- Directed by Tony Richardson
- Written by Gaston Leroux, Arthur Kopit
- Stars Teri Polo, Charles Dance, Burt Lancaster, Adam Storke
- Run Time: 2 Hours, 48 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UL7LGwdjjWU
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
It’s pretty great, but also pretty long. They fluffed it out a bit to make it a two-night television mini-series. The acting is all excellent, the settings are amazing since they were able to use the actual Paris opera house. They manage a decent body count while not making it too graphic for television.
Synopsis
Part One begins as Gerard Carriere gets fired as manager of the opera house. That afternoon, Christine shows up for her singing lessons; The Count sent her to Gerard for singing lessons, but now she’s out of luck. Alain and Carlotta, new owners of the opera house, want an inventory of what’s in the basement, and the man who goes down there has heard stories. He sees a man in a mask and falls to his death.
Gerard explains to Alain “the rules.” “Don’t go down below,” he explains about the phantom and his territory down below. Alain says he doesn’t believe in ghosts as things start falling down around him.
Gerard asks the air if the man is dead, and Erik answers “Yes.” Gerard clearly knows all about what’s really going on. Gerard lets Erik know that he’s been replaced and can’t help “the phantom” anymore. They both hear Carlotta singing, and they both say it’s terrible. They seem to be good friends and the Phantom jokes about killings, but he seems like a nice guy.
Christine gets a job in the costume department, working for Carlotta. She gets a small place to live in the building,, and the phantom overhears her singing. He watches her from the shadows over the next few days.
Erik the Phantom appears before Christine and introduces himself. He compliments her voice but says she’s untrained. He wants to give her singing lessons– but secretly. The Phantom sends repeated letters to Alain demanding a box and that he get rid of his own wife as the star of the show. He rents out Box 5 and also keeps Carlotta as the star. Both decisions go badly. Alain calls in Inspector Ledoux to help.
The Phantom trains Christine to sing in the evenings. She tells him about Count Phillippe, and Erik says that the count is unworthy of her. The count arrives soon after, and he hasn’t forgotten about Christine.
The count throws a party at the bistro, and they always sing there. Erik says this is Christine’s big opportunity. When Christine shows up at the party, everyone is stunned. She’s in a dazzling dress and sings beautifully. Everyone says she’s amazing. Carlotta joins in trying to keep the spotlight on herself and Christine outdoes her. The count and Gerard are impressed; Alain offers her a job on the spot.
We then spend nine hours with the count and Christine reminiscing about their childhood together.
It’s Christine’s big night, and Carlotta gives her a special thing to drink. Surprisingly, Christine loses her voice during her solo. The crowd gets nasty, the phantom gets upset, and the chandelier ends up falling on the audience; that’s gonna hit the papers in the morning. Part One ends.
Part Two begins with the panicked stampede from the disaster at the opera house. The Phantom has led Christine backstage to avoid trouble, and Phillippe chases after them to save her.
Erik leads Christine “down below” into his world. They board a boat and paddle through the catacombs towards Erik’s secret lair. He sings her to sleep. The police head down there as well, but they can’t find anything. Two of them are killed with booby-traps. The Phantom confronts Carlotta, and well, she won’t be singing anymore; he drives her completely insane.
Gerard goes down and tells Erik to let Christine go; Erik refuses. As Erik prepares more booby-traps, Gerard reveals Erik’s whole backstory, including the fact that Gerard is actually Erik’s father. Gerard couldn’t marry his mother, so she drank half an abortion potion, and the baby was born horribly disfigured. Since then, Erik’s been making all the decisions for the opera house, and Gerard was basically just his mouthpiece. Anyway, Christine hears the whole true story but refuses to leave Erik’s dungeon. Gerard goes back upstairs alone.
He takes her on a picnic in his hand-planted forest full of taxidermied animals. She asks to see his face, and he refuses. She finally talks him into it, and she faints dead away. Oops. He goes off and has a temper tantrum. She wants to leave now, so he locks her in a cell. She gets out.
Upstairs, Count Phillippe and Gerard talk about Christine; Phillippe is also in love with Christine. The two men take Christine out to the country, and she regrets everything. She wants to go back to make amends.
She goes back to the opera house and sings Faust for a real audience. It’s excellent, and Erik hears all of it. Halfway through the show, Erik starts singing along, and everyone sees and hears him, including the police, who have been searching for the phantom all along. Everyone gets a standing ovation until the cops start shooting. Erik grabs Christine and carries her away. Gerard gets his own gun as Erik and Christine run for the roof.
Phillippe and Erik fight on the rooftop of the opera house. Erik saves Phillippe’s life and lets Gerard shoot him. As Erik dies, she unmasks him and smiles with affection as she looks him in the face.
Commentary
The Phantom here has a habit of taking off his mask to reveal another mask beneath. This time we get to see him! Nope. At no point do we ever see his real face; he’s always turned away from the camera. The scenery and sets were excellent, as this was filmed at the actual Paris Opera House.
The problem with most versions of Phantom of the Opera is that there’s so damned much opera in them. There are multiple complaints from Erik about how awful a singer Carlotta is, but to our untrained ear, she sounded pretty much as lyrical as Christine.
Erik is the very definition of creepy stalker. In this version, he’s more sad and pitiable than evil. The man who dies in the beginning was due to his own clumsiness; Erik’s not directly a murderer. Christine even hugs him a few times. He’s so friendly and nice that I’d probably date him, mask or not.
Burt Lancaster gets top billing to go with his fifteen minutes of screen time; in this version, he basically plays Alfred the butler to Charles Dance’s Batman. Dance, most well known for his portrayal of Tywin Lannister, is fine here as Erik, but he’s easily the least menacing of any incarnation of the Phantom. Alain and Carlotta can’t decide whether they’re going to be villains or comic relief, and they don’t do either particularly well.
It was created as a two-part made-for-TV miniseries, and it’s obviously padded to fill out that much time. It’s really atrociously long and dragged out. Lingering shots of the opera house filling up, unnecessary flashbacks, and of course, opera tunes. Almost every single scene feels like it has some filler in it to extend things. There were some strange additions and changes from the original story, but none of them are terrible.
If you’re really into the Phantom of the Opera story and lore, then you may really like this one, as you get to spend a lot of time with the characters and locations. If you’re looking for scares or thrills, look elsewhere.