The Phantom Remade (1943)

[Ubaldo Piangi]

This version was in color, I think, and was true to most of Leroux's characters. However, there were lots of deviations from the original plotline, such as the Phantom (played by Claude Rains, and this is the introduction of the half-mask) not being deformed from the start (he had acid thrown on his face). Another one is the fact that Raoul is not a nobleman, but another opera singer (if my research is correct, he was a character played by the wonderfully talented baritone, Nelson Eddy ^_^); there's even a police inspector thrown into the mix who, besides the Phantom and Raoul, also has affections for the prima donna. This isn't Carlotta, but the "Christine" of the story. Most of them have different names, though I can't place them all. I'll have to go back to one of the sites I've checked, maybe IMDB, and look at the cast list.

I've never seen this movie, but it sounds quite interesting. Comments? :mask:

[IamErik771]

I saw this film long, long ago, before I ever became a Phan. I think I was eight or nine years old at the time (I'm 16 now), so I don't really remember much of it. However, I had already seen many horror films featuring hideous and grotesque-looking monsters, so I wasn't at all fazed by Claude Rains' acid burn when he was unmasked. Now, the ALW stage version's disfigurement, when I saw a photo, actually gave me nightmares for a couple nights! (And this was less than a year ago!)

[Ubaldo Piangi]

It's freaky how that happens, isn't it? o.O

I'm sure you know the storyline. The "Phantom" starts off as an orchestra violinist who's hopelessly in love with the lead soprano of the opera. He finishes a piece and tries to have it published, but something goes wrong and he kills the publisher or something. I think sometime right after that, he gets the acid thrown on his face, causing the disfigurement.

Now, you'd think the acid would have eaten away at his entire face and made it look even more hideous than when Lon Chaney did it. However, he only wears a mask that covers the top half of his face, from the forehead down to about the upper lip. And when he gets unmasked, there's only some minor skin damage on the right side of the face, and as you said, it's not frightening or disgusting at all.

Like I said in my first post, there are lots of deviations from the original story, yet it looks interesting enough to watch. Hopefully someday I'll get the chance to see it. :D

[IamErik771]

Is it true that this film had the same actress playing Christine and Carlotta? I know there was one film that did that, and I find the idea quite amusing. :D Apparently, the original plan with this film was to reveal that Erique was actually Christine's father! That's why he never tries to kiss her or make her marry him or anything like that. Unfortunately, they cut that plotline, and so poor Claude Rains gets blasted for stiff acting. I think this film may have also inspired ALW to make half of the Phantom's face disfigured in his musical.

[Night feather]

I HATE this version, it's so crappy.

Erik is not deformed from the start, and the most horrible part about it is, that it tries to be funny at some times, and it is SO not funny.

I hate the whole concept of Raoul and the baritone too. And the story of the movie, just tumbles forward without no system or anything. Its really crappy movie making.

God they just smashed this wonderful story to pieces, I hate it!

[The Khanum]

I just got my hands on the Claude Rains version yesterday, watched it today...and had a howling fest. I found it quite hilarious that:

1. Erik played in the orchestra like a normal person.
2. For all intents and purposes, Erik was a normal person (until he got splashed by a tray of conveniently-placed acid).
3. Erik had a blue mask, gray hair, and a last name.
4. Christine had no dead father, no Angel of Music, a house, and not two but THREE men pining after her.
5. It could be inferred that Raoul and...the other guy became gay lovers at the end (was I the only one who thought that?).
6. Erik cut down the chandelier with a hand saw. I mean, I just cracked up when I saw him going to town up there, hacking away at the chains. That killed me. I don't know why.
7. Raoul and What's-his-face had the exact same expression when they saw Erik's "deformity": "...Ew." Complete with the lip-curling action.
8. Carlotta got drugged. ::Snorts:: Then she died. ::Snorts again::
9. Half the movie was taken up by watching a bunch of operettas that nobody could understand.
10. Erik died two seconds after Christine takes off his mask.

