Here's a challenge for you: Name the top 3-5* film adaptions that best captures the spirit of Leroux's book. It might be an almost direct adaption, or it might take liberties. But which Phantom films best capture Leroux and his spirit? Why those films? Discuss. (*If you can't keep it to 3-5, feel free to go over that!) Optional bonus round: Are there any non-film things that really capture the spirit of Leroux's novel well?
OKAY SO I have been saving this because it looks like so much fun! Limiting ourselves to 3 film adaptations, the ones I would say are closest in spirit to Leroux’s novel (and let’s count up so it’s like a grand dramatic unveiling of the “winner”) are:
3) The Phantom of the Opera, 1987, from the Emerald City animation studio. This movie is a direct animated adaptation of the novel, and it definitely shows! Lines are quoted directly, Erik’s appearance is distressingly undead (thanks to animation making it easy to do things that are a lot harder with makeup on real live people), and its the only one on this list to preserve the Phantom’s final act of redemption. Also, the Persian is present and is actually himself, and the rat-catcher makes an appearance, neither of which you will see in the other two films on this list. It’s in third place because the animation is obviously low-budget and required a lot of simplification, because some things have been softened or eliminated for the target audience of children, and because there’s a weird thing at the end where Erik’s house sort of falls down.
2) The Phantom of the Opera, 1989, starring Robert Englund, Jill Schoelen, and Michael York. This movie definitely takes more plot liberties than the other two, but it’s very successful in capturing the feeling of Leroux’s book; the Phantom’s love for Christine and her half-hypnotized obsession with him are well represented, there is definitely both terrible horror at the Phantom and his actions and sympathy for his situation and the moments of admirability we see in him, and the themes of music and supernatural power are strong throughout. Of course, it’s weird as heck - the Phantom’s mask is made of people, Buquet is a sexual assaulter of the ballet girls, Raoul dies - but its biggest departure from the plot of Leroux’s novel, the introduction of actual demonic presence/possession and curses, is actually still in keeping with the Faustian themes and references that the original book leaned on.
1) The Phantom of the Opera, 1925, starring Lon Chaney, Mary Philbin, and Norman Kerry. Obvious first choice is obvious. This movie has a little bit of a mess going on in its background, with two different directors with vastly different visions crafting different parts of it, plus Chaney himself attempting to direct some of his own scenes over their protestations, so the end result is not super consistent, but it still has by far the most faithful adaptation of the Phantom and his deformity, the Paris opera house and sets, the scenes and interactions of the characters, and the overall period and feeling of the original book. Its failure comes primarily at the end of the movie, when instead of letting Christine go the Phantom is chased by an angry mob and eventually killed, but while this is the ending that the last director on the project pushed for (a director primarily famous for Westerns with exciting chase scenes, not coincidentally), the original Leroux-faithful ending, where the Phantom lets Christine go and then dies of a broken heart, was also filmed and can be seen in a few stills floating around. The Persian is present, but was reimagined halfway through filming into a police inspector (but one who still wears an astrakhan cap and intense eye makeup). The movie definitely has its faults, but I think it both tried the hardest and was the most successful in capturing the mysterious feeling of the original novel and preserving its important themes and ideas.
An honorable mention goes to the 1983 Phantom of the Opera film starring Maximilian Schell and Jane Seymour, which had the feel of the environment and setting down cold as well as some lovely sequences in the opera itself, but its more modern setting combined with the Phantom’s bizarre backstory of having a previous Christine figure and then being burned in some kind of axe-murder-fire kept it from truly making the list.
To be honest, I don’t have much for the bonus round, though; it’s mostly films that make a serious effort to be Leroux-true. Other types of media tend to do spin-offs or reimaginings more often, and it’s of course difficult for any book to walk the line between paying homage to a previous book and just sounding like a style-borrower or retelling the same story.
I have a ton of versions of Phantom I freaking love, of course, believe you me, that have like almost nothing left to do with Leroux anymore. But that’s for another post!
