As my all-time favourite Andrew Lloyd Webber stage musical is The Phantom of the Opera (1986), I was always going to be a big fan of its subsequent movie version, directed by Joel Schumacher and released in 2004. However, this is by no means the only big-screen version of Gaston Leroux's famous original novel of 1910, Le Fantôme de l'Opéra. Down through the decades, a great variety of adaptations have been released, beginning of course in 1925 with the peerless Lon Chaney Sr as the masked menace lurking beneath Paris's chandelier-bedecked Grand Opera House (what may have been an earlier, 1916 German adaptation is apparently lost). But the Phantom of the Opera (POTO) version that I watched tonight, released more than 70 years later, in 1998, was directed by none other than Italy's very own horror movie maestro, Dario Argento, and, to quote the late, great American rock'n'roller Eddie Cochran, is truly "somethin' else!".
To begin with, and breaking the most fundamental of all Phantom of the Opera traditions, in Argento's POTO movie the Phantom is not masked. Indeed, he's not even facially disfigured – true, his long straggly shoulder-length hair looks in desperate need of a cut and conditioner, but otherwise, played by English actor Julian Sands, he is certainly not going to frighten the horses or any maiden aunts if he should ever set foot outside into the sunlight, far away from the labyrinthine maze of damp caves and dark, dank underground passages where he lives and lurks, deep beneath the opera house in late 19th-Century Paris.
Needless to say, therefore, lacking his most traditional, integral trademarks, this Phantom has a different back story too – one that at least for me recalled that of Batman's umbrella-toting foe The Penguin as portrayed in Tim Burton's 1992 movie Batman Returns. For whereas he was saved by penguins from being drowned in a river as a baby and thereafter reared by them, here the baby who will become the Phantom is saved from a similar watery death by rats lurking below the Opera House, and who again duly raise him afterwards to adulthood.
Incidentally, given this exceedingly unconventional upbringing, how he somehow comes to be attired almost entirely in black leather, including his anachronistic jeans-like trousers and swirling vampiresque cloak, is something of a mystery, unless of course the rats had taken lessons in tailoring from the seamstress mice in Disney's classic animated movie version of Cinderella!
As for the movie's plot: true, the principal storyline of how he becomes infatuated with young opera singer Christine Daaé (played by Asia Argento, Dario's daughter), and sets out to make her a star by ruthlessly eliminating all rivals and obstacles in her path, and how she falls in love not only with him but also with loyal aristocratic admirer Baron Raoul De Chagny (Andrea Di Stefano), thereby creating a doomed love triangle, remains largely intact and unchanged from the original novel and other mainstream stage or screen productions. And yes, the famous falling chandelier scene is reproduced here in truly spectacular style. But this is a Dario Argento movie, so expect lashings of gore and decidedly twisted twists too.
For example, we witness in graphic detail the fatal impaling of a foolish youth seeking the treasure that he believes the Phantom to be hiding in his subterranean den while the youth's girlfriend has her tongue bitten off by said Phantom before he dispatches her. Also, a creepy elderly man with an unhealthy interest in one of the young girls dancing in a production is brutally and bloodily removed permanently from her vicinity by his Phantom nemesis. There is a sleazy scene in a sleazier sauna/massage parlour where everyone there, including a despondent Raoul, is altogether in the altogether. And let's not overlook (as if we could!) a bizarre, potentially skin-crawling scene (especially if you're musophobic, i.e. you don't like rats) in which the Phantom unbuttons his shirt and lies back, bare-chested and pecs flexing, as he allows his rodent friends to climb and clamber all over his exposed torso – uncomfortably close encounters of the murine kind?
Unlike the ALW version, this POTO production is not a musical, so don't expect any specially-written songs to spring forth. However, adding to the obligatory snippets of classic operatic arias performed by Christine and her petulant diva rival Carlotta is a sumptuous score composed by the inestimable Ennio Morricone, which adds great beauty to the proceedings. Equally, don't expect the fairytale swan-necked boat that takes Christine across the hidden lake beneath the opera house to the Phantom's lair in ALW's show. Here, she has to make do with a shabby rowing boat. And certainly don't expect a positive, uplifting finale either. After all, to quote Bugs Bunny at the end of 'What's Opera, Doc?', my all-time favourite BB cartoon: "Well, what did you expect in an opera – a happy ending?"
Although obviously it was originally made in Italian, Il Fantasma Dell'Opera can be watched legally for free in English here on YouTube – so if you're a Dario Argento aficionado and/or a POTO devotee, don’t miss this golden opportunity to do so, before or in case it is subsequently deleted (or click here to watch a trailer for it first). I guarantee that you won't regret doing so – unless you have a phobia about rats, that is…
And to view a complete listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE!
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