1925 Phantom unmasking on Fractured Flickers in Silent Horror Forum

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1925 Phantom unmasking on Fractured Flickers

Author	Comment
zencat	1925 Phantom unmasking on Fractured Flickers	Lead	[-]
Aug 6 12 12:11 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	This may for may not be news, but I've been scanning through all the episodes of Fractured Flickers (remember that?) searching out Houdini footage, and I was surprised to see the 1925 version of the unmasking scene from Phantom of the Opera pop up. You know, as a kid, this was the first moving image I'd ever seen from Phantom, and it's always stuck with me that what I had seen on FF seemed much scarier than what I ultimately saw on VHS. Now I know why! So is that a neat thing that the '25 unmasking has been hiding in plain site all these years? I think it's neat. BTW, here's the post on my blog about Houdini silent movie footage in the show: http://www.wildabouthoudi...7/fractured-mystery.html Read: Return to Malibou Lake Visit my blog: Wild About Harry
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Ted Newsom		#1	[-]
Aug 6 12 9:06 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I'm not sure I understand. Is it that you believe the unmasking scene to be rare? I suppose when we were urchins, yes, that might be relatively true, but surely since then it's popped up a few thousand times. BTW... there are two versions of it, different takes with subtly different action (actually, two versions of the entire scene). Pretty neat to see the comparisons.
DonM435		#2	[-]
Aug 6 12 9:55 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Maybe you mean that was the 1925-version unmasking as opposed to the 1929-version?
Weaselrama		#3	[-]
Aug 7 12 4:30 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	@Ted - I believe he's referring to the '25 alternate take. I had to wait until the Image restoration to see the '25 version. Every other reduction print I ever saw of POTO on 8mm or VHS or DVD prior to the Image Release was the '29/'30 footage and intertitles. The '25 version was available on Video Disc back in the 80s but I didn't have the cash to shell out for a player. I did however, get a pleasant surprise when I was in HS in the 70s. Dayton-Montgomery Co. library had 8mm films available for regular counter check-out and I'd of course checked out POTO, Hunchback and other Chaney silents such as The Shock many times. One day, when I was a senior, they got a new 8mm print of POTO in. It was a Blackhawk release and I'll be damned it didn't have the 2-color technicolor Bal Masque scene, which I'd never seen before. My 8mm/Super8 projector had a reverse on it and I about wore it out playing that scene over and over! My favorite part of of the '25 unmasking is the alternate camera of the close-up shot of Chaney coming down toward Mary Philbin from the side, as opposed to the front-angle, soft-focus shot from the '29 version. It genuinely gave me the creeps the first time I saw it. And Jon Mirsalis' score was excellent. I haven't bought the new Blu-Ray but I understand it has a slightly cleaner '25 edit with a different score.
zencat		#4	[-]
Aug 7 12 12:14 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Yes, exactly, I was talking about the 1925 unmasking scene/alternate take. Sorry I didn't make that clear. Read: Return to Malibou Lake Visit my blog: Wild About Harry
Ted Newsom		#5	[-]
Aug 7 12 4:36 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	@Weasel-- the wacky soft-focus up-angle on the Phantom always bothered me. Looks to me like a flawed take rather than something intentional, but who knows? Yes, the clear, in-focus one is pretty eerie.
jamesenstein31		#6	[-]
Aug 8 12 11:29 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I remember when I first saw a clip of the 1925 Phantom unmasking(it was on Ted Newsom's FRANKENSTEIN SCRAPBOOK Video!) and wondering what the heck it was supposed to be. At that time, I was just a kid and wondered how they could have found alternate footage from such an old movie. I remember it was tinted blue and looked REALLY creepy. I'm hoping someday they offer a proper restoration of THAT version.
Weaselrama		#7	[-]
Aug 10 12 3:42 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	@Ted - after I posted that, I went back and took a look at the '25 take - I have to admit, it goes into soft-focus toward the end just like the '29 footage as he gets closer to the camera. But its still a much creepier, much more eerie angle than the '29, even if the '29 is a gorgeous print. While the unmasking is a different take, I think '25 side-angle shot of his descent towards Christine we're discussing is the same take, just an alternate camera angle. Chaney's look of surprise in the '25 unmasking looks a lot more spontaneous, as does Mary Philbin's reaction, than the '29 as well, IMHO. Its seems now that the '29 version we're all used to had been rehearsed too many times and had lost its spontaneity by then. And just to clarify for those who may be new to the board, we're not saying the '29 footage was shot in 1929 - its the camera footage utilized for '29/'30 domestic/overseas sound reissues. Mary Philbin's opera scenes and Mary Fabian's Carlotta performance were shot in 1929 at 24fps. Other footage shot in 1929 included talkie passages between the office managers and between Mary Philbin and Norman Kerry and are lost, but the audio was preserved on vitaphone discs.
