and it crushed him. I like how they did his disfiguration, unfortunately it is shown very little.

La Carlotta (Maria here, I think) is basically absent. Here the phantom shenanigans come from Petri being mad about how his play was stolen and bastardised.

Here we have the rat catcher but not the Daroga, damn…

Not a bad movie, I’ve enjoyed it. Quite different from its source material… It is strange how they cut the romantic triangle completely.

[piedalchemist]

[phantomato13]

Currently working on a ranked list of Phantom adaptations/retellings from most to least enjoyable. Just finished watching the 1962 adaption, which ranks 6/7 :( Now I'm gonna watch the '89 version and see how that goes. Here's a link to my SUPER subjective list if you wanna see: https://boxd.it/pm0bo