~Erik (but not Claude Rain's version) is my Hero

[Night feather]

HAHAHH No you were not the only one who thought that about Raoul, the police man (? coem on) and the opera star...

I almost expected a sign saying...

"And then Raoul and what-his-name" went out became lovers, and had a lot of steamy sex"

HAHAHAHAHHA

Yes hated it!

[The Khanum]

:D I mean, the last we saw of them, they were going out for "dinner," arm-in-arm.

Yes, they were actually arm-in-arm.

~Erik is my Hero

[IamErik771]

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAA!!! :D

Sorry. Please, continue.

Oh, and I don't remember exactly (since it was 7 or 8 years since I saw it), but I heard that there was a rather cool shot of Erik listening in the cellars, much better than the shot in the ALW film. True?

[Ubaldo Piangi]

Wait. I looked up the cast again, and Nelson Eddy was NOT Raoul. Raoul, apparently, IS the police inspector. Nelson Eddy played a character named Anatole, the opera baritone who was in love with the Christine character. That was a bad call on my part. ^^;;; So, as KT said, Christine had not just two, but three men vying for her.

[The Khanum]

...So instead of having a love triangle, it was a love square. Or perhaps a love rectangle. ::Shrugs:: I like to think that Raoul and What's-his-face (Anatole?) became gay lovers and Christine died sad and alone.

That would be the ultimate ironic ending. :D Christine. Alone.

[Countess Cain]

I liked it quite a bit, but not as a true Phantom of the Opera interpretation. Just more as... Another kind of movie, I guess. I thought Rains did a good job with the role that was given to him. I pitied him during some parts, at least. (Like not being able to play the violin because of old age, and so on.)

The ending would make slash/yaoi fans jump for joy, however, just as you said. ;)

[Night feather]

Yes that would be most fair, she had 3 men who wanted her, she couldn't chose.

So Anatole (?) and Raoul should be gay gay lovers, and Christien could die misrable and alone ahhahahaha

[Reza Khan]

Originally posted by Erik is my Hero
:D I mean, the last we saw of them, they were going out for "dinner," arm-in-arm.

Yes, they were actually arm-in-arm.
It might be worth it to watch that movie just for the ending. Maybe someday when I'm bored out of my mind... :D

Elizabeth

[Eriks_Angel]

Erik Is My Hero - your reviews of this movie are hilarious. I wasn't overly impressed by this version either.

[Kristine]

Ok, so it isn't exactly true to the original novel but I love it nontheless.
It had actors that could actually SING, and Susanna has the looks for the role.
(Why does Christine have brown eyes and hair in almost every other movie? She's a blue eyed blonde for goodness sake!)
A film about an opera where they even perform opera! Funny, that? ;)

I didn't really see the point of Anatole, but the confrontations between him and Raoul are so funny it makes up for that.


I love this movie more than ALW/Schumacher's!

Rains ~ Erik/Erique <3

[Countess Cain]

I almost bought it a few weeks ago at FYE when they had the VHS one for a low amount of money. But then I realized I didn't have any money on me. :0

But I agree, Susanna does make a good Christine. She's the one that most looks like that Leroux version, anyway. Isn't she the only blonde one ever? I mean, even the first, Mary Philbin, had dark hair...

[metafizzypop]

I just recently saw this movie, and wasn't much impressed. Though Claude Rains is always good in the tragic types of roles he often plays, he can't save this flick. It lacks both the horror and the romance of other versions of POTO.

But I did get a good laugh out of the chandelier scene. It took him the whole first act of an opera to saw through the chain that held it up! And then -- and this is the part I really don't understand -- how come when the chandelier falls, it doesn't get dark in the theatre? How come the place is still lit up?? The chandelier was the light source!!

Only in Hollywood.

6\-)

[AngelicRose]

I thought Claude Rains was excellent...and so was Susanna Foster.

