PHANTOM OF THE OPERA - So where are we at in 2011? in Silent Horror Forum

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PHANTOM OF THE OPERA - So where are we at in 2011?

Author	Comment
Joe Karlosi		#41	[-]
Nov 1 11 4:51 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I still have no idea what the definitive version of this film is. Does it exist at this point? Join the club! "Guy named Squeamy got thrown from the fifth floor. He's deader'n a mackerel."
cjh5801		#42	[-]
Nov 1 11 6:56 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I'm not sure that there is a "definitive" version. The closest to what audiences saw at the time is probably the 16mm print of the 1925 version. This is on the 2-disc Milestone DVD (which was also released by Image, which adds to the confusion), as well as the recent Blu-Ray release, but it's not a very good print. As has been mentioned here, there are apparently better 16mm elements, but they're awaiting a restoration at UCLA. I'm not sure that this print is absolutely faithful to the 1925 release version, since it opens with footage from the Rat Catcher prologue that I think was added in 1929/30. The restored 1929/30 version on the Milestone 2-disc set and the Blu-Ray release is the best looking version available, but it has problems as well. The Milestone print was apparently a botched transfer from a PAL tape, so there is a ghosting or strobbing effect whenever there is movement onscreen. Apparently this has been corrected for the most part in the Blu-Ray release. However, this "restoration" isn't really the partly talkie version of the film as it was released in 1930. The Rat Catcher prologue is missing, and a number of scenes for which sound discs are available do not appear. It appears to me that this version is actually a mixture of elements from the 1925 and 1929/30 releases that have been edited together to give us an approximation of the 1929/30 version of the film. The Milestone DVD also gives us a "stills" recreation of both the January 1925 preview in LA and the April 1925 re-cut preview in San Francisco, but apparently the footage that was unique to these preview versions has been lost. Probably the closest we could come to a definitive version would be a decent restoration of the best elements of the surviving 16mm prints of the 1925 release, minus the Rat Catcher prologue. - Clark hollowaypages.com Last Edited By: cjh5801 Nov 1 11 6:59 PM. Edited 1 times.
dhtreptow		#43	[-]
Nov 1 11 8:00 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	This is just one of those cases where you have to accept that there are a couple PHANTOMS out there, none of them perfect. The 16mm 1925 version is at some times so different from the 29 version that it's like comparing the 2-strip Technicolor DR. X to the B/W version as they were essentially filmed twice.
cjh5801		#44	[-]
Nov 1 11 9:08 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	If you really wish to court confusion, here's an extensive summary of the various theatrical releases and DVDs: http://www.silentera.com/...phantomOfTheOperaHV.html - Clark hollowaypages.com
Wich2		#45	[-]
Nov 1 11 9:57 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	>The closest to what audiences saw at the time is probably the 16mm print of the 1925 version< That cut IS the '25 release version - albeit, in less than perfect shape; and that '25 version IS the cut that people in the theaters saw during the film's original run. It is the version that earned the film its place in film history.
cjh5801		#46	[-]
Nov 2 11 12:49 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I'm not so sure, Craig. The prologue has been taken from footage shot for the talkie version, and there may be some other footage from the later version intermingled with the 1925 footage as well. There has also been speculation that much of it might come from the international version, rather than the version seen by American audiences. Remember that the 16mm print is a copy of the home rental version, which wasn't created until the 1930s. We don't know what tampering might have been done with its source material before it was made. - Clark hollowaypages.com
Wich2		#47	[-]
Nov 2 11 9:59 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Clark, I assume by "prologue," you mean just the title card sequence? Because the extended bit with the speaking Man with the Lantern is not in my Milestone copy of the '25. I've never heard anyone present evidence of any other '29/'30 footage being cut into this version; and in fact, the scenes that were shot for sound stand out pretty clearly in the '29/'30. So: The confusing complexity of source that everyone whines about lies MAINLY in the odd hybrid '29/'30 version we grew up with - which they put together decades after the fact at Eastman House. The other version that many of us have now seen seems from all accounts to be the MAINLY intact Original Release version - created just a few years after the fact at Universal itself.
cjh5801		#48	[-]
Nov 2 11 10:37 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Craig, the talking man bit shows up in my copy of the Milestone '25 release, and is in the copy posted on the Internet Archive: http://www.archive.org/de...kGeneralReleasePrint_620 - Clark hollowaypages.com
sthorntn		#49	[-]
Nov 2 11 10:42 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	<< Because the extended bit with the speaking Man with the Lantern is not in my Milestone copy of the '25. >> I'll have to double check to be sure, but I think it's the other way around. The Man With The Lantern does appear in Milestone's '25 cut but, oddly enough, not in their '29/'30 cut.
.		#50	[-]
Nov 2 11 10:56 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Storntn is correct - on Milestone '25, man with lantern. He's not in the Photoplay edtion of the''29/30 version.
HalLane		#51	[-]
Nov 2 11 11:03 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	No lantern man in the nitrate print I saw projected theatrically some years back (far as I recall). No "mother" for Carlotta either, so I assume it was the '25. Weird.
