Whenever he lets his chest expand and try to sing at full power, it comes out as a guttural yell. There are too many problems with his singing to list, but the worst is his belting. ![]() Butler’s is worse at first - he’s really more screaming than singing.ĭuring “Music of the Night,” one of the Phantom’s signature numbers, he desecrates one of the most beautiful songs in recent Broadway memory. The issue most glaringly obvious to the layman is Butler and Rossum. This film is so amateurish, so unambitious, so spectacularly incompetent that it makes the “Rent” movie, which came out the year after, look like a masterpiece. Yes, the “Batman and Robin” Joel Schumacher.īig bads: ‘Batman & Robin’ leaves audiences feeling like they need a hero In 1997, infamous director Joel Schumacher almost ruined comic books for everyone with the abomination that was “Batman & Robin.” Read… Starring the wildly miscast Gerard Butler as the Phantom and Emmy Rossum as the object of his affection, Christine, this version of “Phantom” was directed by the infamous Joel Schumacher. Parisian firefighters use it to practice swimming in the dark.But in 2004, the long-gestating film version was finally released, to the bile of fans everywhere. The architect of the Paris Garnier incorporated the manmade structure into the theatre building. Incidentally, the underground lake, beneath the opera-house? It’s real. Audiences were genuinely terrified - and still are. Chaney did his own make-up, keeping his look top secret until filming. It worked, mostly - and largely as a result of the extraordinary make-up of Lon Chaney as the Phantom. At their wits end, Universal jackknifed parts of both versions together for a third and final attempt. Perhaps the critics would be kinder? “The story drags to the point of nauseam” wrote one. It premiered in April 1925 in San Francisco, and the audience literally booed it off the screen. Desperate to recoup, Universal reshot with a new, slapstick, director reinterpreting the story as a romantic comedy, spliced in action scenes, light relief, gags, and a duel. Julian was asked to reshoot it - he walked out. Not surprisingly, at previews the film tanked. Chaney would only take directions from Julian through a third party responding with ‘Tell him to screw himself”. ![]() Production began at Universal in 1924, with Rupert Julian as director.Īlthough Julian remained true to the Gothic tone, as a director he was almost universally disliked. Leroux gave him the book, Laemmle read it in one night and bought the film rights, as a vehicle for actor Lon Chaney. Twelve years later, while on vacation in Paris, head of Universal studios, Carl Laemmle, met Leroux. The story had been published as a serial in 1909, and as a novel in 1910. (Yes, that’s billion with a ‘b’)īut back in 1925, all that was way off. Period.Įver seen it? Then you are one of a select group of 130 million people and have helped the Lloyd Webber juggernaut generate worldwide gross receipts of $5.6 billion. ![]() Based on the 1909 gothic suspense story Le Fantôme de l’Opéra by French writer Gaston Leroux, the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical is THE longest running show in Broadway history. There’s no doubt, of course, that Phantom is box-office gold. Search for “Greatest Rom-Com of All Time” and there’s no shortage of candidates. One you won’t find, though, is the 1925 version of The Phantom of the Opera.
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