After watching this movie I became a Raoul/Anatole shipper. lol

[AAW0487]

This version sounds rather interesting..though I haven't had the pleasure of seeing it either. Christine seems to have many suitors for her, but I wonder which she'll choose. Yikes! The Phantom gets acid thrown on his face! I do like the half masked version though. And Raoul being a singer sounds a bit different. I will defentally have to check out this version!

[spitfire80]

a couple things..the 1943 color remake by Universal was shot on the same stage as the 1925 original. the opera house set was used for both. also, it was in the original 1925 /1929 re-release of the lon chaney version, in which, when re-edited, the actress that played carlotta in one , was made to appear, via editing, as her mother in the other.

[More than Music]

Erik seemed like a person to me in this film.
This showed a very real side of Erik. This LonErik's reincarnate.
My sister and I had quite a time watching the operas.
I didn't get the last part with Raoul and Anatole,
but we did have a laugh when they went through doors at the same time.
It was an 'almost hilarious' film. It had potential, but wasn't very well done.
I, and alone from what I've seen here, enjoyed the reality in this movie.
It made it seem believable. And Erik broke a sweat crashing the chandelier.
That thing was built to last, unlike the other ones where Erik simply walks in, pulls down a chain and pulls a lever, then it's oh-so simple to bring down their chandelier. Stupid.

But it wasn't very true to the book. And the deformity wasn't at all scary.

My shortened review: High potential film, low potential of enjoyment as a whole.
But lovely opera scenes! Christine's highest note; toyed with, but VERY high.

[MystMoonstruck]

This is a satisfactory presentation, very non-horrifying and set on presenting the Phantom as a ripped-off nice guy, which has become a repeated approach in other films. In several versions, the Phantom is not born disfigured; the disfigurement occurs while he is trying to "rescue" the music he created, causing him to go into hiding.

One benefit is Raines' voice, which made him a major star in "The Invisible Man". He was an excellent actor in every role.

It's interesting to see Nelson Eddy opposite someone other than Jeanette MacDonald. No matter how many movies he appeared in, Mr. Eddy always seemed rather wooden though he had an impressive voice. There were hopes that the leading lady would become a star--which didn't happen.

It's better than the Herbert Lom version.

Here's an essay I found that is quite interesting about the various versions of POTO:
THE PHANTOM’S EVOLUTION
From Novel to Screen to Stage
by Cathleen Myers
First time readers of Gaston Leroux’s 1911 novel Le Fantome de L’Opera often find it "disappointing." This is not surprising. Leroux’s essential plot concept is wonderful: What could be a more romantic and frightening setting for a Gothic horror story than a "haunted" opera house? The juxtaposition of glamour and horror is irresistible, and at least five other authors (including Nicholas Meyer and Suzy McKee Charnas) have written their own Phantom of the Opera novels. Indeed, Leroux’s description of backstage life and politics at the opera is extremely entertaining and true-to-life. Even the climactic chandelier scene is based on a real incident in 1906 when parts of a central chandelier broke off and began falling on a terrified opera audience. The central story of Erik the Phantom’s obsessive love for his gifted young protégé Christine and her ambivalent feelings for her mysterious music master is moving and believable. Less satisfactory is Christine’s romance with the feckless Raoul, Vicomte de Chagny, who makes Jonathon Harker and Lord Godalming in Dracula look like rocket scientists.

As a Gothic romance and a good airplane "read," the novel succeeds. As a Gothic mystery, however, it fails badly. Leroux, who was actually an investigative reporter and experienced mystery writer, breaks two cardinal rules of detective fiction: (1) "Never introduce a major character (like the mysterious Persian) in the latter half of the novel" and (2) "Never leave a ghost unexplained." The novel is badly constructed, with a rushed and unconvincing denouement in which the great mystery of the Phantom is explained away in dry second-hand narration.