.		#52	[-]
Nov 2 11 11:43 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Yes, that would be the 25' version.
cjh5801		#53	[-]
Nov 2 11 12:32 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	The talking man, or rat catcher, is in the '25 version on the Milestone disc, and was in the 16mm home version that was available to collectors. It's referred to in the Wikipedia article on the film and in online reviews, including one by a guy who owns the Blackhawk 8mm print with the talking man: http://greenbriarpictures...tic-of-phantoms-how.html And no, I wasn't claiming that other scenes shot specifically for the 29/30 talkie version are in the '25 print, just that at least some of the shots are from the same camera angle as the 29/30 print. To me, this suggests an intermingling of footage from the US version and the international version in the 16mm print, which would mean it isn't an exact copy of the version seen by US audiences in 1925. - Clark hollowaypages.com Last Edited By: cjh5801 Nov 2 11 1:57 PM. Edited 1 times.
dhtreptow		#54	[-]
Nov 2 11 3:13 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	For those who care, I have a print where the "man with the lantern" actually speaks. This is what he says, “There are shadows here, phantoms and shadows, The atmosphere is heavy, it chills the blood, but hark, here it comes. Is this a shadow, or is it a phantom? We are in the the torture chamber deep beneath the Paris Opera House. This is the lair of the phantom. He haunts these chambers; a ghastly face, yet through him moves a weird, strange poetry. But silence now! he comes! The phantom...The phantom of the opera!” Last Edited By: dhtreptow Nov 2 11 5:05 PM. Edited 1 times.
cjh5801		#55	[-]
Nov 2 11 4:07 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	dhtreptow, Is this audio, or the re-created title card with this speech? And I suppose you meant to type "silence"? - Clark hollowaypages.com
sthorntn		#56	[-]
Nov 2 11 5:01 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	<< To me, this suggests an intermingling of footage from the US version and the international version in the 16mm print, which would mean it isn't an exact copy of the version seen by US audiences in 1925. >> I also recall reading that the prints of the '25 version (there were a few copies circulating among film collectors) had some variations between them. I was never quite sure exactly what these were, although I assume this referred to alternate takes, camera angles, etc. The original cut that audiences saw back in 1925 seems to be as elusive as - the Phantom himself!
dhtreptow		#57	[-]
Nov 2 11 5:04 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	cjh5801 wrote: dhtreptow, Is this audio, or the re-created title card with this speech? And I suppose you meant to type "silence"? I have a "Reel Classics DVD" which is a transfer of 16mm Grigg's Moviedrome print. It's identical to the 8mm print I owned in the early 80's. From what I understand it's not the original 29 recording, it's collector John Griggs recreation of it. So who knows if it's the actual script verbatim, but it sounds so probable when married to the image. They claimed it was what was originally spoken.
TServo4		#58	[-]
Nov 2 11 6:31 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	The "man with the lantern" (played by D'Arcy Corrigan) does show up in John Hampton's composite of original Show-At-Home 16mm prints of the 1925 version, suggesting that it was in the original issue. (A dupe of Hampton's print by Movie Wonderland is what is circulated out there as the 1925 cut, and was assembled by Hampton from numerous prints, but is not complete.) This sequence also shows up in the Eastman House print (the basis of which, as we know, is the 1930 sound re-issue), is a longer take, but is missing the close-up shot of the man. There are splices during this sequence that indicate titles cards are missing. Furthermore, the mystery surrounding this scene is that the sound discs for the 1930 re-issue do not have him in them. The "Griggs-Moviedrome" edition with Lee Erwin score that was released through Essex Films' narration was written by Griggs as a filler and has no bearing to the original film, but it's spooky enough. J. Theakston Capitol Theatre, Rome, NY
cjh5801		#59	[-]
Nov 2 11 6:45 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	As I understand it, part of the problem with the talking man footage is that it was shot at sound speed, whereas the balance of the 1925 version was not. Is this true? Since there were both sound and silent versions of the 1929/30 release(s), might the surviving footage of the talking man with the missing title cards be from the silent version of the 1929/30 re-releases? Also, some online articles claim that at least some of the soundtrack from the 1929/30 versions is still missing. Has everything been found at this point other than the talking man sequence? - Clark hollowaypages.com
Wich2		#60	[-]
Nov 2 11 6:54 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Thanks, Jack - I do recall some folks positing before that the MwL does indeed date from '25 (though such an extended scene of people talking at the camera is rare in Silents.) Clark, I understand that some shot angles may well be from US or Int'l versions in the composite '25 print we have now. But with respect, that minor difference makes it only in a very restrictive sense of the term "a different movie." I am talking about plotline, order of sequences, etc. - basic format. And there, I stand by the consensus that what we have as the '25 is by any reasonable definition the '25 (as seen in opposition to the '29/'30.) Hell, it's likely a more authentic original than even the METROPOLIS that we have to date. Last Edited By: Wich2 Nov 2 11 7:14 PM. Edited 1 times.

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PHANTOM OF THE OPERA - So where are we at in 2011?