After The Jazz Singer (1927) ushered in the
unavoidable age of sound, M-G-M saw an opportunity to refashion one of their
biggest hits. Much as record labels later tempted 1980s buyers to ‘double-dip’
by selling them the same albums twice on both vinyl and then CD, the studio
wanted to re-release 1925’s Phantom of
the Opera starring Lon Chaney retro-fitted for sound to encourage more
revenue. At a relatively low cost of $113,000 against its original budget of
$632,000, they shot new spoken dialogue scenes to replace 40% of the original
silent version (ultimately reaping $419,000 profit as a result). M-G-M wanted
Chaney to dub his famous performance, but the visually breath-taking actor long
held an aversion to being de-mystified by sound, only eventually relaxing his
stance once for the 1930 remake of his earlier classic The Unholy Three. Such was Chaney’s resistance that his contract had
a clause forbidding the studio from post-dubbing his scenes on screen. They
circumvented this by writing third-person narrative dialogue for another actor and
applying the lines over shots of Chaney’s phantom in shadow. The result was a
profit of $419,000. A tragic post-script is that due to his death in 1930, audiences
never got to see Chaney in the talking role he could not have turned down, the
immortal Dracula (1931) that instead
shot Bela Lugosi to stardom.
A less
successful technology used in the 1925 version was the still-new feature film
use of two-colour Technicolor (Process 2 in its history), which gave us the unforgettable
scarlet-drenched grotesquerie of the Phantom’s posturing in the Masked Ball
scene. Although the format dated from 1916 and produced vibrant colours, it suffered
from a number of problems including focus issues due to the special Technicolor
cameras exposing consecutive frames of film to either a green or red filter
that weren’t quite in sync with each other when later combined onto a single
print. The next generation of two-strip (Process 3) was used in horror films
such as Warner Brothers’ Dr X (1932)
and 1933’s Mystery of the Wax Museum
(reviewed here and here), but despite its superiority of image never caught on in
the post-Depression austerity years.
Into the
later Thirties, Technicolor had advanced to ‘three-strip’, a three-colour
camera, which so impressed pioneering animation boss Walt Disney that he had
the process under exclusive contract for his Silly Symphonies shorts (e.g.
1933’s Three Little Pigs) up to 1935.
Disney’s huge box-office success with the full Technicolor cartoon feature Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
convinced other studios to risk shooting their live-action features in the
format. There were still limitations – the size and weight of the special
Technicolor cameras, with attendant costs pushed higher by needing specialist
technicians and colour supervisors, and the stifling heat caused by the slow
film speed requiring much stronger lights on set. The cast of 1939’s The Wizard of Oz suffered for their gloriously photographed art
under temperatures beyond one hundred degrees Fahrenheit and reputed cases of
permanent eye damage from the brightness.
By the time
Universal came to remake Phantom of the
Opera in 1943, Technicolor was a luxury mostly reserved for lavish
musicals, so we’re very fortunate to have these vibrant colours available in a
horror film of the period. However, this also hints at the controversial
concessions made for this version of Phantom
in favour of a light musical more than a straight horror movie. Versatile
director Arthur Lubin’s credits included the first five star vehicles for
Abbott and Costello, combining comedy and music. 1941’s Hold that Ghost (reviewed here) also added frissons of chills – and
in that year Variety named Lubin Hollywood’s most commercially successful
director. As far as full-blooded horror movie credentials go, Lubin had
directed Karloff and Lugosi in 1940’s entertaining Black Friday and producer George Waggner had previously scored a
franchise-generating hit with The Wolf
Man.
The casting
also reflected Universal’s slant toward a wider musical genre audience. For the
crucial central role of ingénue soprano Christine Dubois, they chose 17 year-old
Susanna Foster, a gifted singer under contract with an awesome range reaching a
rare piercing high C top note. The part was a dream come true for Foster. She
idolised operetta star Jeanette McDonald who’d starred in eight musical films
opposite classical baritone Nelson Eddy such as Naughty Marietta (1935) and now she was about to co-star with Eddy
as one of her romantic suitors in Phantom,
the Paris Opera’s baritone Anatole. Eddy was a huge star both as a classical
recording artist and musical film actor. To fit him into this role, Universal
insisted on dying his blonde hair dark brown, a move which he only agreed to
when resident make-up supremo Jack Pierce concocted a special dye for him.
