Sunday, August 26, 2018

Sunday, August 5, 2018

Freddy Krueger as "The Phantom of the Opera" (1989)



After playing Freddy Krueger in four NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET movies, Robert Englund was probably itching to do something different. I mean, he was a classically trained actor, capable of playing more than a wise-cracking, murderer with a scarred face.

Yet when Robert Englund was asked if he wanted to play Freddy Krueger, only as the Phantom of the opera, he said Yes.

Well what was he going to say? Nobody was offering him the Tom Cruise role in Rain Man.

The late 1980's saw a Phantom of the Opera-mania. Based on a french novel, there's been a silent film, a Tchnicolor version, a Hammer-film version, yet it was the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical that really put the Phantom of the Opera in the public eye. For awhile, you couldn't avoid seeing the iconic white mask or hearing the music. Even Roger Ebert wrote a novel set against the backdrop of a production of Phantom of the Opera.   

In Toronto, Phantom played at the Pantages theatre, which meant if you went to school in the surrounding area, you likely went on an expensive field trip to see the play. It was a smart move on the part of the producers. What better way to sell thousands of matinee tickets than by busing in school children.

Using the pretence this was somehow educational, the Phantom tricked school groups into coming back year after year. I knew some people who saw that dumb play three or four times.

What leaves a bad taste in my mouth is how unfriendly the Pantages theatre was to ticket buyers. Unlike the Broadway theatres of the time, the Pantages was enormous, practically the length of the airplane hanger. About half the seats were so far away from the stage, you couldn't see shit, unless you rented those dopey binoculars. The Phantom was a very visual play, with fancy costumes, and one of a kind props, and special effects. Can you image paying a hundred bucks for a ticket, and then having to watch the show squinting through binoculars?

We went on one of those field trips, and our school was sitting so far back, most of us didn't realize the Phantom lost his mask and spent the last half-hour of the show running around in hideous face make-up. When the play was over you felt like you'd been ripped off. I'm pretty sure the Phantom made a lot of people swear off going to the theatre in Toronto.

Since interest in the Phantom of the Opera was riding high, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to release a new film version. I like how the poster has the disclaimer: This motion picture is not associated with any current or prior stage production.

First thing you notice is that the movie takes place not in Paris, but New York City. And that it takes place in present day, not the early 20th century. There's weird quote by a Saint who was supposedly executed in 1544, but I couldn't find any trace of him, so I'm pretty sure he was just made up for the movie.

Our lead character is getting ready for her big opera audition. For some reason, she wants to find an obscure piece to sing, so she gets her buddy to dig an old, forgotten opera out of a big pile of stacked up papers. She decides to go with it, despite the fact these pages are clearly cursed.

Her buddy is played by Molly Shannon, the future Saturday Night Live superstar.

At the audition, a sandbag comes free and she winds up hitting her head and going back in time to what I guess is supposed to be her previous life. But frankly, you find yourself wonder, why didn't they just start the movie here. Was this modern-day prologue necessary?

The Phantom has a crush on the young opera singer, so it pisses him off when the stagehand who almost killed her with the falling sandbag, falsely claims the accident wasn't his fault, and blames it on the phantom. If the guy had just manned up and taken responsibility for his own bumbling, I'm pretty sure the Phantom would have let him live.

The big star of the opera house is this blonde lady, who turns out to be a real prima donna. I love how the owner of the opera casually threatens to murder her.

The Phantom puts the body of the stagehand in the opera star's closet, and she has a shit-fit, screaming so loud she loses her voice. Which means her understudy, the Phantom's crush Christine, now has the chance to sing.

Y'know, for a movie monster, that was pretty nice. He could have just killed the opera star in order to give Christine the chance to sing, but he chose to scare her instead. I guess that means he's reasonable.

We see the Phantom pick up a prostitute who vaguely resembles Christine. Was there a version of this scene in the Andrew Lloyd Webber version? Probably, but I don't remember 'cause I couldn't see shit.

A group of thugs try robbing the Phantom, and he uses his knife to dispatch them one by one. This movie must have run into a lot of trouble with the MPAA, because these murders are very tame compared to the graphic screen-shots published in Fangoria magazine.

The next morning, the Phantom's hooker wakes up to find gold coins under her pillow. Man, that Phantom is real gentleman.

Except that his face looks like shit. Rotted or burned up or something. Makes him look a lot like you know who. He covers this disfigurement by sewing fresh skin over his face. Once he touches up the seams with make-up, he looks pretty good. Very dashing.

As the movie goose on, the Phantom's blood lust increases. He kills a critic who gave Christine a bad-review. He kills some old bum who knows his secrets. 

Despite everything the Phantom's done for Christine (I mean, he's practically handed her her entire career), she's put off by his hideous looks and his vicious murders. She's rather be with her hunky new boyfriend. This leads to a fiery confrontation in the Phantom's lair.

Christine wakes up back in the modern day. I'm pretty sure the same actor who played the police inspector also plays the director. And the same actress who played the blonde opera star also appears at the beginning, auditioning before Christine. So I guess this is the new lives they've been reincarnated into. Not sure why Molly Shannon didn't play the past life version of her character, Meg.

You know what I bet it was, I bet they cast the British actress first, and were too cheap to fly her over to America for the New York scenes, so they hired an American actress instead.