The Phantom of the Opera

Corrected entry: In the Masquerade scene, when Madame Giry has her line, "And what a Masquerade", you can see Meg in the background mouthing the line as well.

Correction: Actually, several people in the background are singing the same line - it's just the Mme. Giry is the only one "highlighted" so to speak.

Corrected entry: When Raoul is running down the stairs to the Phantoms lair, he looks over the side and sees the stairs fading into the distance, he then falls into the water trap, but he should just fall through to the next set of stairs.

Correction: Presumably, he is tossed into some sort of chute which bypasses the stairs and takes him over to where it drops to the water.

Corrected entry: Before Christine removes the Phantom's mask after Don Juan, his hair is brown and nicely slicked back. However, a split second after she removes the mask, it magically turns to blond and disheveled.

Correction: As this has been corrected a few times before, when Christine pulls off the mask she also pulls off a wig that the phantom was wearing.

Corrected entry: In the lair scene when the Phantom shows Christine her wedding dress for the first time and she faints, when he starts to carry her to the bed, he runs her head into a large tassle that drags across her face.

Correction: This is not a mistake.

Corrected entry: During the performance of Don Juan, there is a fake fire pit in the middle of the stage. The only way for the cloth 'fire' to be blowing continuously would be if there was an electric fan below the pit. Also, when the Phantom and Christine plunge into the pit, there is no fan to be seen.

Correction: An "electric" fan is not the only way to go: there are mechanically-powered fans, for example. As for there being no fan when they fall, the bright lights inside the hole prevent us from seeing what's in it, so we don't know what is the precise arrangement there.

Sereenie

Corrected entry: During Christine's solo "Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again" in the graveyard, she is walking past gravestones with flowers clutched to her chest. In one shot, she suddenly has both arms down to her side and then begins to raise them back up to her chest.

Correction: Actually, when she has her arms clutched, you see she is just walking forward, whereas when she begins to rise them again, she's climbing the last stairs of a monument, which shows that some time is supposed to have elapsed between those two shots.

Sereenie

Corrected entry: After the wedding ring has been seen in 'Bal Masque' Raoul and Christine are walking toward the dance floor for the 'Masquerade' sequence, holding hands left hand in right. The next shot, the hands are left to left, with a mask in Christine's right hand.

Correction: They are never holding hands left hand in right; it's Raoul's hanging sleeve that gives the impression. In fact, when seen from behind, look under Christine's left arm: we can see Raoul's left hand reaching for hers, which then blends perfectly with the shot from the front, showing them holding hands left in left.

Sereenie

Corrected entry: After "Music of the Night", Christine wakes up and exits her bedroom. She reaches up with her right hand to pull back her hair. Her sleeve catches on her corset and hangs from it rather humorously until the camera angle changes. (00:44:20)

Correction: The catching sleeve itself isn't a mistake, and there is a good 10 seconds where we don't see Christine below her face: the sleeve had plenty of time to come unstuck.

Sereenie

Corrected entry: In one scene, the prop room of the Opera Populaire can be seen. Visible are a group of gobosticks (clamps on long poles which can be assembled to support film and stage equipment). While appropriately theatrical, these are recognisably modern models.

Correction: I was not able to spot any gobosticks. More details should be provided as to where and when they are visible.

Sereenie

Corrected entry: When Christine and Raoul take the floor to dance during "Masquerade" neither of them is holding any sort of mask (despite it being "Bal Masque"). However, a few shots later, Christine is seen dancing with a mask on a stick in her hand. She never uses it and it vanishes after the next couple of shots.

Correction: Her right hand is off screen the whole time until we see the mask; that's the hand she's holding it with.

Sereenie

Corrected entry: At the end of "Music of the Night", Christine faints. When the Phantom lifts her, the feet of her stockings are dirty, as can be expected from her walk. When the Phantom lays her down in bed, the stockings are clean and white again. When she wakes up, the stockings are gone altogether.

Correction: Her stockings aren't clean when he puts her to bed. It's the light that's so bright that it doesn't allow you to see the soles of her stockings, so bright and white do their top become. As for her having no stocking, there are two possible explanations: she woke up during the night and took them off, as they were uncomfortable, or the Phantom did it for her because he didn't want her to be uncomfortable in her sleep.

Sereenie

Corrected entry: During the song "Why So Silent", the Phantom sings, "Remember there are worse things than a shattered chandelier." While this works in the stage version, where the chandelier crashes during in an earlier scene, the movie doesn't have the chandelier crash until a point between "Point of No Return" and "Down Once More"

Correction: In the movie version of "Why So Silent?" the Phantom never sings the above line about the chandelier. The part of the song in the musical where he sings about the chandelier is replaced in the movie with his instructions about Carlotta, Piangi and the owners, then about Christine. He then rips the chain off of Christine's neck and jumps into the hole in the floor, never uttering a word about a chandelier.

Corrected entry: When Raoul jumps into the Mirror Room, just before the lasso drops, you can see Madam Giry standing in the mirror. She seems to be waiting for her cue.

Correction: As soon as she saw Raoul jump, she knew where he would fall, so she went there right away. She only needed to wait until the Phantom wouldn't see and she could make her move safely before rescuing Raoul.

