1.5*/5.0*
Phantom of the Opera poster

Watches

May 23, 2021

1.5*/5.0*

The original film adaptation of Leroux' famous novel. The 1925 version is a pretty faithful retelling of the story. Not ideal for someone who has seen plenty of other adaptations already (including the stage play), but for a 100-minute silent it certainly wasn't as bad as I'd feared it would be.

The famous opera singer Carlotta is seeing some serious competition from her understudy Christine. The girl is a rising star, a pupil of the infamous phantom of the opera. The phantom threatens management to replace Carlotta with Christine, but as his demands become more stringent, Christine starts to doubt her loyalty to her mentor.

The decors of this film are quite impressive, especially the underground lair of the phantom. The plot is nice enough (but a little too familiar), the runtime is just a bit excessive for something that merely goes through the motions. Would've been better if it has been 20 minutes shorter, but for a narrative silent, I was pretty decent.