Truly Dreadful Film

Simply A Masterpiece

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

"The Phantom of Paris" stars John Gilbert, Leila Hyams, C. Aubrey Smith, Lewis Stone, and Ian Keith. There's no Phantom, but the novel was written by the author of Phantom of the Opera, Gaston Leroux, so I suppose the producers wanted audiences to make the connection.Made in 1931, the movie was somewhat of a surprise to me. I always had the idea that John Gilbert was a wimpy guy with a mustache - I had only seen him in Queen Christina - but I was wrong. Here he's handsome, elegant, and his acting is marvelous. So much has been written about his voice and how Louis Mayer changed it in "His Glorious Night" to make him sound silly - I actually never believed that. I think the corny dialogue and saying "I love you" out loud - something audiences had never heard - did him in. In truth, he had a beautiful speaking voice in a tenor range - he incorporated the mid- Atlantic speech of the day as did Bette Davis, Katharine Hepburn and others, and his diction was perfect.Here he plays a renowned magician, Cheri-Bibi, who is in love with a beautiful socialite Cecile Bourrelier (Leila Hyams). Her father (C. Aubrey Smith) does not approve and instead wants her to marry the Marquis Du Touchais (Ian Keith). Cecile wants to marry Cheri-Bibi. Du Touchais then learns that Cecile's father is making up a new will and omitting him. He kills Bourrelier, but Cheri-Bibi is arrested and sentenced to death.This is a really neat story but one has to account for dramatic license - the disguise used in this film is obvious, but entertaining nonetheless.Leila Hyams was a beautiful, vivacious actress in the early days of talkies who retired, married an agent, and stayed married to him for 50 years. Ian Keith was a wonderful stage actor who played character roles in films - he does a great job here, as do C. Aubrey Smith, Lewis Stone, Jean Hersholt, and Natalie Moorhead.John Gilbert would be dead five years later - "Phantom of Paris" is an excellent chance to see why he had such great stardom. I had a chance once to speak with his daughter, Leatrice Joy Gilbert, a lovely woman with two actor sons, John Fountain and Gideon Fountain. She was very proud of her father's work, as she should have been.

Forgettable Early Talkie with John Gilbert Giving Hs All, this Pre-Code Film has a Good Premise but is Strained and Stilted. It's one of those that Screams Stage Play, is Well Acted but Not Stylish and a bit Clunky.Everyone goes Through the Motions and in the End, Despite a Twisty, Labored Climax the Movie Borders on Boring. There are much Better Examples of Horror from the Time Period like "Mystery of the Wax Museum" (1933), "Dracula" (1931), and "Dr. X" (1933).Overall, Fans of John Gilbert can witness His Transition to Talkies and Despite a Good Speaking Voice, His Career was Mishandled by MGM and given the Short End by the Studio. While always a Pleasure to Watch (and hear), His Talking Pictures were mostly Mediocre.

This turned out to be a nifty little flick. Not too surprising, since Leatrice Fountain's book on Gilbert said it was popular with both critics and audiences, though not with big enough audiences to help Gilbert much, since attendance was way down after the Crash. Based on a novel ("Cheri-Bibi") by Gaston Leroux, the author of "The Phantom of the Opera," it concerns a celebrated escape artist who is framed for the murder of his beloved's father by the man who intends to marry her for her money. Later on, having escaped from prison, he tries to clear himself by impersonating (with the help of plastic surgery) the real killer. Gilbert is very good indeed, and the far-fetched story goes down easily. There is a certain continental formality to the goings-on, and he gets to be most debonair. It's surprisingly easy to accept that everybody else buys the impersonation, since Gilbert is quite good at mimicking the carriage and mannerisms of Ian Keith, who plays the real Marquis Du Touchais in the early scenes. Leila Hyams is a lovely girl and a competent actress, but she's one of those actresses of the period (like Ann Harding) who are always perfect ladies and don't haunt the memory much. What Hyams is able to do, however, in both this and "Way for a Sailor," is seem worth it. She's the kind of intelligent, modest, upright and attractive woman a man would go to lengths to make his wife. And she benefits a lot from the decision to use Rene Hubert as the costumer. The gowns and furs and hats in this movie are the very last word in chic, and several of them were probably talked about quite a lot by women who saw the film. One jacket Hyams wears has a narrow ermine collar and huge, turned-back ermine cuffs lined with sable and trailing sable tassels. A supporting character wears another two-toned fur later on. Players like Lewis Stone (as a principled but sympathetic detective nemesis) and C. Aubrey Smith (as the murdered man) don't disappoint either. This is literally a dark film, rarely going outdoors and almost never in sunlight. There's a great deal of evocative chiaroscuro used to further the Gothic mood. The director John S. Robertson was unfamiliar to me. He turns out to have had a much longer career in silents (he directed his last sound film in 1935), but he's perfectly competent in the talkies medium. The dialogue is by Edwin Justus Mayer, and there's just the right amount of it. Robertson has some excellent credits, including directing Pickford in "Tess of the Storm Country," Garbo in "The Single Standard" and John Barrymore in "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." Nobody ever mentions a "phantom of Paris" in the movie (though Cheri-Bibi does elude the law very effectively most of the time). The title was undoubtedly to call attention to the fact that the author of the story was Leroux.

This is a story that combines a Houdini-like hero (Gilbert), his blonde leading lady for the third pic in a row (Leila Hyams) and an able cast supporting. It's a case of two lovers separated by the evil dealings of a Marques bent on keeping his fiancee's money, never mind the fiancee. To keep himself in dough, he kills her father, frames her lover and finally dies of the flu.Everybody does well, but all are wasted - and to give a guy who looks like John Gilbert does plastic surgery half-way through the picture is a really bad idea.Mr. Gilbert is good (as always), Miss Hyams is good at what shedoes (and the two of them not only look good together, they play well as lovers); the bad guy (Ian Keith) and his blonde amour (Moorehead) are appropriately sleazy. Everybody looks great in evening clothes.Somebody give them some character development! The actors do what they can, professionals all, but there's no spark. Nobody to blame but the writers!