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Phantom of the Opera (1943 film)
Encyclopedia
Phantom of the Opera is a 1943 Universal horror film starring Nelson Eddy
, Susanna Foster
and Claude Rains
, directed by Arthur Lubin
, and filmed in Technicolor
. The original music score was composed by Edward Ward
.
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
.
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 conductor 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 etching
s 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 obsessed 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 and her maid. 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 while Garron plans to have Liszt 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. Anatole then tells Christine that she and Erique had come from the same town district which she responds with by saying while Erique had seemed a bit like a stranger to her 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.
, Susanna Foster
, Claude Rains
, and Edgar Barrier.
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 incest
uous overtones.
Edgar Barrier played Raoul, taking little more than the name from Gaston Leroux
's original story.
Also of note in the cast were J. Edward Bromberg
, Hume Cronyn
and Fritz Leiber
as composer Franz Liszt
.
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. This presentation was produced and hosted by Cecil B. DeMille
.
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's
Symphony 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
.
Nelson Eddy
Nelson Ackerman Eddy was an American singer and actor who appeared in 19 musical films during the 1930s and 1940s, as well as in opera and on the concert stage, radio, television, and in nightclubs. A classically trained baritone, he is best remembered for the eight films in which he costarred...
, Susanna Foster
Susanna Foster
Suzanne DeLee Flanders Larson was an American film actress best known for her leading role as Christine in the 1943 film version of The Phantom of the Opera....
and Claude Rains
Claude Rains
Claude Rains was an English stage and film actor whose career spanned 66 years. He was known for many roles in Hollywood films, among them the title role in The Invisible Man , a corrupt senator in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington , Mr...
, directed by Arthur Lubin
Arthur Lubin
Arthur Lubin was an American film director and producer who directed several Abbott & Costello films and created the TV series Mr. Ed.Arthur Lubin was born Arthur William Lubovsky in Los Angeles, California in 1898...
, and filmed in Technicolor
Technicolor
Technicolor is a color motion picture process invented in 1916 and improved over several decades.It was the second major process, after Britain's Kinemacolor, and the most widely used color process in Hollywood from 1922 to 1952...
. The original music score was composed by Edward Ward
Edward Ward (composer)
Edward Ward was a film composer and music director who was nominated for seven Academy Awards during a career that spanned thirty-seven years and included more than 150 projects.-Academy Award nominations:...
.
The auditorium set, a replica of the Opéra Garnier
Palais Garnier
The Palais Garnier, , is an elegant 1,979-seat opera house, which was built from 1861 to 1875 for the Paris Opera. It was originally called the Salle des Capucines because of its location on the Boulevard des Capucines in the 9th arrondissement of Paris, but soon became known as the Palais Garnier...
interior, created for the 1925 version
The Phantom of the Opera (1925 film)
The Phantom of the Opera is a 1925 American silent horror film adaptation of the Gaston Leroux novel of the same title directed by Rupert Julian. The film featured Lon Chaney in the title role as the deformed Phantom who haunts the Paris Opera House, causing murder and mayhem in an attempt to force...
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
Cinematography
Cinematography is the making of lighting and camera choices when recording photographic images for cinema. It is closely related to the art of still photography...
were Hal Mohr
Hal Mohr
Hal Mohr, A.S.C. was a famed movie cinematographer.-Career:In 1915, in an early example of an exploitation film peddled directly to theater owners, Mohr and Sol Lesser produced and directed a film The Last Night of the Barbary Coast...
and W. Howard Greene
W. Howard Greene
William Howard Greene was a cinematographer. He was born in Connecticut and died in Los Angeles.Greene, sometimes billed as William H. Greene and W. Howard Greene, was a cinematographer on many early Technicolor films, including Legong: Dance of the Virgins .-External links:*...
.
