Phantom of the Opera (1943)

"Our brilliant stage manager insists there's a malicious ghost prowling about the Opera. If anything goes wrong, he thinks this ghost did it!"

Erique Claudin (Rains) is a violinist with the Paris Opera House.  However, despite his 20 years with the company, he is let go after he looses feeling in his fingers.  All of his money has been going towards singing lessons for Christine DuBois (Foster), a young soprano with the opera company.  With the loss of his job he can no longer afford her lessons, so he tries to sell a concerto to music publisher Maurice Pleyel (Miles Mander).  Pleyel refuse to acknowledge the composition and Claudin kills him.  Pleyel's assistant throws acid at Claudin's face, burning him.

Claudin evades the police by hiding in the opera house, much to the chagrin of the new owners, Amiot (Bromberg) and Lecours (Feld).  Stage manager Villeneuve (Puglia) blames the strange happenings on the "opera ghost."  Christine is the understudy to the main opera singer, Biancarolli (Farrar), a diva who does not like Christine.  And Christine is pursued by two suitors: Raoul Dubert (Barrier), the chief of police, and Anatole Garron (Eddy), the lead baritone in the opera.  Claudin, now known as the Phantom of the Opera, has big plans for Christine and isn't afraid to hurt others to reach his goals.  Can Raoul and Anatole stop Claudin and save Christine?


The film is loosely based on the 1910 novel "Le Fantôme de l'Opéra (The Phantom of the Opera)" by Gaston Leroux.  The story was first adapted to film in 1916, Das Phantom der Oper, but it is now considered a lost film.  It was adapted in 1925 by Universal Studios with Lon Chaney in the title role.  It is the iconic performance of the story.

However, Universal decided to remake that film in the 1940s with a different story.  They originally planned to have the Phantom be Christine's father, but later abandoned the idea.  This film gives the Phantom a backstory and shows before he is the Phantom.  It changes the names of the main cast and adds a second love interest for Christine.  While the film is about the Phantom, it spends more time on Christine and her suitors.

Claude Rains is an incredible actor, but this film does not utilize his gifts.  The script doesn't give him much to work with, but he is ok in the role.  This was Rains second time starring in a Universal Studios monster movie: in 1933 he starred in The Invisible Man (a far superior film).  In 1941 he appeared in another Universal Studios monster film, The Wolf Man (starring Lon Chaney Jr).  I am not familiar with the rest of the cast.  The leads are fine, easily selling the opera parts of the film.  Nelson Eddy and Edgar Barrier play off each other well, as the suitors and get some of the lighter moments of the film.  But overall, it is just a so-so film.

Legendary monster makeup artist Jack Pierce created the makeup for the Phantom.  The film was nominated for 4 Academy Awards (Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Music, and Best Scoring) and won for Art Direction and Color Cinematography, making it the only Universal monster movie to win an Oscar.

Universal planned a sequel, reuniting the main cast, called The Climax.  But this film did not do as well as they expected, so the sequel was scrapped and The Climax was given an original plot (and Boris Karloff in a starring role).

Phantom of the Opera (1943) 92 minutes
Director: Arthur Lubin
Starring: Claude Rains as Erique Claudin/The Phantom of the Opera
Nelson Eddy as Anatole Garron
Susanna Foster as Christine DuBois
Edgar Barrier as Raoul Dubert
Jane Farrar as Biancarolli
J. Edward Bromberg as Amiot
Fritz Feld as Lecours
Frank Puglia as Villeneuve
Fritz Leiber Sr. as Franz Liszt