The Charles Theatre presents The Phantom of the Opera in its scariest form - the 1925 Lon Chaney vehicle - tomorrow at noon and then at midnight, with accompaniment by keyboard artist "Pope" Croke.
During production, Chaney dueled with director Rupert Julian because he feared his character would be swallowed up in the lavish sets. The way it came out, the rococo lushness beautifully offsets Chaney's grotesque physical transformation. He's the skeleton in opera's closet. His very look conveys the idea that art can be dangerous - as dangerous and as weirdly erotic as the sex in vampire movies.
According to the book Horror People, Chaney "inserted a device in his nose that spread the nostrils and lifted the tip to produce the appearance of a naked skull." He also gave himself false teeth and celluloid discs that warped his cheekbones. The result is a man so spectral that he's thoroughly believable as a perverted muse: the rotting spirit of romantic music.
Despite his appearance, he moves against his victims with agility and dispatch. In one famous sequence, the black-and-white image explodes into color when he wades into a masked ball as Poe's Red Death. Yet his failed seduction of his virginal protegee Christine rouses the most deeply lurid thrills. When he plays "Don Juan Triumphant" for her, he's an unforgettable caricature of erotic ardor.
Admission: $5. For information: 410-727-FILM or www.the charles.com.
More films preserved
The Library of Congress has announced 25 new titles for its National Film Registry, bringing the current tally to 350. The best-known selections are Alien, The Bad and the Beautiful, Disney's Beauty and the Beast, Boyz N the Hood, The Black Stallion, The Endless Summer, From Here to Eternity, In the Heat of the Night, Sabrina, Stranger than Paradise, This is Cinerama and This is Spinal Tap.
Elia Kazan's little-seen Wild River also makes the list, along with an adaptation of John Steinbeck's The Pearl that was a milestone for Hispanic audiences and Melody Ranch, starring singing cowboy star Gene Autry. Among the educational entries are George Stoney's film about midwives, All My Babies, the anthropological series Through Navajo Eyes, Saul and Elaine Bass' Why Man Creates, and From Stump to Ship, a 1930 film about Maine logging. Technically innovative films include Star Theatre (1901), which depicts the demolition of a New York theater with time-lapse effects, and the intriguingly titled Theodore Case Sound Tests: Gus Visser and His Singing Duck (1925).
The avant-garde enters this year's ranks with Robert Breer's evocation of a Japanese train ride, Fuji. Rounding out the list are Ernst Lubitsch's silent adaptation of Oscar Wilde's Lady Windermere's Fan (1925); Wild and Wooly (1917), starring Douglas Fairbanks Sr. as a New Yorker in love with his idea of the Old West; and the 1934 Three Stooges short Punch Drunks. Information: www.loc.gov/film.
'CineMaryland'
The latest episode of CineMaryland, the cable show devoted to Maryland's film industry, features a visit to the set of the coming Chris Rock film Head of State. Other highlights: a trip to the New York International Independent Film and Video Festival with two local filmmakers; a glimpse at a Maryland-made vampire film named Stakes; and, of course, yet more coverage of Edward Norton. For airtimes, go to www.howardcc.edu/hcctv.