Michael's Movie Grade:A+
Review: Incredible film, still scary and exciting today.
This film is amazing, down to every little detail. The acting is great (Lon Chaney is especially amazing), the cinematography (by Milton Bridenbicker, Virgil Miller and Charles Van Enger) is excellent, the pacing is fantastic, and the whole film just has an incredible atmosphere.
Unlike too many films today, this film takes it's time at the beginning. The fact that it lets itself build atmosphere at first, makes the later scenes all the more exciting. While the whole film is great two sequences stand out. The unmasking scene is still scary today, and this is because of a brilliant set up and Lon Chaney's performance. The other is scene is the lone scene in color in this movie. While some other films of this era used color for a brief scene such as Buster Keaton's Seven Chances and Cecil B. Demille's King of Kings, none of the other films used color as effectively as here. In fact out of all the films I can think of, other than the Disney films of the 1930's and 40's, I can't think of many other films from other eras that use color this good. Though this is just a brief scene and the rest of the movie is in black and white, this scene leaves an incredible impact.
I am fortunate enough to have just seen this film in a theater, with excellent live musical accompaniment (a very talented organist named Bill Field). While I have seen this movie on DVD and on Turner Classic Movies before, this was a whole new experience. Feeling the vibrations of the organ, sharing this with people who I never meet before but felt like I was one with, and the joy of hearing live music period, made this great film, even better. If anyone reading this gets the chance to see the movie in a similar way, take it. It was not just watching a movie, it was an incredible experience.
-Michael J. Ruhland
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