The Phantom Stage - Universal's Haunted Stage 28

The old story of a phantom haunting a Hollywood sound stage was brought to television in a number of episodes of various series throughout the 1970s-1980s ( most notably in the two-part "The Hollywood Phantom" episode from The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries ) but did you know that this plot idea was actually based on a real legend? 

Stage 28 was one of the oldest sound stages built on the Universal Pictures lot in Hollywood. The studio was planning to film the horror classic The Phantom of the Opera ( featuring Lon Chaney ) and needed a stage large enough to house their own creation of the interior of the Paris Opera House. Construction on the 21,000 square foot stage began in July of 1924 and was completed in a few months. Because the set would need to be able to support hundreds of extras, the stage was built with steel girders in concrete...one of the first steel stages of its kind. The beautiful Opera House set was built inside and filming of The Phantom of the Opera began shortly thereafter. A strange occurrence also happened at that time: an electrician fell to his death, presumably while maneuvering around the catwalks at the top of the stage. 

Years later, rumors began to circulate that the ghost of a "phantom" running along the catwalks was seen. Others reported the lights flickering on and off suddenly and doors opening and shutting. 

The set to the Opera House remained at Stage 28 long after the film was completed. The studio thought that it may come in use in a future production...and indeed it did. Its most famous reappearances were in Todd Browning's Dracula ( as The Royal Albert Hall ), the 1943 color remake of The Phantom of the Opera starring Claude Rains, and the theatre sequences in Charade ( 1963 ). 

Even with the Opera House set still in place, there was plenty of space in Stage 28 to construct other sets and this stage was one of the most used at Universal Studios. The special effects department from The Bride of Frankenstein ( 1935 ) used this stage to film the destruction of Frankenstein's laboratory, Abbott and Costello's Here Come the Co-Eds ( 1945 ) was filmed within its doors, and the interiors of the Bates Motel in Psycho ( 1960 ) was also filmed inside Stage 28. 

In 2014, Universal Studios demolished the stage to make room for expanding their theme park but not before carefully dismantling The Phantom's famous Opera House set and putting it in storage. Perhaps one day, it will reappear in another film or be put on display for film fans to see. 

Nugget Reviews - 23

Johannisnacht ( 1956 )  14k 

An opera singer divorces her husband shortly after an extended performing tour in America. Years later, she returns to Germany to see her daughter whom her husband hid away in a chalet in the valley. Willy Birgel, Hertha Feiler, Erik Schumann, Sonja Sutter, Wolfgang Grunner. MGM Pictures. Directed by Harald Reinl.

A sweet romance from Delos-Film studios. Austrian-born Hertha Feiler, who often starred in comedies with her husband Heinz Ruhmann, is given a decent dramatic part here and the location filming of this "Heimatfilm" is beautiful. There is also a nice sub-romance going on between Erik Schumann and Sonja Sutter. 

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A Royal Scandal ( 1945 ) Elect.

A young idealistic lieutenant warns Catherine the Great of treachery within her court. She finds his loyalty and good looks very appealing and makes him her boy-toy, much to the chagrin of his true love, Queen Catherine's lady-in-waiting, Anna. Tallulah Bankhead, Charles Coburn, Anne Baxter, William Eythe, Vincent Price, Mischa Auer. 20th Century Fox Pictures. Directed by Otto Preminger and Ernst Lubitsch.

Ernst Lubitsch was a master at creating frothy comedies. He reached his prime in the early 1930s with such classics as Monte Carlo, The Smiling Lieutenant, One Hour with You and Ninotchka, but even he couldn't save this film from Preminger's heavy-handed direction. While there were a few amusing sequences in A Royal Scandal, overall the comedy seemed force. Tallulah Bankhead gave a grand performance as Catherine the Great, with some excellent support from character actors Charles Coburn and Sig Ruman, in spite of the circumstances.

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King Richard and the Crusaders ( 1954 ) 14k.

While encamped in the Holy Land, two noblemen plot to murder Richard the Lionheart and make his death appear to be from a Saracen attack, but his loyal knight Sir Kenneth discovers the plan. Rex Harrison, Laurence Harvey, George Sanders, Virginia Mayo, Robert Douglas. Warner Brothers. Directed by David Butler. 

