Main Cast: Nelson Eddy, Susanna Foster, Claude Rains, Edgar Barrier, Jane Farrar, Leo Carrillo, Hume Cronyn
Release Year: 1943
Country: US
Run Time: 92 minutes
Plot
This Technicolor retelling of the Gaston Leroux "grand guignol" classic The Phantom of the Opera has a little more opera than phantom, but that's because the stars are soprano Susannah Foster and tenor Nelson Eddy. Claude Rains carries the acting honors on his shoulders, playing a pathetic orchestra violinist who worships aspiring opera-singer Foster from afar. The girl is unaware that Rains has secretly been financing her music lessons with instructor Leo Carrillo. When he runs out of money, Rains attempts to sell the concerto that he's been working on all his life. Mistakenly believing that his precious concerto has been stolen from him, Rains attacks and kills the music publisher he holds responsible. Terrified, the publisher's mistress throws a pan full of acid into Rains' face. Rains runs screaming into the night, and is not heard from for the next reel or so. Soon afterward, the Paris Opera house is plagued by a series of mysterious accidents. The managers are informed via letter that the "accidents" will continue if Foster is not immediately promoted to leading roles. Only after reigning diva Jane Farrar is drugged into incapacitation is Foster given her big break. Farrar accuses Foster's boyfriend, police inspector Nelson Eddy, of doping her in order to advance Foster's career. Farrar is later strangled, and Eddy is accused of the crime. The culprit is, of course, Rains, who now poses as the masked-and-caped "phantom". Maniacally determined that no one will impede Foster's success, Rains causes a huge chandelier to crash down on the opera audience when Foster fails to appear onstage (she'd been kept from performing by police-chief Edgar Barrier, who hoped in this manner to flush The Phantom out of hiding). A chase through the catacombs below the opera house ensues, with Rains holding Foster prisoner. When Rains briefly lets down his guard, the tremulous Foster removes his mask. It's "yecccch," all right, but nowhere near as frightening as the unmasking scene in the silent Lon Chaney version of Phantom of the Opera. The same can be said for the rest of this 1943 remake, though in fairness it appears as though the film wasn't really designed to scare anyone, but instead to serve as a suspense yarn with musical interludes. Hume Cronyn makes his second film appearance in Phantom in a microscopic role. The huge sets designed for this picture were hastily reused for the 1944 Universal melodrama The Climax, starring Boris Karloff and (again) Susannah Foster. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
Universal lavished Technicolor on this, the studio's long-awaited remake of the 1925 Lon Chaney classic. The powers at be also secured the services of Claude Rains in the title role but although a fine character actor, the soft-spoken Britisher may not be everyone's idea of a horror star. Leery of the typecasting that almost inevitably had bedeviled predecessors Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff, Rains refused the kind of grotesque makeup that shocked the movie going audience nearly 20 years earlier, allowing Universal makeup wizard Jack Pierce to apply only a very moderate and not very hideous scar. Thus, the drama's much-awaited set piece, Christine's (Susanna Foster) unveiling of the true condition of her secret benefactor, proves not only anti-climactic but also somewhat absurd. What, you may justly ask, was all the fuss about? Although a huge box-office hit back in 1943, some commentators already then questioned the lack of true horror and the same complaint may be raised today. Happily, director Arthur Lubin and ace cameraman Hal Mohr manage to create quite a bit of excitement and atmosphere -- the opening tracking shot, serving to introduce the drama's main characters, remains as effective as Orson Welles' similar but much more famous tour-de-force in Touch of Evil (1957) -- and Universal's magnificent (and still standing) theater set never looked better. In other words, this version of Phantom of the Opera is more Grand Opera than Grand Guignol, a clear indication, in fact, that the confection was originally intended for the studio's popular songbird, Deanna Durbin. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
Alexander Golitzen - Art Director, John B. Goodman - Art Director, Vera West - Costume Designer, Arthur Lubin - Director, Russell Schoengarth - Editor, George Waggner - Composer (Music Score), Edward Ward - Composer (Music Score), Edward Ward - Musical Direction/Supervision, Jack Pierce - Makeup, W. Howard Greene - Cinematographer, Hal Mohr - Cinematographer, George Waggner - Producer, Russell A. Gausman - Set Designer, Ira S. Webb - Set Designer, Samuel Hoffenstein - Screenwriter, John Jacolby - Screenwriter, Eric Taylor - Screenwriter, Hans Jacoby - Screenwriter, Gaston Leroux - Book Author
The auditorium set, a replica of the Opéra Garnier interior, created for the 1925 version was reused (it still exists). Other than the sets, this "remake" had little in common with the earlier film. There was no attempt to film the masked ball sequence, although the famous falling of the chandelier was re-enacted on an epic scale, using elaborate camera set-ups. The cinematographers were Hal Mohr and W. Howard Greene.
