The Universal Monsters Movies - Ranked From Worst To Best

3. The Phantom Of The Opera

Played by: Lon Chaney (The Phantom of the Opera - 1925), Claude Rains (The Phantom of the Opera - 1943) Who is he? The very first Universal monster came to screens in the silent era, based on Gaston Leroux's then recent Edwardian page-turner about a ghostly being dwelling beneath the Paris Opera House. Unusually, the franchise did not run to sequels, but rather a direct remake with sound and colour. "Man of a Thousand Faces" Lon Chaney (whose son would go on to play most of the rest of the Universal monsters) found his signature role in Phantom's Erik and remains the finest performer of the character on stage and screen. Chaney, famous for his incredible self-applied make-up transformations, had previously played Quasimodo in Universal's Hunchback of Notre Dame, a film whose gothic trappings anticipated the full on gothic horrors of the studio's later work, so was an obvious choice for another Parisian freak. Claude Rains did a decent job in the 1940s version, but remains overshadowed by Chaney. The film retains the original's grandeur (largely through reusing the opera house sets) and, a rare colour Universal monster picture, won Oscars for its colour cinematography and art direction (the only Oscars for Universal monster films). Rains' lack of availability scuppered a mooted sequel, which instead became the film The Climax with Boris Karloff. After the classic era: Universal have not revisited the Phantom since their monster golden age. Largely this is down to the bombastic 1980's musical version from Andrew Lloyd Webber, Charles Hart and Richard Stilgoe. The show's hugely long running stint on Broadway has cemented it as the definitive version in many people's minds and Warner Brothers own the film rights, something they exploited with an uninspiring cinema version featuring shouty Gerard Butler.