Plot
Erique Claudin (Rains) has been a violinist at the Paris Opera HousePalais Garnier
The Palais Garnier, , is an elegant 1,979-seat opera house, which was built from 1861 to 1875 for the Paris Opera. It was originally called the Salle des Capucines because of its location on the Boulevard des Capucines in the 9th arrondissement of Paris, but soon became known as the Palais Garnier...
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 conductor 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
Soprano
A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...
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 etching
Etching
Etching is the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio in the metal...
s 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
Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt ; ), was a 19th-century Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher.Liszt became renowned in Europe during the nineteenth century for his virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age...
. 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.
Mask
A mask is an article normally worn on the face, typically for protection, disguise, performance or entertainment. Masks have been used since antiquity for both ceremonial and practical purposes...
from the costume department to cover his now-disfigured face and becomes obsessed with Christine. Meanwhile, Inspector Raoul D’Aubert (Edgar Barrier
Edgar Barrier
Edgar Barrier was an American actor who appeared on radio, stage, and screen. In the 1930s he was a member of Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre and played Simon Templar on The Saint radio show....
) wants Christine to quit the Opera and marry him. But famed opera baritone Anatole Garron (Nelson Eddy
Nelson Eddy
Nelson Ackerman Eddy was an American singer and actor who appeared in 19 musical films during the 1930s and 1940s, as well as in opera and on the concert stage, radio, television, and in nightclubs. A classically trained baritone, he is best remembered for the eight films in which he costarred...
) 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 and her maid. 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 while Garron plans to have Liszt 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. Anatole then tells Christine that she and Erique had come from the same town district which she responds with by saying while Erique had seemed a bit like a stranger to her 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.
Cast
The film featured some of the most popular stars of its time, such as Nelson EddyNelson Eddy
Nelson Ackerman Eddy was an American singer and actor who appeared in 19 musical films during the 1930s and 1940s, as well as in opera and on the concert stage, radio, television, and in nightclubs. A classically trained baritone, he is best remembered for the eight films in which he costarred...
, Susanna Foster
Susanna Foster
Suzanne DeLee Flanders Larson was an American film actress best known for her leading role as Christine in the 1943 film version of The Phantom of the Opera....
, Claude Rains
Claude Rains
Claude Rains was an English stage and film actor whose career spanned 66 years. He was known for many roles in Hollywood films, among them the title role in The Invisible Man , a corrupt senator in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington , Mr...
, and Edgar Barrier.
Newcomer Susanna Foster plays Christine Dubois, a soprano at the Paris Opera House.
Nelson Eddy plays Anatole Garron, a baritone
Baritone
Baritone is a type of male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek , meaning deep sounding, music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C Baritone (or...
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
Broderick Crawford
Broderick Crawford was an Academy Award-winning American stage, film, radio and TV actor, often cast in tough-guy roles and best known for his starring role in the television series "Highway Patrol."-Early life:...
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 incest
Incest
Incest is sexual intercourse between close relatives that is usually illegal in the jurisdiction where it takes place and/or is conventionally considered a taboo. The term may apply to sexual activities between: individuals of close "blood relationship"; members of the same household; step...
uous overtones.
Edgar Barrier played Raoul, taking little more than the name from Gaston Leroux
Gaston Leroux
Gaston Louis Alfred Leroux was a French journalist and author of detective fiction.In the English-speaking world, he is best known for writing the novel The Phantom of the Opera , which has been made into several film and stage productions of the same name, notably the 1925 film starring Lon...
's original story.
Also of note in the cast were J. Edward Bromberg
J. Edward Bromberg
Joseph Edward Bromberg was a Hungarian-born American character actor in motion picture and stage productions dating mostly from the 1930s and 1940s....
, Hume Cronyn
Hume Cronyn
Hume Blake Cronyn, OC was a Canadian actor of stage and screen, who enjoyed a long career, often appearing professionally alongside his second wife, Jessica Tandy.-Early life:...
and Fritz Leiber
Fritz Leiber
Fritz Reuter Leiber, Jr. was an American writer of fantasy, horror and science fiction. He was also a poet, actor in theatre and films, playwright, expert chess player and a champion fencer. Possibly his greatest chess accomplishment was winning clear first in the 1958 Santa Monica Open.. With...
as composer Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt ; ), was a 19th-century Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher.Liszt became renowned in Europe during the nineteenth century for his virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age...
