“The Phantom of the Opera” closed on April 16 after 13,981 performances on Broadway. With 35 years on the Great White Way, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s wildly popular musical has held the record for the longest-running show on Broadway since 2006. However, this was by no means an original story when it debuted in London’s West End in 1986. It started as a 1910 Gothic French novel by Gaston Leroux, and it’s remained a very popular story since then, having been adapted multiple times.
This story was made into multiple films before the musical by composer Lloyd Webber and lyricist Charles Hart was even a thought. The most famous of these is the 1925 Universal silent film starring Lon Chaney, which was the first American adaptation. It began the studio’s successful run of horror films and established “The Phantom of the Opera” as a horror story, which it wasn’t originally. The second major motion picture based on this story was made in 1943, starring Claude Rains as the Phantom, Susanna Foster as his muse, Christine, and Nelson Eddy as his rival for Christine and a singer at the Paris Opera.
If you’re familiar with any other version of “The Phantom of the Opera,” you’ll find the 1943 version very different. Nevertheless, if you’re even a casual “phan,” you should see this film. It’s the only version of this story made during the Golden Era of Hollywood. It’s also unique in that it remains a serious adaptation of the novel while presenting an unusual take on the story. The film itself is almost forgotten today, but now is the perfect time to unmask this obscure classic, which established many trends that would be continued in later versions.
A Phantastic Story
The original plot of the novel follows Christine Daae, a young Swedish soprano in the Paris Opera chorus in the 1890s. She has been receiving miraculous vocal instruction from a mysterious voice behind her dressing room mirror; she believes he is the Angel of Music, sent by her beloved late father. Little does she know that her angel is actually a deformed genius who haunts the opera house as the fabled Phantom of the Opera and that he will stop at nothing to make her a prima donna. Meanwhile, she is reunited with a childhood friend, Raoul de Chagny, who now becomes an admirer and the Phantom’s rival. Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical follows this basic plot pretty closely, as does the 1925 film, but the details and characterizations in both made the overall stories very different.The 1943 film’s plot is so different from the original, it also could be considered a fanfiction. (Or should I say “phanfiction?”) The leading lady is Christine Dubois (Foster), a young soprano from Provence. Although the opera conductor, Monsieur Villeneuve (Frank Puglia), warns her against getting involved with someone who wouldn’t understand the sacrifices of a musician’s life, Christine has two admirers, the opera’s leading baritone, Anatole Garron (Eddy), and a police inspector, Raoul Daubert (Edgar Barrier). She has been studying with famous opera maestro Signor Ferretti (Leo Carillo), but she doesn’t know that her expensive lessons are being funded by a middle-aged violinist named Erique Claudin (Rains). He too is from Provence, and he has taken an interest in the young woman’s opera career, although he barely dares to speak to her. However, Claudin’s anonymous patronage of the young soprano has drained the savings he had accumulated during his twenty years of playing in the opera orchestra.
When Villeneuve dismisses Claudin because age has dulled the precision of his playing, he is basically penniless. Desperate to continue secretly funding Christine’s lessons, Claudin tries to sell a concerto he’s been writing for years to a prominent publisher, Pleyel (Miles Mander). However, when the desperate composer hears his music being played in the next room, he assumes that Pleyel has stolen it and strangles him in a fit of rage. His horrified assistant, Georgette (Renee Carson), splashes a tray of record acid in Claudin’s face, and he runs out, screaming in agony. He seeks refuge in the city’s intricate sewer system, eventually making his lair beside the lake under the opera house. Stealing an upper face mask, a wide-brimmed hat, and a cape from the prop room, he becomes the Phantom of the Opera, using threats, sleeping powder, and murder to make Christine a singing star.
