San Francisco and Victoriana

Lon Chaney (who was not known as "Lon Chaney Sr" during his lifetime) created the makeup for the characters he played himself, something he was known for.  Indeed, it is where the "Man of A Thousand Faces" moniker came from.  He would transform himself into the characters he played so completely that in some of the films, he was practically unrecognizable. 

The Phantom of the Opera, perhaps his best-known film, was not the first character he played in a film based upon a novel or story.  In 1923, he was The Hunchback of Notre Dame.  That film was also made by Universal, and also featured a set built to appear as its real-life counterpart, Notre Dame Cathedral.  Another was the film that featured San Francisco's Ferry Building in its opening Credits, The Penalty.

For many years, even I automatically saw in my mind an image of the 1925 Phantom whenever I heard the name, "Lon Chaney".  Or "Lon Chaney Sr."  Then there was a day several years ago that I got curious.  I'd heard of Lon Chaney Jr., his son, whose birth name was actually Creighton Tull Chaney.  His son had even begun his own film career under his own name after his father's death at age 47 in 1930.  But then, it was decided (for him) that if he worked under the name "Lon Chaney Jr.", it would be more lucrative.

Hmm. 

We know the Phantom of the Opera was based upon a book by Gaston Leroux published in 1911.  What inspired LeRoux to write the book is an interesting story all by itself.  It's worth a look, but for now, I'd like to take a look at a couple of things about the 1925 Universal film, The Phantom of the Opera.

One aspect that fascinates me was the way Lon Chaney approached the source material of the characters he played.  He read the novels and stories he played characters in film adaptations of.  The author's descriptions, the author's vision, was what guided his work in transforming himself into their characters. 

Obviously, it's difficult for a novel or a story to translate to the screen in a way that tells the story as the author envisioned it.  On the page, it's words that tell us what is going on, what setting it's in, what the characters say and do, and also what they think and feel.  There is a lot more room for a back story on the page.  But on the screen, there is a very finite amount of time to tell that story.  The challenge is how to do that without basically rewriting the story the author actually created.

Clearly, the focus on this sort of authenticity was a challenge that even in Hollywood's early years, Lon Chaney accepted. 

The result is that Lon Chaney brought those characters to life on the screen in a way that still grabs audiences a century later.  Even makes them scream, although it's extremely limiting to say Lon Chaney was a "horror actor" in the context of what we describe as horror today, he did have a way of showing that true horror lies in what humans will do to one another when they perceive another human as "different".  Or when they want something.

It's a bit like the Mayfair house as it sat for sixty years after Stella's murder.  The house got dark and dusty, the garden overgrown, and the swimming pool full of muck as a ghost lamented the life and parties that once surrounded it.  First Antha, then Deirdre had to grow up in that house, raised by the same aunt, Carlotta.  Stella's sister, who went out of her way to make the two girls and the world think they were too mentally ill to control their own destinies.  Who made sure each of them grew up without their own mothers to raise and guide them.

The reality?  Carlotta had once been the Legacy designee herself until her mother, Mary Beth, changed it to Stella.  Once their mother was gone, Stella inherited everything.  Everything Carlotta did to destroy her sister and nieces was no doubt self-serving despite Carlotta's pious, self-Righteous claims.  Even though Carlotta did know what Lasher wanted, so did others.  And those others had to be shut out.

The kind of horror that Lon Chaney's characters experienced can, in their own way, be a bit like the horror Carlotta Mayfair inflicted on three generations of Mayfair designees.  That kind of horror that is publicly excused even when it is thoroughly unjustified is, I think, what horror really is.

Did Lasher have his own designs, his own intentions with regard to the Mayfair Witches?  Yes.  What's odd is that throughout the sixty years between Stella's murder and Rowan's return, Lasher was not the scariest thing in the Mayfair house.  Lasher was not there to haunt or hurt, but to protect.  The scariest thing was Carlotta because the true horror of what happened to Stella, antha, and Deirdre Mayfair originated with her.