Universal Pictures sent wardrobe “expert” Charles Le Clerc to France and Germany to “search out and buy up” costumes that had been used in Charles Gounod’s opera, Faust, in the 1890s, in order to ensure authenticity “to the last detail” in the upcoming The Phantom of the Opera, the 11 Oct 1924 Moving Picture World reported. The article announced that the film was slated to be Universal’s “master production of the year 1925.” The studio was already building the opera house’s “catacombs and caves” at the Universal City, CA, lot, “on what is said to be the largest set of scenes in the industry,” according to the 18 Oct 1924 Moving Picture World. Studio press releases stressed that the art director and set designer were working from “architectural plans of the Paris Opera House” and rare volumes of illustrations of opera productions obtained from the University of Berlin in Germany, in order to build an ornate replica, which it called “the first steel and concrete picture set in history.”
       The 12 Jul 1924 Moving Picture World announced that production of The Phantom of the Opera “is now being started in the Universal City studios.” However, “camera work” was not scheduled to begin until the first week of Sep, the 30 Aug 1924 Exhibitors Trade Review noted.
       According to the 22 Nov 1924 Moving Picture World, filming of the “grand opera scenes” would begin within a few days. More than 3,000 extras were scheduled to appear in the “Opera Ball” scene, including 200 on the stage. The news item, probably taken from a Universal press release, described the set as follows: “The interior of the Opera House, its boxes, auditorium, stage, promenades, foyer and grand staircase are housed in a huge steel and concrete structure. A complete grand opera orchestra, and an entire cast for the opera Faust will be employed on stage and in the pit, with an audience watching.” Many of the scenes in the catacombs and cellars beneath the Paris Opera House had already been filmed, the item stated.
       Director Rupert Julian “this week completed the last bit of camera-work,” the 7 Feb 1925 Exhibitors Trade Review reported, and was now going to supervise Universal’s “pick of sub-title writers,” who were going to “work in shifts for several weeks.”
       The premiere was held 6 Sep 1925, a Sunday, at the Astor Theatre in New York City, attended by a “capacity audience,” including representatives of Great Britain, France, and Spain, the 19 Sep 1925 Motion Picture News reported. Eugene Conte, who composed the film’s theme based on Charles Gounod’s music from Faust, conducted the orchestra. Ballerina Albertina Rasch staged a dance number, and Thurston, a famous magician, provided the “appearance” of a “phantom.”
       A re-cut sound and partly-Technicolor version of The Phantom of the Opera was reissued on 15 Dec 1929, with newly filmed, fully synchronized scenes from Faust. Actress Mary Fabian, who sang an aria, replaced Virginia Pearson as “Carlotta,” and Pearson’s scenes were re-edited and re-titled to transform her into “Carlotta’s mother.” (The new cast list ran at the beginning of this 1929 version with Pearson credited as Carlotta’s mother, but the original cast list ran at the end of the film, with Pearson as Carlotta and Mary Fabian not listed at all.) John Sainpolis, who portrayed “Comte Philip de Chagny,” was replaced by an uncredited Edward Martindel. A scene between “Raoul” and “Christine” in a cemetery at Viroflay, France, was deleted. The “Bal Masque” scene was reshot in Technicolor. This new version of Phantom of the Opera, at one hour and thirty-four minutes in length, was roughly twelve minutes shorter than the original. Universal advertising proclaimed the 1929 film’s “Music, Dialog, Technicolor, Sound,” but critics were unimpressed. However, according to the 15 Feb 1930 Exhibitors Herald-World, “In all the situations where the picture has played, it has either smashed box office records or has played to turn-away business.” One man who did not like the new version was Lon Chaney, who was “pouting at Universal with each of his thousand faces” because he felt the actor who dubbed his character “takes the novelty off my voice.” (Chaney was in the last stages of throat cancer and could not provide his own voice.) He told the New York Telegraph he was suing Universal for $70,000, the 15 Mar 1930 Motion Picture News reported.
       Surviving still photographs from the production suggest that an alternate ending, in which “the Phantom” died at the organ, was either filmed or contemplated.
       In 1943, Universal used the 1925 film set to produce a new version of the story, titled Phantom of the Opera (see entry), starring Claude Rains. More Less