Sereenie

Corrected entry: Christine's Swedish father's name is seen spelled Gustav. Although pronounced with a V at the end, that name was in Sweden spelled with an F, Gustaf, until some time during the 20th century, when some people have begun to spell it with a V.

Correction: Actually, his name is spelled 'Gustave' (as can be seen on his picture frame, for example), which is the French spelling for the name. Until the XXth century, it was common to adapt foreign names for each language, so a Swedish violinist in France (where the picture was taken and where he and Christine were living) would have his named spelled the French way. It's like Josef Strauss becoming Joseph Strauss, or Guillaume le Conquérant becoming William the Conqueror.

Sereenie

Corrected entry: During the opening scene at Public Auction, the auctioneer sells a few pistols belonging to a production the house put on in 1830. This is not possible due to the fact that the Opera Populaire (in which the movie takes place) had not started construction till 1862.

Correction: Again, this is not the real Paris Opera Garnier, this is the fictional Opera Populaire. It could have been built any time the director wanted.

Corrected entry: The horse that Raoul jumps on to go to the cemetery is wearing a driving bridle, but attached are normal short reins used in riding. Shouldn't there be driving reins attached for convenience to hitch up to a carriage later?

Correction: When Raoul jumps off the horse at the graveyard, you can see the reins are knotted several times to make them shorter.

Corrected entry: Even though it sometimes snowing, we never once see the breath of any of the characters when they are outside.

Correction: It's easily possible that it wasn't cold enough to see their breath. I live in a cold area, and in the spring especially we often have lots of snow, but we don't see out breath.

Corrected entry: As Christine enters through the cemetery gates, walking towards her father's tomb in the snow, the gush from the mist-making equipment is visible on the bottom, right behind a small rock.

Correction: You can not see the actual machine, only the fog coming from it - even during slow mode.

Corrected entry: The Phantom is a "genius composer," as described by Madame Giry (and shown throughout the movie with his songs), and the Opera Populaire is "world renowned," so how did Don Juan Triumphant end up being so bad that the audience was making horrible faces?

Correction: That is because the Phantom's music was ahead of its time. While most of the audience would have been more used to Hannibal and Il Muto, they would have never really heard of anything similar to Don Juan Triumphant. There was a worse reaction to Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring", which was also ahead of its time, and now it is considered a great work.

Correction: Along with the mask Christine also pulls off a black wig, which was used to cover over part of the abnormality of his face which went in to his hairline and wasn't covered by the mask. His hair was actually lighter, but covered over by the wig. It also seems to get longer after she pulls the mask off.

The Phantom of the Opera mistake picture

Deliberate mistake: As Christine approaches the Phantom in his lair (just after he has abducted her), we see that she is wearing very dark black eye-shadow. Back in the dressing room after coming off stage, as she talks to Raoul, we saw her face in close up and she was not wearing any eye-shadow at all, even though the Phantom leads her through the mirror just after she has managed to slip on a robe over her undergarments and she has not yet changed to go out to supper (Raoul says she is to be ready in 2 minutes). Her hair becomes 'bigger' and wilder, too. The change in her appearance is a reference to her descending (voluntarily, I might add - he didn't drag her through that mirror) into the Phantom's dark existence and to her sexual awakening. (00:28:45 - 00:37:10)

More mistakes in The Phantom of the Opera

Christine Daae: Angel of Music, you've deceived me. I gave you my mind blindly.

More quotes from The Phantom of the Opera

Trivia: The candles that light instantly as they emerge from the water in the Phantom's Lair were not computer effects - special air-sensitive candles were used. Luckily, the scene was captured well in the first take, as when they tried to re-shoot the scene the candles wouldn't work again.

More trivia for The Phantom of the Opera

Question: What does the Phantom eat and what does he spend his salary on? Presumably he can't just go to the shops etc with his mask on. If he doesn't leave the opera house where does he learn his skills like driving a carriage, who does he practice sword fighting with? Wouldn't his health suffer if he spends decades living in this damp cold rat infested place wading through lakes all the time? He even complains about it being cold himself at one point. Surely if it snowing outside his lair can't be warm but he's not wearing much.

Answer: First, it is established in the movie that he is dependant on Madame Giry and it is presumed she does his shopping for him. As for learning skills, it is established he is a genius and one can assume he is very well read. Additionally, for single handed skills, like driving a carriage, he can possibly go out at night to learn them. As for his living conditions, the human body adapts well to continuous conditions, it is how the people in Siberia can tolerate lower temperatures better than those who live close to the equator. Lastly, one can easily assume he has other (warmer) clothes that he wears off camera.

OneHappyHusky

There is a character simply known as 'the Persian' He has known the Phantom his whole life and would have taught him horse driving. In the book, the Phantom has a life before the opera house where he would have learned fencing and torture. Also, the phantom knows all the secret passages. When it's cold he leaves his lair and lives someplace warmer.

You're totally right but also, in addition to your mention of The Persian, in the book it is he that is the Phantom's only "friend" or whatever but in the movie there is no Persian exactly but the two Characters Madam Giry and The Persian from The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston L. Are both combined as one, to be know as Madame Giry in the 2004 flim.

debbi.ee

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