#edward sedgwick

[charnel-grounds]

The Phantom of the Opera | 1925 | dir. Rupert Julian, Lon Chaney, Ernst Laemmle & Edward Sedgwick

[citizenscreen]

Edward Sedgwick (November 7, 1889 – May 7, 1953) 🎥 pictured with Buster Keaton on set of THE CAMERAMAN.

[ofimaginarybeings]

The Cameraman (Edward Sedgwick and Buster Keaton, 1928)

Buster Keaton in The Cameraman 

Cast: Buster Keaton, Marceline Day, Harold Goodwin. Sidney Bracey, Harry Gribbon. Screenplay: Clyde Bruckman, Lew Lipton, Richard Schayer; titles by Joseph Farnham. Cinematography: Reggie Lanning, Elgin Lessley. Art direction: Fred Gabourie. Film editing: Hugh Wynn, Basil Wrangell.

The Cameraman, Buster Keaton’s first film under contract to MGM, isn’t quite up to the standards set by The General (Keaton and Clyde Bruckman, 1926) or Steamboat Bill Jr. (Charles Reisner and Keaton, 1928), but then what is? Keaton plays a sidewalk photographer who is smitten with Sally (Marceline Day), a receptionist in the studios of MGM’s newsreel department. To try to win her, he buys an antique movie camera and sets out to get a job with the studio. Of course he screws up his first attempt and is shown the door, but several adventures later he succeeds in getting not only the job but also the girl. Keaton would come to regret signing with MGM, a studio strongly producer-driven, and he fought with producer Lawrence Weingarten over the concept and script for The Cameraman, eventually getting his own way after persuading the studio’s creative director, Irving G. Thalberg, to back him. But the relationship with the studio was fated to end, especially when sound arrived and Keaton came to be seen as a relic of a fading era, so this is the last of the great Keaton films. There are some masterly moments in The Cameraman, such as the scene in which he and a much larger man struggle to change into their swimsuits in a too-small changing cubicle, (The scene, incidentally, gives us a glimpse of a shirtless Keaton, revealing a strikingly toned athletic body, the product of years of doing his own stunts.) There are perhaps too many scenes that Keaton is forced to share with a very cute trained monkey, distracting us from his own work. 

[lobbycards]

Air Raid Wardens, US lobby card. 1943

[gregorygalloway]

The Phantom of the Opera premiered in New York City on 6 September 1925, before its official opening in November.

The film adaptation of Gaston Leroux's 1910 novel, took at least 8 screenwriters and 4 directors. Lon Chaney and prestige director Rupert Julian disagreed about much of the filming, to the point where Chaney refused to talk to Julian and used cinematographer Charles Van Enger as a go-between (according to Van Enger, Chaney refused to follow Julian's direction and "did whatever he wanted").

After a poorly received screening in January 1925, the film was rushed back into production, with a new script and a new director, Edward Sedgwick, which turned the film into more of a "romantic comedy." After another poor screening, Maurice Povar and Lois Weber were then brought in to salvage the film, returning much of the Julian version (with some long debated omissions).

The film is of course best known for Lon Chaney's makeup (which reportedly make audiences scream in 1925) and its use of color (almost 17 minutes in the original version).

Now considered to be one of the greatest silent horror films, no original print exists, with the film being reconstructed from 16mm "Show-At-Home" versions sold in the 1930s.

[friendlessghoul]

King Vidor, Edward Sedgwick, and Buster Keaton behind the scenes on Doughboys, 1931

[week-of-wonders]

The Phantom of the Opera (1925)

[omercifulheaves]

The Cameraman (1928)