Rex Harrison and Laurence Harvey give engrossing performances in this otherwise run-of-the-mill Crusades adventure, based upon Sir Walter Scott's novel "The Talisman". George Sanders makes an unconvincing King Richard, and Virginia Mayo's presence serves merely as eye-candy, but the Technicolor is beautiful and it's fun watching Rex Harrison tackle an Arab role.

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Scaramouche ( 1923 ) Elect.

A quiet French lawyer becomes a revolutionary after a nobleman kills his friend in a duel. Ramon Navarro, Alice Terry, Lewis Stone, Julia Swayne Gordon. Metro Pictures. Directed by Rex Ingram.

Production standards were high in this Rex Ingram silent classic, but the film fails to capture the excitement of Rafael Sabatini's novel and lingers on a bit too long. The zest that Stewart Granger brought to the part of Andre Moreau in the 1952 remake was non-existent in Novarro's portrayal. Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford would have been ideal casting choices instead. However, the French Revolution sequences at the climax were truly hair-raising.

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The Toy Wife ( 1938 ) 14k

A flirtatious and frivolous Southern belle marries her sister's serious-minded fiancee. He later comes to regret not having found himself a more sensible wife. Luise Rainer, Melvyn Douglas, Barbara O'Neil, Robert Young, Alma Kruger. MGM Pictures. Directed by Richard Thorpe.

Luise Rainer was fresh from her Oscar-winning performance in The Good Earth when she starred in The Toy Wife, MGM's consolation project after losing the book rights to Margaret Mitchell's "Gone with the Wind". This southern belle story put the spotlight on Rainer, allowing her - as "Frou-Frou" - to swoosh her hoop skirts around New Orleans and playfully toy with the heart-strings of not one, but two, gentlemen. It makes for engrossing soap. Barbara O'Neil earned the role of Ellen ( Scarlett's mother ) in Gone with the Wind, thanks to her performance in this film as Frou-Frou's sister. 

Hollywood Home Tour - Norma Talmadge

"Everybody pile into the bus now! If we take any more lunch breaks like we have, we will still be on this bus in twenty years time. Once again, we'll be taking a slight detour to see an exceptionally beautiful home....the estate of that star of the silent era, Norma Talmadge. Fasten your seat belts and off we go!

649 West Adams Boulevard, Los Angeles

"On your right you will see the beautiful Spanish stucco St. Vincent de Paul church built in 1925. Just a few steps away is Norma's charming Tudor-style mansion, which is probably one of the most famous movie star homes in Los Angeles, not because Norma lived there, but because it passed hands between so many silent film stars of the 1920s. Originally it was built by Randolph Huntington Miner, a developer, and his wife, socialite Julita Miner, in 1904. Sumner Hunt was the architect who designed it. They lived here for about fifteen years and then sold it to that seductive vamp Theda Bara. Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle bought it in 1921 but moved on after that scandal with the young starlet left his career in ruins. He sold the house to director Raoul Walsh and his wife, Miriam Cooper. Alla Nazimova also resided here for a spell."

"How long did Norma Talmadge live here then?"

"Not long at all. One whole winter season to be precise. Miss Talmadge and her husband, producer Joseph M. Schenck, purchased this house in October 1924 and were gone by February 1925. They went on to own many estates, but this one has long been associated with the Schenk's because it was featured on the front of a postcard bearing their name and was the first home they owned. 

"Inside is as beautiful as the exterior. There is a well-stocked library with a reading alcove which Norma enjoyed, and a drawing room featuring heavy beamed ceilings, ruby red velvet furniture and an antique writing desk where Norma would stack her piles of fan mail to respond to. The dining room features carved teak-wood furniture imported from China with embroidered curtains and bronze ornaments from the Orient as well. There is also a sun parlor among its fifteen rooms." 

Up-to-Date Note: To see the Talmadge estate today ( now called the Randolph Huntington Miner house ), simply click here for a street-view. It is still looking great!

Colleen Moore's Fairy Tale Dollhouse

Effervescent silent screen actress Colleen Moore, star of Flaming Youth ( 1923 ) and The Perfect Flapper ( 1924 ), had a lifelong love for dollhouses and miniatures which led her to create the "Fairy Castle". 

