Powerful

Just what I expected

Highly Overrated But Still Good

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties. It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

"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.

"The Phantom Of Paris" is a misnomer as there is no phantom in the picture. The website calls it a drama/mystery, but it basically falls under the heading of a romance story. John Gilbert is the 'title' character, an illusionist deemed unworthy of the daughter of aristocrat C. Aubrey Smith - the villain of the piece, Ian Keith, has that honor. Due to a misunderstanding, Smith is killed and the blame goes to Gilbert instead of Keith. Unfortunately, the atmosphere of tension stops at this point.From here on Gilbert is a fugitive and the picture becomes his alone. He is quite good and almost convincing when impersonating Keith, although a leap of faith is required on the viewers part. There is no evidence of a laughable pitch to his voice, but now we have recently learned that the alleged falsetto was perpetrated by L.B. Mayer himself in retaliation for an argument between the two.Despite the concocted ending it holds your interest right to the end, and is well-done in all respects. Leila Hyams was good as his love interest and Ian Keith was, well, villainous. It was on TCM the other morning, and you'll have to wait for it again as it is unavailable in any format.

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 perhaps John Gilbert's first solid starring role in a talkie. Of course the irony is that by 1931 and after a half dozen bombs (not including Hollywood REVUE OF 1929), it was too late. Gilbert had lost his audience. So although this film and DOWNSTAIRS and QUEEN Christina presented the great silent idol in solid sound films, it was just too late to revive his career.THE PHANTOM OF Paris was based on a famous novel by Gaston Leroux and offered Gilbert a role that was part leading man and part character study. He is very good as a famed magician who is framed for murder and suffers for years in prison and captivity before getting his delicious revenge and assuming the murderer's role via plastic surgery.This is not a great film. Despite a good cast it still has the B film look and feel (thanks to LB Mayer no doubt). but Gilbert is very good and has a few scenes in which is is just stunning. He was a great actor and should have had a great career in talkies.Leila Hyams is fine as the love interest. Lewis Stone is solid as the investigator. Jean Hersholt is good as Gilbert's friend. Ian Keith is the cad Gilbert replaces. Natalie Moorhead is very good as the scheming woman. C. Aubrey Smith is the father.But this is John Gilbert's film from the opening scene. He remains a favorite of mine and I will continue to seek out his films. John Gilbert is a lost treasure who deserves to be re-discovered.