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It should be a fun trip.įirst up, a look at the unmasking scenes in THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA movies.

Now, there have been a bunch of film versions of the famous Gaston Leroux tale- see my blog column THE HORROR JAR: THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA MOVIES posted on Septemfor the complete list- but for today’s column, I’d like to concentrate on the first three film versions: the 1925 Lon Chaney silent classic, the 1943 Universal remake starring Claude Rains, and the 1962 Hammer remake starring Herbert Lom. These are the three best versions, as none of the remakes since have been as good. Most surprisingly, however, is that the definitive and most impressive version of this horror tale remains the original 1925 silent Lon Chaney version. Similarly, when you look at the famous unmasking scenes, again, it’s the Chaney version which stands above the rest, and seriously, it stands way above the rest.

The Chaney version also is the most faithful version of the Gaston Leroux novel, and likewise, it handles its unmasking scene in a way that is most true to the book. For starters, in the book, the Phantom is unmasked early on, as he is in the Chaney version. In the 1925 silent version, the first half of the movie, the Phantom (Lon Chaney) is exactly that: a phantom.įor some reason, both the 1943 Universal remake and the 1962 Hammer remake chose to unmask the Phantom at the end of the movie. We see only glimpses of him, a shadow, a hand, a silhouette, and he’s there wreaking havoc at the Paris Opera House for reasons we don’t know at the time. The movie captures this brilliantly, and director Rupert Julian truly makes the unknown Phantom a threatening and menacing presence without the audience ever really seeing him.