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We're back with chandeliers and mirrors - it's part two of The Phantom of the Opera!

Special thanks once again to our marvelous reader Jaime Andrews!

The 1925 film is available on YouTube - give it a watch!

As is John Travolta's masterpiece: Razzamatazz! (featured in this episode)

Next up: More PHANTOM!

Comments

Anonymous

When you talk about the 1925 film and how faithful it is, I thought I’d mention that it was actually more faithful originally. The scene at the graveyard and the original ending of the book, as well as some other scenes, were filmed and cut when previews were unfavourable. The film went through several different directors until the various reshoots were eventually edited together into the general release print. The closest we can get to seeing this version is the version on YouTube called the 1925 New York Release Print. The version most widely available is a hodgepodge of various different versions; the 1925 version, the 1929 sound reissue and also a home release version that featured different takes and camera angles and is shorter than the original cut. The history of the film is actually very interesting and I highly recommend researching it.

Ben Atkinson

The Arena Di Verona still uses horses for it's performances. If you watch some clips online you can see the sheer spectacle and scale of some of the sets. My first opera was La Traviata, and when I saw it the set was a series of picture frames that would rise up and rotate around the stage. When I saw Aida in Verona they had circus elephants.

Anonymous

I have not yet made it to Paris. So I usually substitute Chicago's Lyric Opera in my mind. The Lyric is huge. A whole city block. 45 stories tall (with 22-story wings) and loaded with elevators and technical gew gaws to make a Phantom rub their hands with glee. Speaking of elevators - and Chicago buildings - I'll also give a shout-out to 35 East Wacker which sported an elevator for cars so that jewelers could drive straight into the building and be lifted right up to their offices without the danger of bringing their goods out onto the street or a garage. The elevator served more than 20 floors. Not quite a horse elevator, but pretty good.

Anonymous

Deleted excerpts: "And so Eric paused from his haunting, thinking ahead to his next acts of cruelty against all those he held accountable for his hell. With a flourish of his cape, he dons his mask and begins to stride forth from the stygian depths when he slips on a big pile of horseshit. Sounds of anguish can be heard far and wide.”

Anonymous

I think if you try Eric with a proper Parisian accent you will feel the chills. Similarly, Chad in a Transylvanian intonation, and, I can only guess, Kurt with an underwatery German inflection and you’ll be running for the hills.

Anonymous

I am a Witch, and I approve of the idea of saying that everything I do is thusly Witchcraft. I just came back from the bathroom, and let me tell you, I did some really foul dark magic in there! I also own guns. So maybe I should go to the range this weekend and do some more Witchcraft? Funny thing is, the goddess Hecate was known as the Queen of Witches, as well as "The Far Darter". The latter because of her ability to slay from a distance using magic. Thanks to that there is a sniper rifle named after her. If you ever played Fallout New Vegas you know it. It is the Anti-Material Rifle in that game. Back to the story though, we learn later that the OG is a master ventriloquist and can throw his voice. So I think he was throwing his voice and making the "Co-ack!" sounds when Carlotta was trying to sing. I don't think he knew any actual Witchcraft. Sweathogcraft maybe though. I also noted that both Raoul and the OG were stalkers, though clearly the OG was much worse. It is not a love triangle, but a stalker triangle. Later on in the story when the OG is bargaining and threatening Christine to make her fall in love with him, he reminded me of Harvey Weinstein. https://youtu.be/wEu7quzUsDk Trigger Warning, the link is really creepy. One thing I liked about the Claude Rains film version of the Phantom is that at the very end, Christine dumps all the guys and instead concentrates on her career. I thought that was the most believable (and happiest) ending of all the versions of the story I have read or seen.

Ben Gilbert

In the Claude Rains version Raoul is a police inspector and they add in an opera baritone as a fourth corner of the triangle. And the phantom was originally a violin player for the opera. it was all very melodramatic.

Anonymous

I hear “Love Vice” is opening the Gobi Stage at Coachella next year. (Seriously, “love vice not love triangle” is the realist thing I’ve heard in 2019. Good job sliding in at the last minute.)

