Line #1 Trivia/ThePhantomOfTheOpera1925


1	* CreatorBacklash: Creator/LonChaney was quite vocal about his hatred of the FocusGroupEnding.
2	* EnforcedMethodActing: Creator/LonChaney never told Mary Philbin just how awful he would look for the unmasking scene. Her frightened reaction in the original 1925 cut is completely authentic. How she reacts in the more well-known 1929 recut is normal acting and is a bit more hammy as well.
3	* FocusGroupEnding: The filmmakers initially intended to preserve the original ending of the novel, and filmed scenes in which the Phantom dies of a broken heart at his organ after Christine leaves his lair. Because of the preview audience's poor reaction, the studio decided to change the ending to a more exciting one. Edward Sedgwick was hired to provide a climactic chase scene, with an ending in which the Phantom, after having saved Ledoux and Raoul, kidnaps Christine in Raoul's carriage. He is hunted down and cornered by an angry mob, who beat him to death and throw him into the Seine.
4	* HostilityOnTheSet: The first director, Eric von Stroheim, was fired and replaced by Rupert Julian, who proceeded to piss everyone off with his tyrannical style and mediocrity. According to director of photography Charles Van Enger, Creator/LonChaney and the rest of the cast and crew had strained relations with the notoriously dictatorial Julian. Eventually the star and director stopped talking, so Van Enger served as a go-between. He would report Julian's directions to Chaney, who responded "Tell him to go to hell." As Van Enger remembered, "Lon did whatever he wanted." Julian also attracted the ire of Van Enger himself, who warned him to be careful lest an arc light fall on him. Norman Kerry (Raoul) got so angry with Julian one day that while filming a scene on horseback, he charged the director's platform. Even Julian's wife, Australian actress Elsie Jane Wilson, got in on it, regularly berating him for his haughty attitude to the delight of the cast and crew. Julian left production under unknown circumstances, and he was replaced by Edward Sedgwick, who did well but got in trouble for adding in too many comedic elements. The film was ultimately finished by the innovative [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lois_Weber Lois Weber]] and English-American editor Maurice Pivar.
5	* MissingEpisode: A complete cut of the original 1925 theatrical release was believed to have been lost to time for decades, leaving the 1929 recut as the only means of watching the film, until the British Film Institute discovered a copy in 2011 and released it on DVD two years later.
6	** The first script was a close adaptation of Leroux and included scenes from the novel that never appeared in the released film, such as the Phantom summoning Christine to her father's graveyard in Brittany, where he poses as the Angel of Music and plays "The Resurrection of Lazarus" on his violin at midnight. The scene was filmed by Rupert Julian but excised after he left the project.
7	* TroubledProduction: Aside from Julian's feud with the cast and crew, the test screenings were sources of great frustration. The first was seen as too melodramatic, the second was booed for being a romantic comedy, and the third was a hit but added in the FocusGroupEnding, which Lon Chaney vehemently objected to. The script and especially the ending was constantly revised throughout production.
8	* WhatCouldHaveBeen:
9	** In 1929, Universal announced plans for ''The Return of the Phantom'', which would have featured sound and, astoundingly, full colour throughout the whole movie! Plot details were never given, although Chaney wouldn't have returned (he had switched studios to MGM). In the end, Universal decided to go with the less expensive option of adding dialogue and new sound scenes to the original movie.
10	** The film was originally much closer to the book, with scenes including Raoul's visit to Madam Valerius, the Perros graveyard scene, and Christine's kiss redeeming Erik, of which only still images remain. Unfortunately the director didn't like this ending (which was strongly supported by Chaney, who wanted to make the film as close to the book as possible), and neither did test audiences, so it was replaced with the mob scene.

Context Trivia / ThePhantomOfTheOpera1925