doktorgoulfinger		#8	[-]
Aug 24 12 11:57 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Sorry it took awhile to post this. It was buried in a pile of crap...er...fine collectibles. The Phantom popped up all over Fractured Flickers.
Friend of Daniel		#9	[-]
Aug 25 12 6:56 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Since we're on unusual place to have first experienced POTO: the first time I saw actual moving pictures from the film was at Disney World. Back in the 70's (and well into the 80's) there was a Nickelodeon on Main Street which ran several silents in a loop. Before my first visit a fellow Monster Kid had alerted me to the fact I could see Phantom there. I recall my parents being their usual exasperated selves when it was the first place I wanted to visit in the park. I naturally stooded rooted in place until the magical unmasking scene. I don't know if it was the '25 or the '29 version, though.
Rick		#10	[-]
Aug 25 12 11:18 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	The Disney World nickelodeon was the first place I saw the James Cruze JEKYLL AND HYDE. I was with my girlfriend and another friend of ours. I made them come back and fetch me after I'd watched it twice through. My g.f. knew of my monster fascination but she still couldn't get her head around somebody spending 20 minutes or more of Disney World time with his head in a machine watching an old movie.
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jamesenstein31		#11	[-]
Aug 25 12 11:50 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	So, you guys went to Disney World to watch The Phantom and Dr. Jekyll?...I love you, guys!
Wich2		#12	[-]
Aug 25 12 12:12 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Count me in that Nickleodeon number -- though danged if I can recall which flick was running... maybe a Buster short?
jamesenstein31		#13	[-]
Aug 25 12 12:25 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Does Disney still have neat stuff like this?
DonM435		#14	[-]
Aug 25 12 12:47 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Captain Company used to sell (in the old Famous Monsters) a 50-ft 8mm clip from the Chaney phantom, the unmasking scene. Does anyone know if that was the 1925 "A" angle, or the 1925 "B" (a.k.a. 1929 release) angle? Something clicked when I saw the 1925 version for the first time a few years ago, as if I had seen it before long ago. It could haver been in that version on my home projector.
Friend of Daniel		#15	[-]
Aug 25 12 1:33 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	jamesenstein31 wrote: Does Disney still have neat stuff like this? Last time I was there in the late '90s most of the fun small scale 'old school' attractions I remembered still being around just a few years before were no more, usually replaced with a kioash to buy Beauty and the Beast or Aladdin stuff. I suspect when the new wave of very popular animated features came pouring out of Disney in the '90s the quaint, more off-the-beaten-path discoveries such as the Nickelodeon became extinct - like some fragile amphibians in the path of the latest Walmart.
jamesenstein31		#16	[-]
Aug 25 12 1:38 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	That's sad. It sounded like such a nice thing for classic movie fans. I think it was around in the early 90s, as I recall seeing part of "The Gold Rush" playing somewhere in Disney, but that might have been the end. Sometimes I can't help but envy you guys and the cool stuff you grew up with
Rider		#17	[-]
Aug 25 12 3:46 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I have no clue where I first saw it, but I can graphically describe a nightmare I had when I was about 4 or 5 where the phantom was playing the organ.
MYST0		#18	[-]
Sep 14 12 10:01 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Every time I went to Disney World, it was STEAMBOAT WILLIE playing in a loop. I seem to remember it was just as you were walking in.
DonM435		#19	[-]
Sep 14 12 10:58 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	The Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago had a recreation of a 1920s' Main Street in the lower level, and a theater there showed silent films all the time with live organ accompaniment. The admission was, of course, one nickel. Honest! We always styopped in there when we visited the Museum during the 1960s, staying long enough to boo and hiss the bad guys. I don't know if they ever showed Phantom there: I never saw it until years later. We did get to talk to the organist, who also played for channel WTTW, the pre-PBS "educational" channel in Chicago, and she said she'd played for Phantom often.
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1925 Phantom unmasking on Fractured Flickers

1925 Phantom unmasking on Fractured Flickers