Phantom Plot Points
There are many brilliant elements of this movie, and there are also many points which are weak, confusing, or completely unexplained. The production was plagued by casting difficulties. The original idea was for Lon Chaney, Jr., to reprise his father’s famous role. Then, they planned to use Universal’s main singing star, Deanna Durbin, as Christine, with Charles Laughton, who had successfully reprised Chaney’s role of the titular “Hunchback of Notre Dame” in 1939, as the Phantom. When neither of these ideas worked out, they decided to take the production in an entirely different direction. Instead of being deformed from birth, as originally planned, this Phantom became the first version of the character to be disfigured by an accident. Instead of being a talented singer who trains Christine’s voice himself, Erique (instead of Erik) is a violinist who pays for her vocal training. There is no explanation of why he chose Christine as his protegee or even when he first heard her sing. We know that he has a deep, unexpressed love for her, but we never find out how or when it started.The original story idea was that Erique is Christine’s long-lost father, who abandoned his wife and child to pursue his music. This explains his being a violinist, since Christine’s father played the violin in the original novel. However, it was eventually decided that creating a filial connection between this classic romantic couple would add an incestuous flavor, so the father angle was removed. That implication isn’t detectable in the finished film, but without it, the only explanation for his connection with her is that they both come from Provence. The Phantom and Christine are usually a May-September romance, but it’s more noticeable in this film because he starts out as a normal middle-aged gentleman instead of an outcast who has been called a freak his whole life. However, Claudin is the gentlest, most unassuming Phantom imaginable. He doesn’t demand love or even gratitude from Christine; he doesn’t even reveal what he’s done for her until the end. We have to almost admire his genuine, selfless love for Christine, since he gives up everything for her sake.
The 1943 film was the first movie in which the Phantom’s mask looked like a costume accessory, hiding only part of his face, instead of a full-face covering; it also made the mask a fashion statement of sorts. This was the first version in which the Phantom killed the prima donna to give Christine her chance; Lloyd Webber put a slight twist on this by having him kill the leading tenor as a gruesome warning. In fact, the climactic performance of the Phantom’s opera in the musical was very similar to the 1943’s finale, in which the Phantom murders a walk-on character to steal his costume (and mask) and thus enter the opera performance unrecognized. In the final and only scene in the Phantom’s lair, he dramatically plays the piano while commanding, “Sing, Christine! Sing!” This clearly inspired the title song of the Broadway musical, which features the Phantom shouting “Sing!” at Christine while the poor soprano shrieks high notes.
More Opera Than Phantom
The 1943 film is unique among adaptations of this story because it focuses more on the opera than on the Phantom. As a result, it features some beautiful classical music. Because this movie was made during World War II, it was impossible or at least very costly for Hollywood studios to get the rights to famous operas, such as Charles Gounod’s “Faust,” which play key roles in the novel. Instead, they created fictional operas by setting words to instrumental classical pieces, including a very intense Russian opera based on Piotr Ilych Tchaikovsky’s 4th Symphony. Nelson Eddy, a famous operatic baritone who spent the majority of his career at MGM in operettas opposite Jeanette MacDonald, gets to shine in these opera scenes. This was his first movie after leaving MGM and the only film he made at Universal Studios. With dark hair and a mustache, he looks dashing but very different from his usual fair-haired, clean-shaven self. However, his beautiful voice and amazing breath control are very recognizable! Susanna Foster fancied herself a second Jeanette MacDonald, so she enjoyed singing opposite Nelson Eddy. She isn’t as accurate or sincere as other young Hollywood sopranos of her day, such as Deanna Durbin or Kathryn Grayson, but she shows off her claim to fame in this movie: her ability to sing the B above high C!One of my biggest complaints is that we don’t see enough of Claude Rains’s brilliant interpretation of the tortured composer after he becomes the Phantom. After that, he spends most of his time as a shadow on a wall and a disembodied voice. His relationship with Christine is tragically underdeveloped, since he doesn’t bring her to his lair or even interact with her until the very end. The other problem is that the love triangle was turned into a clumsy love square, since Christine has two suitors besides the Phantom. Anatole alone would have been a perfect rival for Claudin, but the addition of the policeman as well is awkward. As is often the case when a character is split in two, the result is two half-characters. The two men look confusingly similar, and they end up being comedy relief as a bumbling duo. Perhaps that’s because director Arthur Lubin was famous for directing Abbott and Costello films!
If you are saddened by the end of the Phantom’s haunt on Broadway, I encourage you to explore the 1943 film. It’s available to rent or purchase on Amazon Prime Video and on DVD at Amazon. It’s a deeply flawed but still extremely brilliant take on this powerful story. Although this is a bittersweet occasion for “phans” around the world, perhaps other versions of this beloved story will now have a chance to unmask themselves.