Like Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Wilkie Collins’ The Woman in White, Leroux’s novel attempts to gain verisimilitude by pretending that the story is reconstructed from different sources - archives, newspaper articles, interviews with eye-witnesses, and memoirs. This is a neat idea and actually captures our attention from the very beginning, as the narrator pretends to take a journalistic approach to the story and promises to unravel the mystery for us. However, unlike Dracula, where the "evidence" is presented to the reader from various sources, we never get to see Leroux’s "sources." Most of the story is told by an omniscient narrator - with occasional comments from the journalist-narrator. This just doesn’t work. Unlike Collins and Stoker, Leroux never for a minute succeeds in achieving real suspension of disbelief.

But what a spectacular plot concept for film and stage! Not surprisingly, there have been at least five film adaptations, an animated version, a rock film version (Phantom of the Paradise), two ballets, a "Phantom on Ice" and four stage musical versions of Leroux’s novel.

The first screen version of "Phantom," a three-reeler silent film released in 1925, is the most faithful adaptation of Leroux’s original novel. Starring Lon Chaney and Mary Philbin, the film’s use of chiaroscuro is still effective. Though we’ve all seen the famous unmasking scene, it must have been shocking indeed to its first-time audiences; Leroux’s novel was not well-known in 1925 so the skull-faced horror beneath the mask was completely unexpected! As the film is pre-Hays Code, there is no attempt to soften the erotic attraction between the Phantom and Christine or the sadomasochistic overtones in the dressing room and dungeon scenes, and there are lots of titillating shots of the ballet girls. The orgiastic masquerade ball scene, with its hand-colored frames, is a striking contrast to the stark black and white of the rest of the film, and both Christine’s silver ballgown and the Phantom’s scarlet Masque of the Red Death costume are effective. Devotees of the original novel may not approve of the film’s melodramatic chase scene ending with the Phantom pursued by a torch-bearing mob through the streets of Paris. Some viewers also find the acting melodramatic even by silent movie standards, but Chaney’s achievement in being able to convey emotion even through the Phantom’s mask has been justly lauded.

:mask: The second film version of Phantom of the Opera was a 1943 Universal technicolor musical extravaganza starring Claude Rains as a tragic but dangerous Phantom, coloratura soprano Susanna Foster as a vivacious Christine, and baritone Nelson Eddy as the swashbuckling opera star Anatole. Anatole’s rival for Christine’s affections is "Raoul," a rising young Surété detective. The script is a complete rewrite of the Gaston Leroux novel but, as a thriller, it works much better than the original. The story moves swiftly and the well-constructed plot is more convincing than Leroux’s, without its melodramatic coincidences. While Rains’ Phantom violinist/composer is a homicidal maniac more violent than Leroux’s Erik ( the film was, after all, intended for the horror movie crowd), the motivation for his mental breakdown is clearly delineated. What will disappoint fans of the novel and Webber’s musical is that Rains’ Phantom has only platonic feelings for Christine. While romantics will object to the comic relief and to the wry, ironic ending, feminists will applaud Christine’s final choice!

The film’s operatic scenes are simply gorgeous and, with the exception of the opening scenes from Von Flotow’s "Martha," are completely ersatz, thus setting a trend for most subsequent Phantom adaptations. Opera News’ term for such fictitious opera excerpts is "Shadow Opera." The first is from a Napoleonic "opera" called Amour et Gloire, with exquisite music by Chopin (and a G above higher C for Christine). The film’s climactic Chandelier Crash happens in the middle of a wonderful pseudo-Russian opera scene based on tunes from Tchiakovsky’s Fourth Symphony, with Nelson Eddy as a whip-cracking Cossack chieftain and lots of athletic "cossack" dancing from the corps de ballet. The film score also makes heavy use of leitmotifs (including the moving central theme of the Phantom’s romantic piano concerto), a technique later used in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical. With a "tighter" script and an even prettier score than Webber’s, this is a fun film.:mask:

So successful was the film that Universal soon made another Gothic horror movie musical called something like Mask of Terror with Ms. Foster as an aspiring young soprano, Boris Karloff as a Phantom-like villain, lots of pretty Shadow Operetta scenes, a jealous prima donna and a gay baritone who wishes a composer would write an operetta with an all-male cast. (I’m not making this up, you know!). With enough popcorn, it’s not a bad movie.