Erique Claudin (Rains) has been a violinist at the Paris Opera House for twenty years. Recently however, he has been getting pains in the fingers of his left hand, which affect his violin-playing. He is dismissed because of this, the owner of the opera house assuming that he has enough money to support himself. This is not the case however, for Claudin has spent it all by anonymously funding the music lessons of Christine Dubois (Foster), a young soprano whom Christine's music teacher assumes Claudin has secretly fallen in love with. In a desperate attempt to gain money, Claudin tries to get a concerto he has written published. After submitting it and not hearing a response, he becomes worried and returns to the publishers, Pleyel & Desjardins, to ask about it. No one there knows what happened to it, and do not seem to care. Claudin persists, but Pleyel rudely tells him to leave and goes back to the etchings he was working on.
Finally giving up, Claudin stands there for a moment and hangs his head sadly. Someone begins to play music in the next room, and he looks up in shock when he hears it. It is his concerto that is merely being endorsed and praised by Franz Liszt. Convinced that Pleyel is trying to steal his concerto, Claudin leaps up and begins to strangle him. Just as he tosses the body of Pleyel to the floor, Georgette, the publisher's assistant, throws etching acid at Claudin. Screeching and wailing, he dashes out the door clutching his face. Now being hunted down by the police for murder, he flees to the sewers of the Opera.
Claudin steals a prop mask from the costume department to cover his now-disfigured face and becomes obssessed with Christine. Meanwhile, Inspector Raoul D’Aubert (Edgar Barrier) wants Christine to quit the Opera and marry him. But famed opera baritone Anatole Garron (Nelson Eddy) hopes to win Christine away from Raoul.
Now Christine is the understudy for the Opera’s female diva Mme. Biancarolli (Jane Farrar), who will do anything to stay in the limelight. But during a performance of the opera Amore et Gloire, Biancarolli drinks a glass of wine and is drugged. The director then puts Christine on in her place and she dazzles the audience. Secretly unknown to Mme. Biancarolli, who suspects that Garron and Christine are guilty, Erique drugged Biancarolli’s wine in disguise.
When Biancarolli refuses to let Christine sing again, Erique enters her dressing room and kills her. After some time, D'Aubert comes up with a plan: not let Christine sing during a performance of the opera La Prince Masque du Caucasus and that Liszt will play the concerto after the performance. But Erique strangles one of D'Aubert's men and heads to the domed ceiling of the auditorium.
He then brings down the large chandelier on the audience and cause chaos to spread. As the audience and the crew flee, Erique takes Christine down to his lair, pursued by the police. He hears Liszt playing his concerto, and he plays along with it on his piano.
He urges Christine to sing, and as she does, the police get nearer to finding Claudin. Christine pulls off his mask and sees what has happened to Erique. At that moment, Raoul and Anatole break in, and fire at their 'Phantom'. The shot misses, and causes the entire lair to cave in, as the two men and Christine escape. Christine explains that she and Erique had come from the same town district and that she had somehow "always felt drawn to him." Back at the Phantom's lair, in memory, one of the final scenes shows Erique's mask propped against his violin.
Later, Anatole and Raoul demand that Christine finally choose between them, but she surprises them both by choosing to marry neither and pursue her singing career instead. She leaves to join her adoring fans, and the two snubbed men go off to commiserate together.
Newcomer Susanna Foster plays Christine Dubois, a soprano at the Paris Opera House.
Nelson Eddy plays Anatole Garron, a baritone and instructor of the Paris Opera. He is one of Christine's two suitors, tossing wit and sarcasm at the rather starched Raoul D'Aubert, Christine's other suitor.
Broderick Crawford was considered for role of Claudin, the Phantom, before it was given to Rains. A subplot which made Rains's character Christine's father was jettisoned because it gave the romantic elements of their relationship incestuous overtones.[1]
Edgar Barrier played Raoul, taking little more than the name from Gaston Leroux's original story.
During the same year that the film was released, Phantom of the Opera was adapted into an audio presentation for the Lux Radio Theater. Nelson Eddy, Susanna Foster and Edgar Barrier reprised their roles, but instead of Claude Rains, Basil Rathbone played Erique Claudin.
Score
Edward Ward wrote the score. The film has many elements of a musical, with lengthy opera sequences, and has been criticized for being more musical than horrific. For the opera sequences, Ward adapted music from Tchaikovsky'sSymphony No. 4 as well as using themes by Chopin. He also composed an original theme, Lullaby of the Bells, which was heard in the film as the Phantom's piano concerto.
Cancelled sequel
Following the success of Phantom of the Opera, Universal announced that a sequel would be made, titled The Climax.[1] Nelson Eddy and Susanna Foster were to return, along with Claude Rains as the Phantom, most likely meaning that his character did indeed survive the cave in at the finale of the first film; indeed, in the final shot of the mask and violin atop the rubble, there is a sound of moving rock. The sequel, however, was later cancelled due to story troubles and problems concerning the availability of Claude Rains. The Climax was indeed released the year after Phantom of the Opera, but it was not a continuation of the previous film and featured completely new characters.
Notes and references
^ ab Scott McQueen, audio-commentary on Phantom of the Opera DVD (Universal)
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