Based on a design by her father and painstakingly built by more than one hundred talented craftsmen over a course of seven years, this awe-inspiring work of art features eight grand rooms, a courtyard garden, and over 1,500 miniature objects collected from around the world! 

Standing at nearly seven feet tall and weighing in at one ton, this aluminum abode cost nearly $500,000 to construct and has some 200 interlocking pieces so as to allow easy assembly. Within its walls, you'll find a small painting by Walt Disney of Mickey & Minnie Mouse on the walls of the immense Gothic hall; an intricately decorated 6" long piano in the music room; a library showcasing sixty-five tiny books signed by some of the 20th century's most esteemed dignitaries and scientists; a chapel with working pipe organ (!); the Prince and Princess's bedrooms; a charming kitchen; and King Arthur's Dining Hall complete with its own Round Table! 

When the castle was completed in 1935, Miss Moore deemed it a 'gift to the children of the world' and took it on a national tour to benefit children with disabilities. The highly-popular tour brought a smile to thousands of American children, raising over half a million dollars for charity and it became the beginning of Miss Moore's philanthropic efforts which she selflessly pursued until her death in 1988. 

This mini edifice extraordinaire continues to delight visitors at its home in the Museum of Science & Industry in Chicago, Illinois. You can read more about the "Fairy Castle" and see close-up photos of it in "Colleen Moore's Dollhouse" ( 1979 ) by Colleen Moore, Stephanie Finnegan's "The Dollhouse Book" ( 1999 ) and at www.msichicago.org. 

This post is a part of our latest series entitled "Did You Know?".....sometimes we just feel like sharing interesting fragments of television and movie history and now we have a place to do just that. If you have a hot tip that you would like us to share on Silver Scenes, drop us a line!

The MGM Auction - July 17th

This Sunday, beginning at 8pm EST, Silverbanks Pictures will be auctioning over 290 original stills/publicity photos from the golden age of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios and we thought we would share a preview selection here on Silver Scenes. MGM was the greatest film studio back in the 1920s-1950s and these photos cover a wide range from the history of this great studio.

Before you gander at them, here are some basic terms you may want to know about movie photo collecting : a "still" refers to an image from a scene in a movie that was printed on glossy photographic paper and later pined or framed for display inside a movie theater's lobby. Audiences were able to see these scenes before they watched the film and it gave them a fairly good idea of what they were in for ( although in some rare cases the scenes displayed were later cut from the final release and you never saw them at all! ). "Publicity" photos are the general term for photos that were issued to wire services for use in newspapers, or publishing companies for use in movie fan magazines. And finally "fan" photos cover all of the photos issued to fan clubs and to individuals when they took the time to write to the studio to gush about their favorite star. 

All photos have a starting bid of $9.95. They are a great - and inexpensive - way to get started in collecting movie memorabilia. 

To see a closer view of any of these photos click on the image itself. To view the photo's current price at auction simply click on the title of the film. Enjoy! 

Greta Garbo and Lewis Stone, two of MGM's biggest stars, in A Woman of Affairs ( 1928 ). Lewis Stone later became a character actor and today is best known for his portrayal of Judge Hardy in the Andy Hardy film series of the 1940s.

Here is an extremely rare photo...on the backside in pencil is written Olympia which was the German language version of the John Gilbert silent film His Glorious Night ( 1929 ). This is obviously filmed at MGM however and that looks like Gilbert caressing Hedda Hopper so we're not sure why that someone wrote down Olympia.....

Min and Bill ( 1930 ) 

Wallace Beery and Marie Dressler teamed up for the first time in this film and they were a smash hit with audiences. They were paired again many times afterwards.

Trader Horn ( 1930 ) 

Duncan Renaldo dons the traditional wardrobe of an African adventurer on his trek into the deepest jungle. Trader Horn had a huge publicity campaign behind it. Photographers were sent to Africa to capture wild animals in action on film and they brought back miles of stock footage. MGM reused this footage for years afterward in the Tarzan film series. 

Nils Asther on the set of Storm at Daybreak ( 1933 ). Note the wind machines in the background.

Fredric March and Norma Shearer teamed up to play Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett in The Barretts of Wimple Street ( 1934 ). Shearer's husband, producer Irving J. Thalberg, loved adapting famous novels into films. He wanted to use films to introduce audiences to the joy to be had in reading literature. 