Hammer Films, of course, had to do a remake of Phantom but the 1962 Hammer version lacks the usual expert acting, colorful production values and flashes of wit that made these well-directed low-budget British horror films so enjoyable, with popcorn, on a Friday night. Unfortunately, neither of Hammer’s demigod stars - Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing - is in the cast. The film’s tone and setting (London rather than Paris) are solemn and somber. The Phantom (Herbert Lom) is a rather tame fellow unmanned by a script that doesn’t allow him to do any of his own dirty work (His murders are committed by a dwarf accomplice). The rather weak villain of the piece is "Ambrose Darcy" (Michael Gough), the lecherous director of the opera who has been passing off the Phantom’s compositions as his own; the Raoul figure is a colorless young producer named Harry. Christine (Heather Sears) is pretty enough and looks cute in her St. Joan costume but the Phantom’s interest in her is purely professional. Worst of all are the scenes from Joan of Arc, the Phantom’s anachronistic 12-tone opera, which one critic called "the only genuinely horrific part of the movie!" (I remember Joan singing, in sprechstimme, "Noooo, I am NOT a her-e-tic!" but have blessedly forgotten the rest).

To give Hammer’s gifted director Terence Fisher his due, he was trying his best to achieve a somber consistency of tone which no other "Phantom" has achieved; hence the elimination of all comic relief. Fisher allows only one wryly amusing scene as Darcy’s mistress - a pretty but incompetent soprano who has replaced Christine - struggles vainly to master the complexities of St. Joan’s 12-tone music, a joke that Webber uses in his musical version as dim-witted tenor Pianghi struggles vainly to sing a quarter-tone interval in the Phantom’s difficult 12-tone opera Don Juan Triumphant.

Does anyone remember the entertaining TV movie remake of "Phantom" in the 1980’s with Jane Seymour as an unscrupulous, calculating Christine who’ll do just about anything for a good part and Anthony Andrews as the skeptical young conductor who falls in love with her and her voice in spite of himself? In an early scene, Christine sucks up to the handsome conductor, telling him how much she loves the opera Faust and how much she’d love to sing it under his direction. Andrews replies that she must either be insincere or have deplorable taste in music.

Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Phantom of the Opera is not the only musical adaptation of Leroux’s novel. At least three other composer/lyricists have written "Phantom" musicals. I know nothing about the Grigal/Anderson version but Webber himself was inspired by Ken Hill’s Phantom musical, which enjoyed a good East End run in London in 1984. Hill’s slightly tongue-in-cheek version uses only authentic opera excerpts.

The best known of the non-Webber "Phantom" musicals, featuring a score by Maury Yeston and book by Arthur Kopit, has had some favorable press. Unfortunately for the unwitting authors, Webber’s version was completed and staged first. The Yeston/Kopit musical is very much an original story and has an intriguing plot twist: The Phantom turns out to be the natural son of one of the Paris Opera’s managers. I’ve actually heard good things about the score and about the development of the love story between the Phantom and Christine. I have heard only one excerpt from the score - the scene in which the manager acknowledges Erik as his son. It’s an operatic moment - very grand in style.

In 1986, with Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber’s phenomenally successful musical stage version, we come full circle: Returning to the original Leroux novel for inspiration, Webber and co-author Richard Stilgoe strive to be faithful to it in storyline and spirit while removing some of the obvious flaws (including the superfluous Persian), tightening some loose ends, and giving the story an emotional depth Leroux strove for but never achieved.