The amorous
love triangle in this conception of Phantom
was another conceit in Eric Taylor and Samuel Hoffenstein’s screenplay that
wasn’t in the original Gaston LeRoux novel Le
Fantôme de l'Opéra nor any past or future film adaptations. Though
experienced pure horror writers (Taylor on The Ghost of Frankenstein and Son
of Dracula, and Hoffenstein on the 1931 Dr
Jekyll and Mr Hyde for example – all covered in this blog), they invented a
comedic rivalry between police Inspector Raoul, a noble Vicomte in the source
book, and the newly-inserted Anatole. This pandered shrewdly to light-hearted
musical convention and was an excuse to shoehorn in operatic numbers during the
film. Their vying for Christine’s attention works quite well with running gags
of repeatedly trapping each other in the doorway as they pursue her, and both
speaking the same wooing lines in synch. Balancing Eddy’s ardent artist, the philistine
Raoul by contrast is played with an effective formality by Edgar Barrier, the mystery
mask shop owner we shall see later that year in Flesh and Fantasy.
The most
interesting change of emphasis comes in the conception and portrayal of the
title opera ghost himself. Firstly, Universal selected the elegant and
highly-regarded Claude Rains, who at that time was between studio contracts.
Somehow the tasteful Rains always seemed to avoid the worst of Hollywood horror
in his career, allying himself with the better genre projects. His distinctive
honeyed tones caressed and bullied with surprising menace in James Whale’s
marvellous The Invisible Man (1933)
and he made a touchingly sympathetic father to Lon Chaney Jr in The Wolf Man
(1941). This reiteration of Phantom of the Opera called for an actor
of his subtle sensitivity (also memorably showcased as Captain Renault in
1942’s classic Casablanca) as it
front-loads his character with an origin story right from the beginning aimed
at maximum audience sympathy instead of fearful alienation.
Rains’
Erique Claudin is not a remote monster but a warped, lonely soul we see
corrupted by unrequited romantic yearning, misunderstanding and then a
terrible, all-consuming revenge obsession. We are introduced to him as a humble
violinist in the Paris Opera worshipping understudy Christine from the
orchestra pit. Such is his love for her that he’s been ploughing almost all of
his low salary into funding her training as an undisclosed benefactor. When they
meet outside the manager’s office there is a poignant tenderness to his awkward
conversation.
His boss
regrets being forced to fire him due to revealed arthritis, prompting the
desperate Claudin to seek a buyer for a concerto he wrote. Seeking submission
feedback from publisher Mr Pleyel (Miles Mander), he is rudely dismissed;
however when he overhears the famous Franz Liszt playing it in a back room, he
confuses the overheard maestro’s appreciation as a cover-up for disguised
theft, and launches himself in fury at Pleyel - “Thief! You stole my music!” In
Claudin’s fatal homicidal rage upon Pleyel, he is doused with etching acid by
an assistant. By the time the fatally scarred fugitive flees into the Opera
House sewers (brilliantly interpreted by Alexander Golitzen and John B. Goodman)
his conscience and face are scarred by double murder.
A
hastily-grabbed prop mask before his disappearance begins the crafting of the
Phantom’s iconic look that will haunt the Opera in caped shadowy form from now
on. A useful existing Opera Ghost legend precedes him, preserving his mystique
under the erroneous description of possessing a protruding chin and long nose.
(An amusing later gag sees the bumbling co-manager Vercheres (Steven Geray)
pantomiming the Ghost he is chasing to a bemused chorus actor whom he suddenly
realises shares the same features).