This is a great shot of the camera crew in action filming Lionel Barrymore in This Side of Heaven ( 1934 ). Barrymore directed a number of films during the 1930s, so he was familiar with both aspects of the filmmaking process.

Marie Antoinette ( 1938 ) - this was a fantastic film and one of MGM's most lavish productions of the 1930s. 

Gone with the Wind ( 1939 ), certainly the biggest epic in Darrel F. Zanuck's career. It was released through MGM who loved the publicity it was earning for the studio's biggest star, Clark Gable. This is a 1947 re-release still. "Ashley, oh Ashley....."

Jeannette MacDonald was one of the biggest actresses of the 1930s, and to this day remains one of the most beloved of musical stars. This is a gorgeous double-weight photo from Broadway Serenade ( 1939 ).

Lew Ayres and Lana Turner in These Glamour Girls ( 1939 ). Lew Ayres refused to fight during WW2 and because of that Louis B. Mayer, a real patriot, kicked him out of the studio. He was one of MGM's biggest stars at the time too.....

MGM groomed actor John Carroll to be another Clark Gable. He had Gable's signature devil-may-care attitude and was a very good actor, but he never made it to super-stardom. 

Andy Hardy Meets Debutante ( 1940 ) - this particular still has been hand color tinted. It sure would have been nice to see just one Andy Hardy film made in color, but they were classified as "B" films so that never happened, in spite of their popularity.

MGM had some of the best series films of any studio. In addition to Andy Hardy, they had the Tarzan series, Maisie, the Thin Man, and....Dr. Kildare. This war-horse continued on for nine films. After Lew Ayres got fired, MGM continued the series as Dr. Gillespie ( sans Kildare of course ). Later, he was resurrected for television series starring Richard Chamberlain. Here, the lovely Laraine Day ( Nurse Mary Lamont ) is pictured making a speech. 

Newly arrived starlets were never just thrust into the latest picture, they went through a educational program where they were taught how to walk properly, sing, dance, and e-nun-ci-ate their words correctly. Proper speech was a must in Hollywood. Esther Williams is going through the process in this photo ( 1942 ).

The famous Hollywood photographer Clarence S. Bull set up this great publicity photo for The Hidden Eye ( 1945 ), a sequel to Eyes in the Night, also starring Edward Arnold. 

June Allyson and Kathryn Grayson were both fairly new at MGM when this shot was taken in 1946 to promote Two Sisters from Boston, but Jimmy Durante was an old hand by then. Next to him is that marvelous opera singer Laurence Melchoir, who made a handful of musicals at the studio during the mid 1940s. 

Weekend at the Waldof ( 1945 ) was a remake of MGM's earlier success Grand Hotel ( 1932 ). While it was a good effort, it lacked the punch of the original....as most remakes often do. The all-star cast included Walter Pidgeon, Van Johnson, Ginger Rogers and Lana Turner.

A happy threesome?? Van Johnson was a constant visitor to his friend Keenan Wynn's house. Wynn's wife Evie, later divorced Keenan to marry Van Johnson, although in recent years she claimed she blackmailed into doing so by the studio to quench rumors of Van's homosexuality.

Leon Ames had a long and varied career at MGM, often playing fathers or businessmen. Here he is pictured with his wife and children.

Jump Ricardo, jump! Ricardo Montalban takes some time out to exercise in this happy picture, photographed in 1947.

It's rough being the wife of a presidential hopeful. Katharine Hepburn recieves a little comfort from newspaper man Van Johnson in State of the Union ( 1948 ), an excellent drama. 

A young Janet Leigh is having a heart to heart talk with Mickey Rooney in this scene from Words and Music ( 1948 ).

Ricardo Montalban and Esther Williams in a publicity photo for Neptune's Daughter ( 1949 ). This film was their third and last pairing.

Gene Kelly is teaching the youngsters a thing or two in Take Me Out to the Ballgame ( 1949 ). 

Cary Grant was not only one of the most charismatic actors to ever grace the silver screen, but he also had a great eye for photography. Taking snapshots in between takes was just one of his hobbies and in this photo he captured Signe Hasso taking Spanish lessons from Salvadore Baguez in 1950.

Howard Keel and Ava Gardner made such a handsome couple in Show Boat ( 1951 ).