A common criticism of Phantom is that, like most other Webber musicals, it substitutes spectacle for genuine emotion, basely pandering to the Philistines’ desire to be dazzled instead of moved and enlightened for their $65.00 ticket price. But all criticism melts away amid the sheer melodic loveliness, dramatic power and orchestral richness of Webber’s score. I don’t know if the show enlightens the Philistines but I’ve rarely seen a theater audience so visibly moved. Thanks to the musical’s skillful use of leitmotifs, the tunes haunt us weeks after we’ve left the theatre.

Yes, Phantom is certainly an operatic spectacle worthy of Giacomo Meyerbeer himself. Both of the famous chandelier scenes still work and, yes, the audience still shudders at the second act chandelier crash - which appears to be falling right into our midst. Eventually, the audience realizes that they, too, are characters in the story. Even at San Francisco’s Curran Theatre - exquisitely Victorian in decor but far too small to accommodate all the special effects and the enormous nightly crowds - the effects are breathtaking.

Phantom is an opera lovers’ dream musical, with its hilarious operatic parodies, in-jokes and vignettes of backstage politics. Webber’s opera and opera ballet parodies are alone worth the price of admission. In his sublimely silly Meyerbeer parody "Hannibal" Webber captures every cliché of early 19th century grand opera: The Carthaginian queen in the ‘antique’ bustle gown, the scantily clad ballet girls dancing the slave girls’ ballet with ‘antique’ gestures to pseudo-oriental music, the tenor-without-a-clue, the mechanical elephant! In the 18th century-style opera buffa, "Il Muto," (written á la Salieri), we get sparkling rococo music and a girl playing a cross-dressing boy pretending to be a girl. And the Phantom’s own opera, Don Juan Triumphant, dares to retell Mozart’s Don Giovanni from Don Juan’s point of view!

As in most grand opera, Phantom’s music transfigures its very flaws. We don’t worry about the faulty scansion of some of Charles Hart’s lyrics or about the minor gaps in the plot’s logic. We are instead transported by the sheer beauty of the music, which, in turn, elevates the stock characters to the level of three-dimensional human beings we care about. Instead of wondering just how "cosmically stupid" Christine must be not to have realized sooner that her Angel of Music is really the Phantom of the Opera, we are deeply moved by their strange love story and come to understand the combination of fascination, awe, terror and pity that she feels for her Phantom "master." Instead of ridiculing Raoul’s sheer incompetence as an amateur detective, we feel his anguish and his adoration of Christine. And instead of remembering that the Phantom is a remorseless murderer, extortionist, and "stalker," we fall in love with him and remember not his crimes but the extraordinary poignancy of his farewell scene.

Such is the elevating power of music. Such is the elevating power of love.

[xXphantomaddictedXx]

*thread revival*

I just got through watching this for the first time, and I think it's an acquired taste. It'll probably take me a few more viewings before I really start to appreciate it. But these are the things I noticed...

Erik (or Erique, in this case) doesn't start out disfigured like he usually does. I found that rather odd, but I can live with it. Furthermore, Amitole and Raoul as friends? Hmmm. That made me wonder. :wink:

[angelgirl]

I like this film, but it has a little too much opera and not enough Phantom.
I liked that Biancarolli (the Carlotta character) died.

Raoul and Anatole were just funny, especially when they tried to do things at the same time. And at the end, I figured,
"Yeah, there's a huge possibility they could turn gay!"
A.G.

[xXphantomaddictedXx]

I like this film, but it has a little too much opera and not enough Phantom.
I liked that Biancarolli (the Carlotta character) died.

Raoul and Anatole were just funny, especially when they tried to do things at the same time. And at the end, I figured,
"Yeah, there's a huge possibility they could turn gay!"
A.G.

Maybe they were supposed to be gay but the subplot for it was dismissed? You just never know.

And yeah, I know what you mean about there being too much opera. :eek3: