However after the film was played to test audiences, the studio decided to change the ending because it was not considered exciting or emotional enough. Originally the filmmakers intended on preserving somewhat the ending of the novel, and filmed scenes where Christine gives her love and appreciation to the Phantom who then lets them go (and later dies of a broken heart). He is hunted down by an angry mob, bashed to death and thrown into a river. The Phantom, after he has saved Ledoux and Raoul, escapes with Christine in Raoul's carriage. Rather he has escaped from a an asylum or prison on Devil's Island, and is a practitioner of the "Black Art." The Phantom has no longer studied in Persia.
This is evidenced from the fact that Ledoux wears a somewhat Persian hat. It was a change made entirly during the title-card editing process. This character change was not originally scripted. He is now a French Detective of the Secret Police. The Character of Ledoux is not a mysterious Persian and is no longer a one time acquaintance of the Phantom. The Phantom shrieks in pain and falls over dead, of a broken heart.)Īlthough this particular adaptation is often considered perhaps the most faithful, it contains some significant plot differences to the Gaston Leroux Novel. (An alternate ending features Christine giving the Phantom her ring, then departing with Raoul. However, in the final sequence, while Raoul saves Christine, Erik/Phantom is pursued and killed by a mob on the streets of Paris who after beating him to death throw him into the Seine River to finally drown. The Phantom attempts to flee with Christine in a stolen carriage. At the last second the Phantom opens a trapdoor in his floor through which Raoul and Ledoux are saved. One will save her lover Raoul and the other will blow up the Opera! Christine picks the Scorpion-however it is a trick by the Phantom-it will "save" Raoul and Ledoux from being blown up-by drowning them! Christine begs the Phantom to save Raoul by promising him anything. The Phantom gives Christine a choice of two levers-one shaped like a scorpion and the other like a grasshopper. The film opens with the debut of the new season at the Paris Opera House, with a production of Gounod's Faust. It is a mystery with romantic and horror overtones. The scenario presented is based on the general release version of 1925, which has additional scenes and sequences in different order than the existing reissue print (see below). It was directed by Rupert Julian, with supplemental direction by Edward Sedgwick, and Lon Chaney (unconfirmed). McCormack (uncredited), Tom Reed (titles) and Raymond L. The only surviving cast member is Carla Laemmle (born 1909), niece of producer Carl Laemmle, who played a small role as "prima ballerina" in the film when she was about 15. The film also features Mary Philbin, Norman Kerry, Arthur Edmund Carewe, Gibson Gowland, John St. It is most famous for Lon Chaney's intentionally horrific, self-applied make-up, which was kept a studio secret until the film's premiere. The film featured Lon Chaney in the title role as the masked and facially deformed Phantom who haunts the Paris Opera House, causing murder and mayhem in an attempt to force the management to make the woman he loves a star. The Phantom of the Opera is a 1925 silent film directed by Rupert Julian adaptation of the Gaston Leroux novel of the same title.