Although
this 1943 remake somewhat waters down the raw Grand Guignol operatics of Lon
Chaney’s seminal version, Universal clearly spared no expense in realising a
ravishing chocolate box of visuals. Technicolor consultant Natalie Kalmus was always
on set approving every superb costume piece and set decoration item that went
before the lenses of the studio’s acclaimed cinematographer Hal Mohr and
Technicolor’s own cameraman W. Howard Greene. Though by all accounts she was
painfully exacting upon the crew and director, the results are ravishing and
won the film richly-deserved Oscars for cinematography and art direction. Despite
the lack of similarity with the 1925 original, the Paris Opera House interior
was actually the same set from that version sumptuously redressed – going on to
feature cost-effectively in many more Universal films e.g. The Glenn Miller Story (1954) and Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967).
Another subtle
departure was in the Phantom’s facial disfiguration eventually unmasked by Christine.
As the
Phantom, Rains channels a more refined vengeance in lieu of monstrous external
theatrics. Both extremes and points in between can be justified in the same way
that no two Hamlets are the same. Like all great mask performances, and indeed
mask-work as therapy, this type of role ironically reveals, rather than hides,
the personality of the player. This is not to say Chaney’s portrayal was simply
surface bravura. His silent screen physicality denoted a wonderfully tuned
instrument reflecting internalised conflict and grace as well. And for my
personal preference, there is a satisfying grandeur of aspect to his Phantom that
Rains lacks – a vicarious thrill we get in watching him avenge himself. I love
the insane die-hard futility of his pretend grenade held aloft before the mob
descends on him at the end of his reign of terror.
Rains on the
other hand pierces our hearts with the corrosive implosion of his lonesome pain,
and he has the advantage of turning his expressive voice into a macabre,
childlike insistence to the prisoner of his perverted love. “Now you’ll sing
for me and I’ll play – and we’ll be together for ever”, he urges, reminiscent
of Andrew Robinson’s giggling wacko Scorpio in Dirty Harry. (Fans of Val Lewton may notice what could be an homage
to 1942’s Cat People when he coos “You’ll
love the dark too. It’s friendly and peaceful”. Simone Simon’s Irene also describes
it as friendly).
Lubin also
ensures that stacked against the Phantom are worthy supporting nemeses. Aside
from the unfeeling company management, there is Jane Farrar’s splendidly
haughty diva Mme Biancaroli. She schemes treacherously to eclipse show saviour
Christine after the Phantom poisons her, until she gets a warm hand – terminally
around her throat.
Raoul and
his officers rescue Christine from the Phantom’s dank subterranean home just as
the crumbling walls collapse. To Lubin’s credit, he doesn’t lose sight of the
tragic plight of Erique Claudin behind the mask and the mayhem. Christine
cannot help but feel sorrow for the man who gave up everything for the music in
her. “I always felt drawn to him with a kind of pity…understanding”.
We are left
with an enigmatic sign-off by the Phantom of an artfully placed violin, bow and
mask across them. And was that the sound of his escape we heard in the
background? Well, it was intended to be. Universal wanted to film a sequel, but
this was rejected by Rains. A follow-on was made starring Boris Karloff; The Climax (1944) helmed by
producer-director Waggner echoed Phantom in
its dark themes of prima-donna murder and Svengali-like protégé influence, yet
these alongside the return of Susanna Foster in a similar role were the only shared
elements.
After a less
stellar 1962 remake by Terence Fisher for Hammer, Phantom of the Opera was of course ultimately staged as a
fully-fledged, industry-dominating musical by Andrew Lloyd-Webber (as well as a
successful non-musical theatre drama by Ken Hill). It is this incarnation that
many people think of when the story is mentioned. This show cleaves closer to
Leroux’s book and has made the Opera Ghost a happy home in London’s West End
since 1989 – as well as spawning its own film starring Gerard Butler in 2004. Arguably,
each generation’s interpretation just proves the longevity and flexibility of this
classic tale. No doubt the Angel of Music will be a muse to inspire many more…
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