While placing a kiss on the Phantom’s forehead (instead of a child’s bruised knee), Christine whispers “poor Erik,” and thus, the Phantom’s wounded psyche - an entire lifetime’s accumulation of self-loathing, yearning, and hate - is reduced to an emotional boo-boo that’s healed by a few seconds of mother-love. Wanting desperately to escape his plans for her, she ultimately figures out what Erik really needs in order to set her free, and this turns out to be pretty much what a mother grants a child who falls off a swing set. In the novel, Christine’s key conflict as the Phantom’s captive is her acknowledgment of Erik’s depth of soul and greatness as a composer even as she’s repulsed by his physical deformity.
Anyone having seen the musical adaptation by Andrew Lloyd Webber instead of the 1925 film would not be surprised at Leroux’s climax, since the musical, from what I gather, retains much of it. As we reach the end of the novel, we discover Leroux had indeed designed a similar fate for his unhappy beast. Originating as a newspaper serial, Leroux’s tale may have taken inspiration from the 19th-century novels of Victor Hugo ( The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1834), The Man Who Laughs (1869)), but its essence derives from the ancient fairy tale “Beauty and the Beast,” in which the sins of the Beast are at last redeemed by the love of Beauty. Most importantly, the film, in whatever version or state we view it in, is a testament to the enduring power of Lon Chaney.
Reading the book in tandem with a viewing of BFI’s recent release of two extant versions of its first film adaptation becomes a glimpse into how the Hollywood industry might struggle to make successful entertainment out of convoluted, pulp nonsense like Leroux’s novel.
I’m not here to recommend that anyone read the source of the film, Gaston Leroux’s 1910 novel Le Fantôme de l’Opéra, but, still, it’s an interesting experience if you can stomach it.
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