The absence of the movie in the collection dates back to the 1950s, when the studio failed to renew the copyright on Phantom of the Opera.
#Phantom of the opera movie set license#
Universal will license a Phantom action figure, but fans are out of luck when it comes time to get a Universal Studios approved Blu-ray. A recent boxed set of Universal Monster classics skipped the Chaney version of Phantom and instead included a brilliantly restored but ultimately disappointing 1943 version of the story starring Claude Rains.
However, the movie itself has suffered a sort of abandonment from Universal. Universal Studios continues to include the Chaney depiction of the character and the film as part of their popular Universal Monsters brand, which includes everything from Phantom to This Island Earth. The film stamped itself onto the zeitgeist thanks not just to the film’s perennial Halloween showings, but because it brought audiences something both novel and universal in its shadowy tale of outsiders and the chilling wonder of the unknown. Lon Chaney, in both his make-up and performance as Erik, remains such a recognizable concept that The Phantom of the Opera has endured in the popular imagination while the film’s contemporaries have faded, surviving mostly in the domain of serious film buffs and historians. This fall, Kino Lorber delivers a terrific two-disc Blu-ray set which fans of the film will enjoy as they dig in to the treasure trove of special features, and those newly arrived to the film can enjoy for the magnificent presentation and contextualizing available in the special features. The film stands as a hallmark of both horror film and silent cinema, and as a survivor of the many mishaps and hardships that befell many other films of the era. 2015 marks the 90th anniversary of the release of seminal American horror/thriller, The Phantom of the Opera starring Lon Chaney.