Before there was Andrew Lloyd Webber's spectacular "The Phantom of the Opera," there was Lon Chaney, the "man of a thousand faces," who donned one of them to take viewers on a scary journey beneath the Paris Opera House in 1925.
Before there was Technicolor, movies were shot in black-and-white; the stark contrasts and multiple shades of gray add to the atmosphere of Chaney's machinations.
This was even before there was sound; but there were magnificent Wurlitzer Theater Pipe Organs, which brought the power of an orchestra to the spontaneously produced soundtrack.
"Today we have surround-sound, and IMAX, but there's nothing like a theater organ," says historian and film buff Hunter Hale.
And sometimes, he says, it's just good to remember where everything we have today came from.
"With silent movies, this is one of the few places where we can say, 'It all started here.' There's a magic to seeing that."
For more than 25 years Hunter and his brother Richard have been bringing Chaney's original "The Phantom of the Opera" to audiences at the Organ Loft. It is part of the Fall Silent Movie Series, which offers comedies and dramas from the silent movie era two nights a week for about six weeks. Blaine Gale plays the mighty Wurlitzer.
"Phantom" has become the standard pre-Halloween offering of the series, and is so popular it plays for three nights.
"We have people who have come for years," Hunter says. "But every year we also get people who have never been to a silent movie before, and it is so fun to see their excitement."
It's a great movie, truly a classic, he says.
"When we started out, we had no idea we'd be doing it every year, all these years later, but it is what catches the most interest."
If you think of silent movies as something old, flickery, full of cliches, "you should see them this way, the way they should be done," he says. There's also the magic of seeing places the way they were.
"Phantom" was a huge undertaking, "but Universal still had many of the sets from 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame,' which had come out a year earlier. But they built a new 'sound' stage (there wasn't sound yet) that was the biggest of its time. They got the original plans of the Paris Opera House. You really can't tell whether they had gone to Paris or not."
Another fun story involved the makeup, which was pretty simple in those days. Chaney did his own.
"They didn't allow any pictures of his deformed face beforehand," Hunter says. "The woman had never seen his face until she pulled off the mask; her reaction wasn't acting."
The movie made Chaney the No. 1 box office star of his day, which was also interesting, Hunter says says. "He was by no means the tall, handsome leading man, but the women loved him."
It's a unique film, says Richard Hale, "and it's different every time because of the music. Blaine is a phenomenal organist. He senses what the audience is into and responds to that. Some nights there's a very lively audience; some nights they are more subdued. He has a true inner sense that allows him to catch the spirit."
What is also amazing, adds Hunter, "is that five minutes into the film, the organist disappears. You get so caught up in the film. There was one guy who came to see it five times because he wanted to study what the organist did, and every time he got so into the story, that he forgot to watch the organ."
The music is a huge part of the whole experience. "We are so lucky to have this wonderful organ," Richard says.
The Wurlitzer was acquired by Lawrence Bray, who had fallen in love with the organ as a young man in San Francisco. After moving to Utah, he acquired the organ from the old Utah Theater in 1946, which he installed in his uncle's chicken coop. Over the years, he added new pieces and expanded the building. In 1956, he sold off the majority of what he had and purchased the 3 manual-19 rank Wurlitzer with two consoles from the New York Staten Island Paramount theater. He combined the two consoles to build today's Colossus five keyboard console with 378 stop tabs, which control the 2,400 pipes.
After Lawrence Bray's death, his nephew, Larry Bray, took over the operation.
"It's a constant job just for him to try and keep all the pipes in tune," Richard says.
For Gale, there is no better musical instrument than the theater organ. "It's an art form, like symphony and ballet," he says. But it needs more education, more exposure.
Utah is so fortunate, he says, to have three working theater organs — one at the Organ Loft, one at the Capitol Theatre in downtown Salt Lake City and one at the Peery Egyptian Theater in Ogden — and one more on the way at the remodeled Utah Theater in Logan.
The theater organ is not only the symbol of a past era, it is a vital, creative instrument that offers up unique interaction with the audience, Gale says. "It's a form of communication. When I hear the response of the audience, it tells me how to speak with the language of music, so it can be enjoyable, so it can be a learning experience."
Utah is indeed lucky to have the organs, and to have someone like Gale to play them, Richard says. "He thinks that anyone can do it, but it takes a special talent. Many accomplished organists are afraid to tackle it."
And while Richard realizes "we can't preserve everything, or the world would soon get smothered, it is fun that some things have been saved."
If you go:
What: Lon Chaney's "The Phantom of the Opera"
Where: Organ Loft, 3331 Edison Street (1/4 block east of State Street at 3300 South)
When: Oct. 20-22, 7:30 p.m.
How much : Adults, $6; children $5; reservations at 801-485-9265
Also: Nov. 4-5, Frank Capra's "Power of the Press"; Nov. 18-19, Charlie Chaplin, Laurel & Hardy, Buster Keaton, "The Kings of Comedy."
e-mail: carma@desnews.com