I'm not sure if "men" is such a good description. After all we are talking about The Phantom of the Opera and The Human Vapo(u)r, but it's the best we can do.

THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (1925)

Given that the story is so known, I won't bother about the usual synopsis. (If you don't know the story however, you can read it from scene 1 till The End here.)

Which leaves me with a few anecdotes on the film.
Now widely regarded as an all-time classic, the film was almost never released. The filming was painful, the assigned director Rupert Julian was an unbearable dictator who even bullied Lon Chaney, without a doubt the star of this production.
Yes, if even after a pack of remakes (not to forget the Andrew Lloyd-Webber musical version) this version is seen as the best version, this is mostly because of Chaney's fantastic performance. Chaney was an excellent actor, but still it's this movie that he's mostly remembered for. Like Lugosi will always be Dracula and Karloff always Frankenstein's Monster (and, to a lesser extent, the Mummy), Chaney is most of all Erik, Phantom of the Opera.
Chaney liked the part (and the opportunity) so much he wanted to star in the film, even though he wasn't too fond of Universal and producer Carl Laemmle.

The Laemle shuffle
Laemmle wasn't happy with Julian's work after seeing the preview and asked for additional shots (directed by comedy director Edward Sedgwick). The ending was altered - originally the mob found Erik lying dead on top of his organ -, Mary Philbin got more romantic scenes and intertitles were written for the new scenes.
In April 1925, three months after the first version was finished, this second version was previewed in San Francisco, where the audience's reception was lukewarm at best and Laemmle demanded another version.
Most of the new scenes (except for the climax) were thrown out and in came scenes with comedian Chester Conklin and new intertitles. When shown to Laemmle, he luckily hated the comedy scenes. They were thrown out, but the rest of this new version was good enough and this is how the movie finally premiered on September 6, 1925. It became a tremendous success (which makes it all the weirder that Universal let the copyright lapse in 1953. The timeless classic became public domain and the studio lost a fortune in royalties.)
In 1929 Universal wanted to reissue the film, but decided talking sequences had to be added along with a new soundtrack and sound effects. Chaney was under contract at MGM by this time, so someone else dubbed him. Thousands of feet of footage were cut out to get the new version, other scenes were compressed or combined with other scenes. Virginia Pearson, who played diva Carlotta in 1925, became Carlotta's mother in 1929, thereby making her one of the fastest-aging women in the movie history.

Okay, so it's a classic, but is it good?
Yes, it is (as I've mentioned before) even though Mary Philbin occasionally slips into overacting mode and Rupert Julian clearly isn't a great director. One of the best scenes in the film wasn't directed by him, but by Lon Chaney (while Julian was, alledgedly, venting his rage somewhere else). This scene, the Ball scene, was shot in colour. It's not the only scene shot in colour, but the only one that made it to the final version.

Lon Chaney was also responsible for his own (fabulous) make-up. He never wanted to reveal how he did it, so we'll just admire it.
The dramatic unmasking scene was so unusual for those days that distributors reported it had made people in the audience faint. (But that may just be promotional peptalk, one never knows.)
I'll end this presentation with that famous scene where Erik is unmasked. If you won't faint, I'll gladly see you below for the second feature.
But first Erik gets unmasked. (clip courtesy of Silent Thrills)

THE HUMAN VAPOR

First the good news The second feature of this double bill is The Human Vapor and was directed by Ishirô Honda, the man who also gave you Gojira (a.k.a. Godzilla) and countless sequels with the rubber-suited monster.
Honda worked for Toho Studios who, apart from Godzilla and Samurai films, made four movies about humans who could change the state of their bodies. The Human Vapor, released in 1960, was the last of these four films.
So no monster in Gasu Ningen Daiichigo (to call The Human Vapor by its original title) but a librarian who agrees to be a test subject for a scientific study. Little did librarian Mizuno know the other test subjects had died during the test. He discovers he can vaporize his body and kills the professor (by asphyxiation).
Mizuno might want to turn his back to humanity, but he's also madly in love with a beautiful dancer who's been saving for her comeback performance. He decides to help her by robbing the bank. Maybe not such a bad idea, but it's a crime my friendly neighbourhood officer tells me.
The police pursue his trail (he might be invisible, but his car isn't) to the place where Vapor-Man abandons his car. Smart move, if it weren't for the fact that there's only one house nearby. That's where She lives and when She suddenly appears to have enough money for her comeback and can't/won't reveal any information on her maecenas, she's arrested.
This makes Mizuno so angry he becomes even madder than he was before (it seems like the test affected both his visibility and his sanity) and he wants revenge for the imprisonment of his beloved dancer. More banks are robbed and more people get killed.
That's as far as I'll go because, who knows, you might want to check this movie out and as the saying goes, there's no crying over spilt clous. The movie is very decent and a remarkable ending.

Okay, and now the bad news
The bad news is The Human Vapor isn't just the American title of the film, it's also the American version and sadly a lot went lost in the translation.
First and foremost, Gasu Ningen Daiichigo was a mystery wheras in The Human Vapor the anti-hero tells his story in a long flashback. This would've been only half so horrible if the narration had been more interesting and if it hadn't replaced the dialogue in quite a lot of scenes (which leaves us with the "I told him and then he said" effect). The jerking effect of the re-edited version is also not really a plus side. Even the soundtrack was changed. And if you can't remember why the soundtrack seems so familiar: you must have seen The Fly (1958).

Crappy editing, dialogue and Americanised dubbing (Japanese characters are less credible with sentences like "Ah, go peddle your papers!") aside, nothing can keep us from knowing this is a terrific movie. Even if it falls from 10/10 to 8/10, an eight is still better than most things you're subjected to. The Human Vapor still has enormous amounts of tragedy and pathos, an anti-hero who can't control his limitless powers and an enchanting but painful love story. What it lacks as a crime story, it wins as a character study. It's fascinating to see how Mizuno evolves from a friendly lab rat into a psychotic megalomaniac.

Mizuno and Fujichiyo
We also wonder about the role of the dancer Fujichiyo.
Does she know where the money came from? Does she also love Mizuno? Her personality is quite different from the other female character in the film, the reporter Kyoko. Traditional versus modern.
Mizuno's acts are beyond redemption, but still you feel some sort of sympathy for the Human Vapor and most of that comes from his unconditional love for Fujichiyo.
True, the special effects are minimal, but who needs special effects in a sci-fi movie when you've got a story?

The Kurtodrome Vault is part of the Kurtodrome.