They used Claude Rains clips in their Dark Universe trailer as well. I have a theory that Universal doesn't want to pay Chaney Entertainment any more licensing fees for using his copyrighted makeup/appearance, and expects the general public to just not notice the difference.
Yeah, I actually have been thinking that, too. The Chaney estate has a lot of control over Lon Sr.’s properties and legacy (which I think is a good thing!), and my guess would be someone at Universal either started negotiations and then didn’t want to actually offer a reasonable amount, or the studio just said, “You know what, we own the rights to another version, just use that one.” (I feel like I remember something about Universal having some rights controls over with Hammer’s 1962 Phantom due to legal agreements between the studios, but I can’t find that now, so I’m going to assume they can’t use that one, either.)
Given that they’re definitely doing some weird sympathizing stuff with some of the monsters, it might be that they wanted a more sympathetic version of the Phantom, anyway, which Rains’s definitely is. Also, Chaney’s Phantom is partly iconic because of his revolutionary makeup and appearance for the film, and I would imagine a set of modern filmmakers probably want to design their own version of the Phantom’s disfigurement.
They’re probably right that most movie-watchers won’t notice. The vast majority of their audience have never heard of Phantom outside of the Lloyd Webber musical or maybe a few cameos in old cartoons, so it’s not like a mob is going to be up in arms over the lack of faithfulness to the 1920′s silent film.
I think Susanna Foster might be my all-time favorite actress to play Christine. I mean look at her, she’s absolutely gorgeous. She pulls off that competent innocence very well, too, I feel.
“First I was afraid I would not live to see her face the next morning, now she's determined to prevent me from ever dying through the cunning use of woolly socks.”
- Blurblet from fic I will probably never ever publish
In Flaming Technicolor: Vintage posters for the 1943 film Phantom of the Opera, featuring Claude Rains as the Phantom, Susanna Foster as Christine, Nelson Eddy as Anatole, and Edgar Barrier as Raoul.
In Flaming Technicolor: Vintage posters for the 1943 film Phantom of the Opera, featuring Claude Rains as the Phantom, Susanna Foster as Christine, Nelson Eddy as Anatole, and Edgar Barrier as Raoul.
Hullo! Secret Santa again! (Sorry for all the questions. D8) What is your favorite mask out of all the Phantom adaptations?
Oh, man, I’ve been meaning to do a mask retrospective for a while, and you just gave me the perfect excuse to avoid the rest of the work I’m supposed to be doing!
Well, first there’s the 1925 Julian/Chaney film’s mask, which is probably among the creepiest of all of them:
Amazing bonus points for the creepiness of the painted face, and the almost sad, wistful expression it wears. It’s also the only film mask I know of that is the barbe du masque, a particular style of mask, that is directly referenced in Leroux’s novel, so once again the 1925 movie may be the most accurate when compared to the original book. (Check out rjdaae’s post because they are the bearer of these interesting tidings!) He also has a pretty fantastic Red Death mask, which is literally just a grinning skull (and the excellent cane to match!).
Then we’ve got the 1943 Lubin/Rains film, which went much more simplistic:
I like the blue color, since Phantom masks often go very monochromatic black/white, and the curved lines at the mouth and eyes, which gives it an artsy look even though it’s very simple. We saw him steal the mask during the movie from the costume department, so this is most likely a generic opera performance mask that he coopted to hide his injuries.
The 1944 Waggner/Karloff movie has no mask, so we can merrily skip it to head off to the 1962 Fisher/Lom movie from Hammer Horror studios:
Yikes, what a mess. The 1962 Phantom is a dude who has had one of the most difficult and traumatic recent life in his movie, and he’s not exactly meant to be a debonair swashbuckler - he’s an old, injured man who has lost an eye and lives in a sewer, and it shows in the mask. I think the design team for this movie wanted a more horror-esque look for the mask, and so we end up with something that looks like a cross between burlap and human flesh. Eww.
But then, friends, there’s the 1974 de Palma/Finley masterpiece Phantom of the Paradise, which delivers one of the most ridiculous and excellent masks ever:
It’s not even a mask, really, it’s an entire metal helmet, which apparently also has the ability to apply very dark and dramatic lipstick to the wearer once donned. The mask makes a lot of sense in the context of the movie it’s in - bird imagery is very important to this film, and the Phantom is part of a lineup of intentionally over-the-top glam musicians and also sees himself as something of an avenging knight struggling against evil forces - but it tends to throw fans for a loop when they haven’t seen it before. Which is understandable, because damn.
Also in 1974, we have the Levitt/Cassidy film The Phantom of Hollywood, which brings us a mask exactly as low-budget as the rest of its production:
Since the conceit of this movie is that the Phantom is haunting the Hollywood backlots of a thinly-disguised MGM analogue, it’s no surprise that his mask, like Rains’ in 1943, is part of the costumes of the place. I don’t have any proof, but I wonder if this is actually a vintage costume (or at least modeled after one) from MGM’s famous 1952 version of Ivanhoe, since we see some of the set used for it bulldozed in this same movie. It’s not pretty, but it’s functional and it gets the idea of the Phantom as a crusader across very ably.
I know it’s killing you all, but KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park features an unmasked Phantom. Probably it would have felt like gilding the lily, anyway. You’ll just have to be content with these guys.
The 1979 Savage/Joboulian flip The Meateater also doesn’t have a mask, so that brings us all the way up to the 1983 Markowitz/Schell movie, which I always think of as the last of the “classic era” of Phantom movies.
