"THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA."

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 75, 30 March 1926, Page 12

"THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA."

A WONDER-FILM

When Rupert- Julian, who directed "The Phantom ;of the Opera," the romantic mystery picture to be showir at Everybody's, the Princess and the Tivoli Theatres on Thursday, and at the Rialto on Friday, ordered the ''shooting" to begin on the great opera scene, it was one of the most important events in the history. of the motion picture world, according to Carl Laemmle, president of Universal Pictures. The picture contains some- of the most expensive sets ever used, and is magnificently staged from beginning to end. Thousands of people took part in the production, which has been hailed with delight by critics evrywhere. Lon Chancy. that king of character actors, plays the part of the terrifying phantom, while he is 'supported by Mary Phil'bin and Norman Kerry.

As the story by Gaston Leroux goes., for many years the magnificently trained mind of this weird creature of the 1 tomb who is called the Opera Ghost, has been devoted to contriving secret means of extortion through the medium of

fear. "He rules ■ the destinies of the great Paris Opera by the . strangest methods ever known to man, and whejn his will is crossed brings down the unseen but awful power of his evil hand with a crushing revenge that chills tlie blood and rends the hardest heart. From dome to pit of the immense theatre walks the weird harbinger of terror, death, and-worse: than death. A perfect place it is for the devil's cunriing •artistry, for. it is. a matter of History that the deep cellars and subcellare of the Paris Opera House, which is reputed to he the most magnificent theatre in the world, and which was reproduced at Universal City in its grand entirety and delicacy of detail, was the stronghold of the Second Commune of France, and ita. dark retreats were saturated with red tragedy, before it became the ( haunt'of the Phantom. It is one of the strangest, as well as one of the largest and most beautiful buildings in the world. It was begun in the time of Louis* Napoleon, and the site selected was discovered to' be a swamp after excavations had got well along. It was therefore necessary to drain the land, and to accomplish this a whole series of cellars, five tiers in depth, had to be j built. The water was drained to the .lowest, of these, making it a vast subterranean lake.