Tony Martin and Cyd Charisse are happily looking over the plans to their new home....and what a home! Judging from those plans, it looks enormous. 1955.

Robert Taylor has the glint of greed and power in his eyes in this publicity shot for The Power and the Prize ( 1956 ).

Kay Kendall is modelling an Orry-Kelly fashion that she wore in Les Girls ( 1957 ), a fun musical directed by and starring Gene Kelly.

Gigi ( 1958 ) was MGM's last really big musical and it signaled an end to a great era in film history. While the studio still continued to make musicals up until the late 1960s, none of them had the charm of their 1950s musicals. Gigi was a great sendoff film. Here, Leslie Caron and Louis Jourdan get ready to film the Trouville beach scene.

Mario Lanza and Johanna von Koczian in For the First Time ( 1959 ). This was Lanza's final film at MGM. His weight problems and drinking were causing too many interruptions to filming and so MGM gave him the sack.

Ben-Hur ( 1959 ). MGM had established their reputation as one of the top film studios with the 1926 silent epic Ben-Hur, and in 1959 they remade it in splendor. This year another remake has been made, though nothing will top the Charlton Heston version ( who is pictured here with Haya Harareet ).

To check out The MGM Auction click here! 

Beau Geste ( 1926 )

In 1926 Percival Christopher Wren's best-selling novel "Beau Geste" was brought to the screen in a thrilling silent adaptation by John Russell and Herbert Brenon. It was a film that inspired director William Wellman and launched numerous remakes ( including Wellman's own 1939 version of Beau Geste ).  

Ronald Colman, Neil Hamilton and Ralph Forbes star in the lead roles of three English brothers who join the Foreign Legion after one of them is accused of stealing a family jewel known as "The Blue Water". They find that becoming real soldiers is a far cry from the game of soldiers they played in their youth, especially with a bestial sergeant ( Noah Berry ) and a greasy rat ( William Powell ) in their company. 

Beau Geste could be called a war film, but it would be better to classify it as a mystery, for director Herbert Brenon established a riddle of events within the first fifteen minutes that draws audiences into discovering what the remaining story has to tell. Unlike most mysteries, it unravels its narrative working backwards to a solution.

Beau Geste begins with a troop of Foreign Legion soldiers marching towards a fort announcing their coming and receiving no response from the trumpeteer within. When the leader of the troop, Major de Beaujolais, investigates closer he finds that all of the soldiers standing guard around the fort are corpses, leaning with their guns pointed outwards in readiness for an attack. He asks for a volunteer to climb the walls and open the gates from within, but this man too disappears and so the Major scales the walls himself and finds the dead body of the commander clasping a letter in his hand...a letter addressed to Scotland Yard, confessing a crime that he had committed. The major returns to his soldiers outside of the gate but within a few minutes turns to find that the fort is going up in flames. A bonfire of corpses standing alone in the desert. What could it all mean? 

Paramount united with its rival, Famous Players, to bring Beau Geste to the screen, releasing it in the autumn of 1926. Critics at the time thought the film would have only a mediocre run, underestimating audiences ability to endure an "epic length" film ( 120 minutes ). Little did they realize that within twenty years this would become a standard running time. Beau Geste quickly became Paramount's biggest hit of the year and one of the greatest box-office successes of the entire decade. 

Some of the era's most popular stars worked together to make the film such a roaring success....Ronald Colman, who was being groomed as a rival to Rudolph Valentino, the legendary actor Neil Hamilton, William Powell, Ralph Forbes, Victor McLagen, Alice Joyce ( as the boys mother ), and Mary Brian as their love interest. 

Norman Trevor receives the choicest role as Major de Beaujolais, the man who first discovers the mysterious Citadel of the Dead with its legions of dead soldiers standing guard. As Sergeant LeJaune, Noah Berry demonstrates a glorious slice of ham in a performance which would have earned him an Academy Award had the awards been established at that time. 

Beau Geste is silent cinema at its best, combining elements of adventure, mystery and romance in one tight production and we highly recommend it as an introductory film for those who have not yet had a taste of silent cinema. 

This post is our contribution to The Silent Cinema Blogathon being hosted by In the Good Old Days of Classic Hollywood and running from Oct. 27 - Oct. 29, 2015. Be sure to check out all the great articles on your silent film favorites.