The Phantom of the Opera

The Phantom of the Opera (1962)

Directed by: Terence Fisher
Written by: Anthony Hinds based on the novel by Gaston Leroux
Starring: Herbert Lom, Heather Sears, Thorley Walters, Michael Gough, Edward de Souza

One of the many adaptations of that story, this one being the Hammer version. Groovy.

The Phantom is a disfigured musician living underneath the Opera House (hence the title) - in this version, his music was stolen by Michael Gough and he was horribly disfigured by the record press or whatever.

I kind of have to wonder if de Palma drew more from this movie than other versions of the story when making Phantom of the Paradise? It certainly seems that way.

Anyway, it wasn't exactly great, but it has that Hammer charm and it was way way way better than the Andrew Lloyd Webber thing that came out whenever. Man... don't watch that movie.

Yeah, the Phantom himself was pretty gross looking (as opposed to Gerard Butler in the Webber thing, who looked like maybe a bee stung him. Oh my God, ew. He's Gerard frigging Butler. So what if he's got a lump on his face? He's Gerard Butler. I can't stress that point enough). I mean, being Herbert Lom doesn't really help, but he had shit on his face and everything. So you've got that. The story doesn't really work if he doesn't look totally awful.

Although I did wonder why he was so upset about his opera getting stolen. It kind of... sucked. It was about Joan of Arc. Eg. I don't really like opera myself, call me barbaric. I may have mentioned I was tempted to shoot myself whilst watching La Boheme and that was Baz Luhrmann.

But oh well. Stealing from other people is just wrong. Unless it's burning a CD. That's okay. Heh.

Well, anyway, um, yeah, it looked really good, as Hammer films are wont to do, and it had lots of vaguely familiar British people in it. I kept thinking, hey, yeah, I remember that guy, sort of. He was in that other thing, where he played that guy, right?

Yesss. Not great, but entertaining and sort of enjoyable. I kept thinking dude looked like a early version of Michael Myers. Not that they're probably that closely related. I mean, everybody wearing a white mask sort of looks the same, that's the point.

Yay.

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