Together they became known as “The Gruesome Twosome” because their films were almost always about deformed or crippled men who were “monsters” of one kind or another. No one understood what Lon Chaney was doing with his monsters better than the man who would become his close friend and the director of ten of his films, Tod Browning.
Phantom of the Opera even briefly re-used the amazing wooden reproduction set of Notre Dame Cathedral from the earlier film. The film also had the gorgeous costumes, impressive sets and thousands of actors of the previous film. Phantom also came from a famous novel with a monster as the main characte, and it starred Lon Chaney as the Phantom. That “formula” was so successful that two years later Universal repeated it with Phantom of the Opera, which we studied in our third lesson. Thalberg first took a famous novel with a “monster” as the main character, and second he cast Lon Chaney as the Monster, and third he spent a great deal of money on the production of the film to make sure it had gorgeous costumes and impressive sets and thousands of actors. Irving Thalberg himself decided to make The Hunchback of Notre Dame by using something I call “the Thalberg formula”. This was the first time in Hollywood history that a “monster’ was the main character in a film. In lesson number two we saw Lon Chaney play the part of the Hunchback, Quasimodo.
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