Movies

 

Rigoletto
(placed on February 8 1999)
Jenae Reese wrote me:
The movie "Rigoletto" (not based on the opera) is about a deformed music teacher who teaches a young girl to sing. Through her, he starts to care about other people and donates money anonymously to poor people in the town. One night, while she is away, the townspeople all get
together and decide to find out about the mysterious man who lives in the mansion. There is a scene where they kill him while the girl is singing at this contest. Then they find out that he's been helping them all along. But the Phantom character has redeemed himself and comes back, unscarred to say goodbye.

 

 

Darkman
(placed on 8 february 1999)
Jennifer from owl and mouse software wrote:
I found yet another show. It's something called 'Darkman'  I did not see it but I saw the add.  Some
guy whose face is so disfigured he hides it with a lot of bandages, now he's
and outlaw looking for revenge...sounds like the phantom
 

Batman Returns

Christi V. wrote:
OK, this is a quckie and it might not be a Phantom reference, but I love it anyway:  Near the end of the movie Batman Returns there is a scene at a masquerade ball.  Midway through the scene, the camera rests on a huge staircase before focusing on Michael Keaton.   On the staircase there is an extra dressed up as the Red Death, complete with broad-brimmed hat and skull mask.  The Phantom/Poe-esque actor reappears in closeup briefly before Michelle Pfieffer's entrance.  (I've heard the rumor that director Tim Burton is the man behind the mask in this case...)

 

Japanese Manga's
On the POTO Mailinglist Sanae wrote:
author, Narumi Kakinouchi, had also made a manga (Japanese comic) called Le Masque, a two volumed manga based on POTO...has anyone else ever heard of/read this? I've got it. A heroine is a girl who dreams of becoming a prima ballerina, at an art school with a long and glorious history.
She is a POTO phan(grin...) and wishes her own Phantom to appear and inspire her. She has TWO childfood boyfriends and needless to say, both of them love her. On her behalf, they take the legendary and cursed masks, and become TWO PHANTOMS!!!(Don't ask me why...)  Now, these two Phantoms do combat. And.....Actually, I wasn't so impressed with this manga, but pretty drawing, anyway.

BTW, there is another Japanese POTO manga, titled "Operaza no Kaijin"(It means POTO).
The Author's name is "JET". The story of this manga is a mixture of Gaston Leroux's original
and ALW version.

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Das unheimliche schloss
Brigitte Pikal reports in the German language Chandelier about a movie called Das unheimliche schloss, a music film from 1993 about Verdis Opera "Rigoletto" made into a family film.The discription in the movieguide said:
Castle owner Ribaldi, who is fysically disformed, is a gifted singer and voice teacher. He makes Friends but becomes the victim of intrigues.

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Gremlins 2
Wenn you look carefully at Gremlins 2 in you see a short spoof of POTO. One of the Gremlins trows acid in another Gremlins face and he is horribily disfigured. Later we see this Gremlin is masked and plays the organ, a female Gremlin (ore one dressed up as one) sneeks up at him and snatches his mask.

On the POTO Mailinglist Claire wrote:
I was watching a movie I hadn't seen for years, Gremlins 2, when lo and behold, I saw an Erik Gremlin!  They threw a bottle marked "Acid:  Do not throw in Face" into some unsuspecting Gremlin's face, who promptly doubled over, grabbed a mask, and became the Phantom Gremlin.  Later, they showed this selfsame Gremlin in Phantom garb at an organ playing the infamous tune, while a ladyish Gremlin in medieval dress snuck up behind him and snatched the mask.  Erik Gremlin whirled, raising one finger, and advanced on the other with a sinister expression.  We never
get to see them again.....it's just proof that Erik surfaces in the weirdest of places.....

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The Big Heat
ALW foreshadowed in film-noir?: In the old film-noir classic The Big Heat there is also a very, very small Phantomy aspect. In the movie, Debby Marsh (played by Ado Annie herself: Gloria Grahame) is scalded when her gangster-boyfriend throws coffee in her face. The next time we see her, she has a white bandage covering the entire left half of her face! It looks very much like the mask used in the musical, but with no eyehole and she also has it wrapped around her neck.

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Killer Tomatoes
In the movie "The killer tomatoes eat France" there was a very short fragment in which a Phantom based creature appeared. It was a creature with a giant tomato head that breathed fire. It wore a cape and zorro mask. You do not recognise it as being POTO related until the actors said something like: "whats that thing , its wearing a cape and mask? . Oh no! It's the Phantomat of the Opera!" The "phantomat" was terminated by a wooden chandelier with candles that was dropped on its head and sliced it into four equal tomato parts. Its all very offensive. 

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