Silent film: Phantom of the Opera

The Silent Opera

I saw the 1925 silent film Phantom of the Opera at the Loew's Jersey Theater last night. Or did I? According to Wikipedia's article about the film, multiple versions were created by Universal Studios, including a later dubbed sound version and an alternate with color sequences. There were alternate cuts with different scenes distributed too. Anyway, what I saw was silent (with terrific musical accompaniment from the Loew's massive theater organ) and entirely in black and white.

Scary? Not by today's standards, though the scene in which the Phantom is unmasked reportedly caused some viewers to faint in 1925, due to Lon Chaney's still impressive make-up. It was entertaining, though, and an interesting history lesson.

The audience was huge, which surprised me. But then, there aren't many places where film buffs can see silent movies with live musical accompaniment these days.