Bunuel1976 Review of The Phantom of the Opera

The Phantom of the Opera (1990– )

THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (Parts I & II) (Tony Richardson, 1990) (TV) ***

[7/10 · 29 September 2009]

This was the eleventh film adaptation of Gaston LeRoux's classic to be made and the seventh I have watched myself (the others being the 1925, 1943, 1962, 1974, 1983 and 1998 versions); therefore, the two most significant ones left out there for me to catch up with, I suppose, are those made in 1989 and 2004. Coming so late in the game and so close to the Robert Englund remake – whilst also being accorded the lengthiest running time (185 minutes – although IMDb curiously gives it as 168!) of all – I guess it stands to reason that this was going to be a very different Phantom to the ones we were used to. For starters, it is an adaptation of Arthur Kopit's theatrical rendition of the original source and, in fact, the author himself wrote the teleplay here; the cast (Burt Lancaster, Charles Dance, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Andrea Ferreol and Ian Richardson) and crew (Kopit and Oscar-winning director Tony Richardson and composer John Addison) roped in for the production also lend the whole a classy distinction missing from previous or later versions. 77-year old Lancaster is in fine form in his Golden Globe-nominated portrayal of the former Opera manager with a secret (so much so that one can hardly believe that he would be dead in four years' time!); Dance is quite wonderful in the title role and I am surprised his performance did not earn him more plaudits (even if the fact that his facial features are always hidden behind a variety of masks may have been behind this oversight); Cassel seems somewhat wasted at first as the laid-back investigating Inspector but his role grows in stature in Part II; Richardson is enjoyably hammy as the initially skeptical but increasingly flustered Italian impresario replacing Lancaster and installing his own wife Ferreol (playing La Carlotta) as the primadonna of the Paris Opera. The all-important role of Christine Daae' is well-served by the lovely Teri Polo (who also portrays The Phantom's mother in a series of flashbacks!) but Adam Storke (as the subsequently reformed Count de Chagny) is blandly handsome at best. As usual, the problems with deviations from the familiar original source crop up here but, as I said earlier, these are to be expected in this case (more so than, say, in Hammer's first Dracula picture which was still a fairly fresh property for moviegoers in its day!): Lancaster is fully cognizant of the Phantom's lair underneath his theater because he is his biological father; in fact, Erik was even born there and, besides devoting himself to music, he also dabbled in painting and building a little woods for himself!!; the Phantom's obsessive love for Christine is not merely attributable to her unique voice but also because she is a dead ringer for his own late (and former opera star) mother; Carlotta does not lose her voice in mid-performance due to the Phantom's foul play but instead it's Christine who does so thanks to the machinations of the jealous Carlotta; the Phantom is not a mistreated composer but an accomplished opera singer who (wait for it) joins Christine in a duet from "Faust" from his proverbial Box 5 in full view of the audience and the gendarmes…even though he was virtually at death's door a few moments earlier!; the Phantom subsequently invites death himself on the Opera rooftop at the hands of his own father rather than from Christine's aristocratic lover, etc. The biggest departure, of course, would be that the film (and the play) 'fumbles' the very highlight every spectator is always waiting for in this story: the unmasking scene (which here occurs with the Phantom's back to the camera and we merely see Christine's fainting reaction to it)!! In the end, there may be more opera than horror here but the lavish production values, the fine performances and the evergreen fascination of the story itself win the day.