When it was clear to Universal from critical and boxoffice reaction to The Hunchback of Notre Dame that in letting Chaney go to MGM they hade made a potentially disastrous decision, they negotiated with their erstwhile employee, Irving Thalberg, to borrow Chaney to star in a ten-reel version of Gaston Leroux’s The Phantom of the Opera.
The movie was made in 1925 and Universal spared no expense on the production, constructing the interior of the Paris Opera House as well as a maze of streets for the final chase and a labyrinth of catacombs to depict the phantom’s lair under the Opera House. Once more Chaney endured hellish pain to achieve his make-up, a living skull with sparse hair over a domed head, eyes bulging under the pressure of painfully inserted wires, cheekbones emphasized with celluloid discs and a mouth framed with jagged, bestial teeth. Little wonder that people collapsed in cinemas at the moment when, after an impeccably edited build-up which stretched tension almost breaking point, the heroine, Mary Philbin, tore off the phantom’s mask to reveal to herself and the audience, the horror that was Chaney’s face. Although much of the film appears overacted at this distance, and Miss Philbin less than effective, the shock points in the movie still retain all their original potency: the unmasking, the love scene played by hero and heroine on the roof of the Opera House while above them, his red-tinted cloak billowing like the wings of an angel from hell, the phantom listened; Chaney’s appearance at a masked ball, in the character of Death, made all the more effective by the early use of colour, with his red cloak contrasted against a predominantly green background; the crashing of the giant chandelier into the auditorium and the climactic chase through the sewers and streets of Paris, all these help to over-come, with the genius of Chaney’s make- up and mime, the deficiencies of a story that at times verged upon the melodrama of Perils of Pauline (1914). Nominally directed by Rupert Julian, The Phantom of the Opera was completed by Edward Sedgwick after Julian had been removed from the film, and some scenes were directed by Chaney.

Alan Frank, Horror Films, Hamlyn, London-New York 1977

This score for The Phantom of the Opera was commissioned by La Cinémathèque Quebecoise in 1990. Only a few months after the première in Montreal, it was performed in Bologna. Since then, many orchestras have executed it – from Canada to the USA, from Europe to Japan – always with an enthusiastic response from the audience. The music is based on a four note theme: C-D-B-C. We can hear it throughout the score, which was inspired by Gounod with reminiscences of Stravinsky, Chopin and even Bach. A soprano sings arias from Gounod’s Faust, adding a dramatic touch. Note that the final aria is the main theme of the whole score; it was written (lyrics and music) by Gabriel Thibaudeau. After touring the world for more than twenty years, the music has finally come home again, where it received its first international recognition: Bologna!
Gabriel Thibaudeau