^{Lon Chaney as The Phantom}

by Rebecca M. Alvin

One hundred years ago, the motion picture art form and the industry around it were in their infancy. Still in the end of the silent era, 1925 saw most films playing with musical accompaniment, often in glamorous, new movie palaces in the United States with cinema’s new status as an entertainment form on par with theater. But unlike theater, cinema was made for and by working-class people, often immigrants to the United States, and in many cases either not fluent in English or not literate, even if English was their first language. Movies were for everyone, and before the sound era began in the late 1920s, the relative independence from dialogue was a great asset making films a distinct art form—more so than they are today.

It was in 1925, as the motion picture industry was blossoming into a booming business (box office receipts more than doubled between 1921 and 1929 to $720 million, which surpassed the combined receipts of both live theater and spectator sports combined by 400% according to historian Steven J. Ross), that the  film adaptation of The Phantom of the Opera premiered on September 6 at the Astor Theatre in New York. The film starred Lon Chaney as The Phantom and Mary Philbin as the object of his obsession, Christine Daaé, bringing Gaston Leroux’s 1910 novel to the screen under the direction of Rupert Julian. And this week, WOMR brings us a centennial screening of the film with live musical accompaniment improvised by musicians Dinah Mellin, Ken Field, and Bill Cannon.

The term “silent film” is a bit of a misnomer as most films did have accompaniments— sometimes (as in just about all Charlie Chaplin films, for example) they even came with specific scores for the theater accompanist to use, but more often there would be a piano player creating the music on the spot to go with the film as it screened. In this case, Cannon will be the (electric) pianist, joined by Mellin on violin and Field on flute and saxophone.

Mellin, who has performed improvisational silent-film accompaniments before says she was first introduced to the idea from a book. “I read a book that had a character in it that used to play the soundtrack to films up in Nova Scotia,” she recalls. “But then eventually she went mad. And so her playing wasn’t exactly the way it should have been. She was playing the wrong music at the wrong time,” she laughs.

But Mellin says she rarely worries about playing the wrong thing as she improvises. “As long as it’s in the right key,” she says. “The fun part is just watching the film and, you know, is there something scary going on? Then you go into that mode. Something happy, you do it. You know, you switch around.”

WOMR has had several silent film screenings with accompaniment and it is always a unique event as you travel back in time to experience how films were originally intended to be watched. Even in the movie palace days, many films screened in non-urban areas were shown in community halls, school auditoriums, and other not-so-glamorous settings. The silent film program here is organized by Brad Moore, and Mellin says there is a core group of regulars who come to the screenings, but they’re hoping to expand it to those who have not come before.

The Phantom of the Opera as a film is notable  for a few reasons. For one thing, Chaney’s performance is legendary. By that point the actor was already a movie star known for his physical performances —often portraying deformed or wounded characters, and for doing his own makeup, which in this case is an essential part of the film’s success. The moment The Phantom’s appearance is revealed shocked audiences then and continues to be one of the most effectively gruesome revelations in film history. Stories persist that audience members fainted from the shock, and apparently Chaney’s makeup was not revealed to anyone before the scene was shot, making it a horrifying surprise to all involved in the filming.

In addition to the performance and makeup, it also was innovative in its use of color. Film historian David A. Cook explains in his classic text A History of Narrative Film, sequences were “shot in Technicolor’s two-color ‘cemented-positive’ process,” and the film itself was one of several films (such as Erich von Stroheim’s Greed (1924) and Cecil B. De Mille’s Joan, the Woman (1917)) to “employ the principles of three-color lithography to machine-tint [ the film].”

There is even some speculation that experimenting with sound was a part of the production process, although the versions screened in theaters did not have any sound accompanying it, except, of course, the sound of the musicians playing live to the screen.

It’s not Halloween yet, but any time is a good time to revisit this classic American horror film, especially when you can see it on actual film with an audience. And with a trio of talented accompanists—and of course popcorn—it is a not-to-be-missed event.

The Phantom of the Opera (1925) 100th Anniversary Screening takes place on Saturday, September 6, 7:30 p.m. at The Schoolhouse in the WOMR Davis Space, 494 Commercial St., Provincetown. Tickets are by donation/pay-what-you-can and you can also bring snacks to share if you like. For more information call 508.487.2619 or visit womr.org.