MovieChat Forums > The Phantom of the Opera (1989) Discussion > Sets

Sets

posted 20 years ago by marshallfoltz
2 replies | jump to latest

I thought this movie was a pretty well made version of "The Phantom of the Opera". But did anyone else think that the sets and the Opera House was pretty boing looking? The theatre they used in the movie looks like the one in the 1983 version, which was in Budapest. On this site it says they filmed it in Budapest, but why did they not use the Hungarian State Opera House (The one used in Argento's 'Phantom')? It is a lot prettier than the one they did use. Does anyone else think that they should pick a place for the setting, instead of present NYC and past London? I think they should have had present and past London, or maybe even Budapest. I'm not trying to diss this movie, but that is really the only thing I didn't like about this movie.

"Does anyone giggle when I say Biggus Dickus?!"
-Monty Python's "Life of Brian"

[–] eljomat 20 years ago

I thought the Argento version was filmed in the Bucharest opera house(not a typo!) The 1983 version was filmed at the Kecskemet theater in Hungary(Budapest opera house not avaible at time), I'm sure they used the same theater because they do look exactly alike. they probably did not have a budget for the Budabest house, so they took the secind alternative, perhaps the theather at Kecskemet. What the movie really needed was a (falling) chandelier!!!

[–] eddy-28 20 years ago

I agree, this film really needed the falling chandelier scene and instead it was replaced with the murder of the Opera Critic, which I thought was great though. I have the original press book material for this film, and unfortunatly it was never said why Menahem Golan and director Dwight Little didn't include that scene in the film. My guess was because of budget problems, however it was nice to see that this was the first film since the 1925 version to include the original Masked Ball sequence, but the chandelier scene was always a favorite in all the screen versions.