Andrew M. Reichart

Re: witch macramé: "Every intentional act is a magickal act." -- Aleister Crowley

Anonymous

I have never read or seen the Phantom of the Opera in any form, so maybe there's something here I'm missing that will be revealed later. But are you seriously telling me that Christine opened and walked through a secret revolving door in her mirror and then couldn't understand how she'd gotten to the other side of it and started crying? And that Raul watched her do this and was so confused by the concepts of mirrors and doors that he couldn't figure out where she'd gone?? Am I for real supposed to believe this? I can see accidentally opening a door disguised as a mirror, ok. But then she consciously walked through it. She was in the tunnel behind it because she walked there. While awake. And then she couldn't figure out how it had happened. Also it's funny how Raul says he loves Christine and asks her to marry him despite it being this very shocking thing to marry a commoner or whatever, and then when she doesn't immediately fall into his arms he's like "Slut! I never liked you anyway! You're a fat bitch! Whore!" THAT I believe. Tale as old as time.

Anonymous

I'm so glad your Phantom of the Opera, part 2, is just as entertaining as the first one, unlike Weber's sequel Love Never Dies, which really earned its mocking alternate title, Paint Never Dries.

Anonymous

The Christine bit is utterly ridiculous, but in Raul's case I think we can assume the lighting, the way the mechanism moves, and/or any other trickery is at play. The Phantom is, skillful singer aside, essentially a brilliant proto-stage magician, and seems eager to use all kinds of stage trickery to lend the appearance of the supernatural to otherwise banal legerdemain. Also, y'know. Raul's a blithering jackass.

Anonymous

Oh I see what you did here,I complain about Chris’s singing and you pull a Travolta gambit,in which a singing celebrity is used to thwart all criticism of one’s singing.But there are still probably 2 parts left and only one singing celebrity below Travolta,don’t go full Shanter please.

Mark Brett

"I wake up and the morning's here. She's in a robe and drinking beer. She says she knows Mac Davis, And says the Lord will save us. I think I'd best get out of here." Wow. I... Wow. Of all the terrible Lovecraftian horrors you guys have exposed us to, "Razzamatazz" might be the most sanity-blasting of the lot.

Anonymous

The head of the stable is a giant dick too. He believes the OG stole his horse. So he demands that everyone working for him be fired! WTF?

Tom Král

thE PHAAANTOM Of the opera is heeere... <3

Anonymous

Can't wait to listen to both of these; been out of the loop for a while but I love the Phantom! Bring it!

Anonymous

❤️❤️ i am LOVING this. Also funny to hear a quick reference to the Phantom of the Opera on the Voluminous podcast today. Apparently Robert Bloch was first turned on to the genre after seeing the Lon Chaney film. also, check out Voluminous, people. it's great

Anonymous

Chad is totally right about the novel. I had such big expectations back when I read the book, late ’90s I think , and it’s such a rubbish romance story just like any cheap Harlequin book. Only the Phantom is memorable.

Anonymous

My angel of whoop-ass!

Anonymous

If you haven’t seen it in a while I recommend the Claude Raines phantom of the opera from universal. Christine has two suitors and the phantom chasing her and ends up blowing them all off. Good girl!

Anonymous

The Phantom is the patron saint for all us college music majors that never went on to become film score composers, documentary musicologists, or high school band directors. God bless you, Eric. Long live the Masquerade (as we hide our faces in other careers)!

Anonymous

What I really wanna know is, what's up with Madame Giry? Is she the Madame who makes sure the Opera gets its cut when the ballet dancers do their favors for the well to do men? This story would be much cooler with a female pimp. I'm just gonna go with that...

Anonymous

As a witch making candles while listening, I am indeed practicing witchcraft right now!

Anonymous

The reason the 1925 film was so faithful is that Leroux was still alive and hid out in the sets, dropping people through trap doors any time they tried to make changes. If only more authors had this courage and showmanship!

Anonymous

Christine Daaé the new Madonna! Surly she was a Prima Donna.