Before Broadway, and several films (including a wild adaptation by Brian dePalma in 1975), there was the original 1925 silent masterpiece of Gaston LeRoux’s 1910 novel: Carl Laemmle’s The Phantom of the Opera starring “The Man of a Thousand Faces”, Lon Chaney in his greatest and most terrifying horror makeup. Chaney plays
Erik, aka the Phantom, a horribly disfigured recluse who lives underneath the Paris Opera House who - between Christine’s voice lessons - wreaks mayhem, murder and revenge without discovery.
Before the main film, will be the 1924 French silent film Au Secours! (Help!) a horror-comedy directed by Abel Gance and starring comedian Max Linder.