The Phantom of the Opera

I wonder why so typically French a story was transferred to Budapest. In the novel, the opera house is as much a star of the story as the characters. It makes no sense to shift the story.

The acting is OK at best and often quite silly. Overall this is a rather cheezy and lame attempt at the story, with the usual attempts to rewrite and revise the story.

I often wish that someone would attempt a version that is truer to the original book, even though it was penny-dreadful claptrap. All too often they try to make the Phantom so sympathetic that they lose sight of his psychopathic side. However, in the original novel Christine is such a stupid drip that she does get quite annoying.

There is some singing in this version, but the 1983 The Phantom of the Opera is not a rock musical. The songs are from Faust, the opera being performed on the stage, with a very unbelievable dubbing for Jane Seymour. She may be a beautiful woman, but she is not believable as an opera singer. Another oddity is that Michael York, the opera director, continually insults Faust - so why not pick a different one? Faust happens to be my favorite opera, so I didn't appreciate the little insults.

In contrast with the other versions of Phantom, Jane's character isn't written to be sweet and innocent. She's actually quite the hussy! She admits to using her looks to get ahead while on a dinner date with Michael, and she's pretty quick to relinquish her honor with him as well. Also, there's an interesting backstory as to how the phantom got his disfigured face. Maximilian Schell, the future phantom, is a conductor who believes in his wife's (Jane Seymour in a double role) ability to succeed as a soprano opera singer. However, nerves often get the better of her, and she receives a scathing review for her opening night's performance. She commits suicide, and to get revenge, Maximilian confronts the critic. There's an accident involving fire and acid, and the rest is history.

It had a good cast, and there were some interesting moments, but all in all, it definitely felt like a television attempt. I felt a little sorry for Maximilian Schell, an Academy Award winner, who was probably excited to play such a famous role - until he started watching the dailies.

DLM Warning: If you suffer from vertigo or dizzy spells, like my mom does, this movie might not be your friend. There are some POV camera angles throughout the movie, and that will make you sick. In other words, "Don't Look, Mom!"

Jane Seymour and "Phantom" fans beware!!! This made for T. V. movie has to be the worst adaptation of the famous Gaston Leroux story filmed to date. Ms. Seymour plays two roles: Elena, a suicidal soprano, and Maria, a bitchy soprano. Maria (the Christine Daae character) hasn't one good quality about her, making the viewer wonder what the Phantom is so in love about. Michael York plays the equally irritating director of "Faust", the show that the opera company has been rehearsing for ever. In a nutshell, Ms. Seymour's hair gets bigger with each scene, her costumes look like a third rate community threatre production of "My Fair Lady" (...she usually looks so beautiful in period costumes!) and her lip-synching only works in wideshots. Mr. York's hair gets more and more like Orphan Annie's as the film progesses and his costumes look like Oscar Wilde's cast offs. The one redeeming moment in this film, is when the Phantom's face is finally shown. Stan Winston's make-up is quite good.

I am a fan of both Jane Seymour AND "The Phantom of the Opera". After seeing this film, I just wanted to call her up and ask her why she made this!!!!

I was younger when I saw this, before I saw any other version, maybe, and definitely before I read the book. I remember a scene with a quote that has come back to me powerfully. The phantom comes into the room with the young singer to meet her for the first time after watching her rehearse many times. He says to her, "The mask frightens you? The mask protects you!"

Contrairy to what everyone thinks this is not a bad film. While, true it isn't faithful to Leroux, and the acting can make you feel like your watching a soap opera from the seventies, it is still an interesting take on the story. Maximillion Schell does a wonderful job as the Phantom, Shandor Korvan who after losing his wife to suicide takes revenge on the Baron and his men who drove her to it and in the process of killing the critic has both acid drip on his face and is caught on fire. After being rescued by the city ratchacer, did I mention it takes place in Hungary not France, he slowly recovers all the while scheming, waiting for the chance to destroy the Baron. Then a Italian American girl named Maria, not Christine, who looks almost identical to his wife, comes to sing at the opera. Korvan thinks Maria is his wife returned to him in a different form and he trains her to sing like he wished he could have taught his wife to sing. in the meantime Maria falls in love with the director(played by Micheal York) , our Roul. In the end The phantom steals her, jealous of her love for the director. She unmasks him; the director rescues her, and then we come to where the movie gets bad. I think The Phantom is trying to find Maria but gets side tracked and decided to cut down the chandelier while he is on it, maybe he was committing suicide, but he sees Maria is under him and he yells for her to move as it falls in extreme slow motion. In fact its so slow everyone has time to move out of the way and the only one killed is the Phantom. Everyone is sad and the end. There's a lot of bad things about this film, hey its a TV movie, but the thing that redeems it all is the Unmasking scene. It is fantastic. The makeup effects for the Phantom's disfigurement is wonderful. It seems the one thing that they tried to keep accurate to the book is the Phantoms face. It doesn't even look like a burn; it looks congenital. He hardly has a nose, his skin is a nasty yellow and parchment-like, and he only has a few hanks of dark brown hair on sides of his head and on his forehead. His mask is great too, it is a black hood with a blue green full face mask over the face with a movable jaw. Now, about the unmasking, HE QUOTES LEROUX!!!! Maria even burns his mask like Christine does in the book. Schell performances as Shandor Korvan, the Phantom, is great. As Shandor he seems believable that he is mental unstable and when he becomes The Phantom he is completely insane after the loss of his wife and his body, remember his whole body gets burned. He plays the Phantom for Horror and sympathy, like Lon Chaney, and I think he would of been a great Erik in a Leroux based movie. He has the deep voice for it. What you really have to remember is to not compare it to the book. Like all Phantom movies its its own work of art. Just because it not exactly like the book, or what you think is the book, referring to the last summary.