We have two nested masks in this movie, both with their own special brand of creepiness. The first one up there is modeled to be as much like a realistic (if doleful) human face as possible, which puts it in competition with the 1925 mask for Creepiest Kinda-Doll-Like Mask. Ironically, it’s the one he wears for most of the early part of the movie, partly (or so I assume) because he’s trying not to scare Christine too much. (Dude.) The second mask, which he wears later in the movie, is confusing for some viewers, who mistake it for his actual deformed face, but its lips and features never move, so it’s pretty clearly another mask on closer inspection. It’s interesting that his first mask is so “human” and the second so “monstrous”, and reflects his inner journey in the movie.
The 1987 Argento/Barberini movie Opera features no mask, because most of the film is spent with the audience trying to guess which of the unmasked men in the movie is secretly the Phantom, the animated Phantom in the 1987 Emerald City cartoon is proudly skeletal and bare-faced, and the Phantom in the 1988 movie Phantom of Death is maskless as well, so we move on again, this time to the 1988 Friedman/Rydall tour-de-force Phantom of the Mall:
I tell ya, this movie is a gift that never stops giving. This is where the movie masks suddenly start all trending in the same direction - the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical was out and intensely popular by this time, so we’ll see a ton of masks that are similar to or based on the one used in the stage show in order to encourage fans of the musical to opt in for the movies, too. This one is the cheapest, most bargain option you could possibly come up with (like most of the movie it’s in, really) - white, sorta angle-cut so it’s basically half-faced, and that’s it. Nothing remarkable, except for the fact that it’s being worn under a baseball cap by a Phantom who pumps iron in a mall basement.
The Plone/Sussman movie Phantom of the Ritz has a Phantom who is basically like “Fuck all y’all, you will be lucky if I wear sunglasses once in a while,” so it’s on to the 1989 Little/Englund movie:
I’ve seen people get confused about whether the Phantom even wears a mask in this movie, because most of the time he just looks like Robert Englund actually looks, but he does indeed, and it is sewn together from the flesh of his victims and then expertly stage-makeup’d into looking normal. Which obviously makes him the winner of the Grossest Concept category I just invented. This is super creepy but also very appropriate, since this movie is the most Faustian of them all and is all about the Phantom being demonic and “stealing” his life and power when he shouldn’t really have it at all.
Also, bangin’ Red Death mask, as you can see!
But then, out of nowhere: CHARLES DANCE. The 1990 Richardson/Dance miniseries is a potpurri of delightful mask shenanigans:
This dude, right here. Do you see what he is doing? Not only is he wearing multiple masks, some of them sparkly and bedazzling, but he is layering. Dance’s Phantom is the most haute couture of all Phantoms. The tan mask in the top picture is his “default”, which he wears for most of the film, but there’s pretty much endless joy to be had watching him come up with other masks, then take them off, and then laugh sternly on the inside only as you realize he’s still masked.
The 1991 Herrier/Villard movie Popcorn does in fact feature a mask, although you wouldn’t know it for half the film:
The Phantom in this movie makes molds of peoples’ faces, and then creates rubber and silicone masks from those molds, enabling him to be completely undetected as he impersonates other people with 100% accuracy. It’s creepy, but it’s not actually someone else’s face, so it’s less creepy than some of the other folks on this list have opted for.
Englund is back in the 1992 movie Dance Macabre, but without a mask (or is he? but I can’t say more without spoilering the entire plot for everyone), the confusingly-named 1993 movie Rigoletto also has a bare-faced Phantom, the Yu/Cheung movie The Phantom Lover may feature a mask on its cover but it’s lying about it, the Phantom in the Argento/Sands 1998 film is famously unmasked and elvishly attractive, so where else can we go for a film Phantom mask? Why, to the Disney channel, of course, with the 2000 less-than-smash-hit Phantom of the Megaplex:
This one won’t be going down in the annals as one of the most creative choices ever, although it is fairly attractive in its simplicity. The white color may be a shout-out to the Lloyd Webber musical, or it might just be a shout-out to shopping for props at the local Halloween store.
And then, of course, the 2004 Schumacher/Butler film, the movie that launched a thousand fanfictions:
Obviously, this is a film version of the stage musical, so it’s not surprising that the main mask worn for the majority of the film is very similar to the stage mask: white, half-faced, generally hiding the creepy bits so Butler can get his handsome on. The Red Death mask is not as elaborate or skeletal as the other ones from films gone by, but it has its own charm, and is the closest the movie ever gets to making the Phantom look truly ooky and death-filled. The black domino mask is for the “Point of No Return” sequence, and while it certainly makes sense (he’s in costume because he’s crashing a performance), it’s not among the fanciest of masks ever.
And finally, there’s the 2011 treat for all ages, A Monster in Paris, which has a mask as simple and delightful as its protagonists:
Okay, so Francoeur is so cute it’s hard to even care what he’s wearing on his face, but this looks like a hybrid calling on masks of older movies - the white is reminiscent of the Lloyd Webber line of descent, but the full face and curved lower portion remind me of Rains’ mask in 1943.
There are a few movies not on this list, mostly because I haven’t personally seen them (although I want to - Erik: Portrait of a Living Corpse looks like it has some badass masks!), and I’ve spared you all the pornographic Phantom version masks (maybe someday they’ll get their own post). Fun trip through Phantom visual history, though!
Anon, I am the WORST person to have as a Secret Santa recipient, so I apologize, because none of that even remotely answers your question. It’s hard to pick a favorite - I love the wackiness of the helmet from Paradise, the creepiness of the original mask from the Chaney movie, and the clean simple lines of the mask from Rains’ 1943 movie, but I think they all have things to love. Also, Dance’s masks. Dance’s masks for days.
