Il fantasma dell'opera (The Phantom of the Opera) - オペラ座の怪人

• Report rights infringement
• published: 04 Jul 2013
• views: 4913

Il fantasma dell'Opera (The Phantom of the Opera) è un film muto del 1925, diretto da Rupert Julian e, non accreditati, Lon Chaney, Edward Sedgwick e Ernest Laemmle. Nel 1998 è stato scelto per la conservazione nel National Film Registry della Biblioteca del Congresso degli Stati Uniti. Erik, musicista geniale ma sfigurato che vive nascosto nei sotterranei dell'Opera di Parigi, è pronto a tutto pur di portare al successo la giovane cantante Christine, di cui è segretamente innamorato. Il film fu distribuito dall'Universal Pictures: fu presentato in prima a New York il 6 settembre 1925. La versione muta del '25 è andata perduta, mentre si conserva l'edizione sonora realizzata nel 1929 (in cui Chaney è doppiato da un altro attore) contenente nuove scene girate da Ernst Laemmle (con Mary Fabian al posto di Virginia Pearson nel ruolo di Carlotta). Questa nuova edizione fu presentata a New York il 7 febbraio 1930. Attualmente circolano diverse riedizioni (basate perlopiù su quella del '29), con vari tagli e aggiunte (di 95', 107', 106', 101' e 92', quest'ultima, del 1995, è la più filologicamente corretta). The Phantom of the Opera is a 1925 American silent horror film adaptation of the Gaston Leroux novel of the same title directed by Rupert Julian and starring Lon Chaney in the title role as the 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 movie remains most famous for Lon Chaney's intentionally horrific, self-applied make-up, which was kept a studio secret until the film's premiere. The picture also features Mary Philbin, Norman Kerry, Arthur Edmund Carewe, Gibson Gowland, John St. Polis, and Snitz Edwards. 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 was adapted by Elliott J. Clawson Nd Frank M. McCormack (uncredited) and Tom Reed (titles) and Raymond L. Schrock and was directed by Rupert Julian and with supplemental direction by Lon Chaney and Edward Sedgwick and Ernst Laemmle (unconfirmed). Mordaunt Hall of The New York Times' gave The Phantom of the Opera a positive review as a spectacle picture, but felt that the story and acting may have been slightly improved. Time praised the sets but felt the picture was "only pretty good". In November 1929, after the successful introduction of sound pictures, Universal dubbed and re-shot a new cut of The Phantom of the Opera with the new Western Electric sound-on-disc process. Ernst Laemmle re-shot a little less than half of the picture in sound, while the remainder contained music and sound effects, with stock cues and original pieces by Sam A. Perry and David Broekman. Chaney was at MGM, and by contract Universal could not dub his voice, so "third person" dialogue by the Phantom was looped over shots of his shadow. (The voice-overs are uncredited, but are probably Universal regular, Phillips Smalley.) Because Chaney's talkie debut was eagerly anticipated by filmgoers, the posters emphasized, "Lon Chaney's portrayal is a silent one!" The sound version of Phantom opened on February 16, 1930 and grossed another million dollars, then was stored away for future use, but has since vanished and is presently considered to be a lost film, although the soundtrack discs survive. The success of The Phantom of the Opera inspired Universal to finance the production of a long string of horror films such as Dracula and its sequels, Frankenstein and its sequels, The Wolf Man, The Invisible Man, The Mummy. Many of the films are now considered studio classics. The film has been deemed "culturally significant" by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. In the United States, the film is in the public domain due to Universal's failure to renew the copyright in 1953, and may be freely downloaded from the Internet Archive. It was parodied in the 70's film Phantom of the Paradise and by the Terry Pratchett novel Maskerade. オペラ座の怪人