.
During the same year that the film was released, Phantom of the Opera was adapted into an audio presentation for the Lux Radio Theater
Lux Radio Theater
Lux Radio Theater, a long-run classic radio anthology series, was broadcast on the NBC Blue Network ; CBS and NBC . Initially, the series adapted Broadway plays during its first two seasons before it began adapting films. These hour-long radio programs were performed live before studio audiences...
. Nelson Eddy, Susanna Foster and Edgar Barrier reprised their roles, but instead of Claude Rains, Basil Rathbone
Basil Rathbone
Sir Basil Rathbone, KBE, MC, Kt was an English actor. He rose to prominence in England as a Shakespearean stage actor and went on to appear in over 70 films, primarily costume dramas, swashbucklers, and, occasionally, horror films...
played Erique Claudin. This presentation was produced and hosted by Cecil B. DeMille
Cecil B. DeMille
Cecil Blount DeMille was an American film director and Academy Award-winning film producer in both silent and sound films. He was renowned for the flamboyance and showmanship of his movies...
.
Score
Edward WardEdward Ward (composer)
Edward Ward was a film composer and music director who was nominated for seven Academy Awards during a career that spanned thirty-seven years and included more than 150 projects.-Academy Award nominations:...
wrote the score. The film has many elements of a musical, with lengthy opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
sequences, and has been criticized for being more musical than horrific. For the opera sequences, Ward adapted music from Tchaikovsky's
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Russian: Пётр Ильи́ч Чайко́вский ; often "Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky" in English. His names are also transliterated "Piotr" or "Petr"; "Ilitsch", "Il'ich" or "Illyich"; and "Tschaikowski", "Tschaikowsky", "Chajkovskij"...
Symphony No. 4
Symphony No. 4 (Tchaikovsky)
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 4 in F minor, Op. 36, was written between 1877 and 1878. The symphony's first performance was at a Russian Musical Society concert in Saint Petersburg on February 10 /February 22 1878, with Nikolai Rubinstein as conductor.- Form :The symphony is in four...
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
Piano concerto
A piano concerto is a concerto written for piano and orchestra.See also harpsichord concerto; some of these works are occasionally played on piano...
.
Cancelled sequel
Following the success of Phantom of the Opera, Universal announced that a sequel would be made, titled The Climax. 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.Awards
The film was nominated for four Academy Awards, winning in two categories:- Art Direction (Color) (John B. GoodmanJohn B. GoodmanJohn B. Goodman was an American art director. He won an Academy Award and was nominated for three more in the category Best Art Direction. He worked on 208 films between 1934 and 1968, including It's a Gift starring W.C...
, Alexander GolitzenAlexander GolitzenAlexander Golitzen, oversaw art direction on more than 300 movies.Prince Alexander Golitzen was born in Moscow, but fled the country with his family during the Russian Revolution. Travelling via Siberia and China, they arrived in Seattle, where Alexander graduated from high school...
, Russell A. GausmanRussell A. GausmanRussell A. Gausman was an American set decorator. He was won two Academy Awards and was nominated for five more in the category Best Art Direction...
, Ira S. WebbIra S. WebbIra S. Webb was an American film producer, set decorator, screenwriter, art director and film director. He won an Academy Award and was nominated for two more in the category Best Art Direction.-Selected filmography:...
) (Won) - Cinematography (Color) (Hal Mohr, W. Howard Greene) (Won)
- Music (Scoring of a Musical Picture) (Edward Ward) (Nominated)
- Sound Recording (Bernard B. BrownBernard B. BrownBernard B. Brown was an American sound engineer. He won an Academy Award in the category Sound Recording and was nominated for seven more in the same category. He was also nominated three times in the category Best Visual Effects...
) (Nominated)