…has a lot going for it, if you are willing to take it on its own terms. Like Gaston Leroux’s original novel, the 1943 film with Claude Rains, and the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, this version emphasises the tragic love story angle not the horror one. It should be noted that the original Lon Chaney version had the Phantom dying of a broken heart (stills of this ending exist) before preview audiences saw him as a monster and insisted on a more dramatic ending. It’s thanks to Chaney and Universal that the Phantom came to be thought of as an evil character rather than a tragic one. However since this was being produced by Hammer Films whose name had now become synonymous with horror, people expected more and still do.
A little background history (courtesy of Hammer Films authority Marcus Hearn) explains a lot. The script was written with Cary Grant in mind (he approached Hammer and had expressed an interest in being in one of their movies) and thus the dwarf character was created to do the murders (Cary Grant wouldn’t kill people in cold blood). With Grant supposedly on board, the Phantom was intended to be much more sympathetic, a character more sinned against then sinning hence the backstory of having his music stolen. Once Grant went on his merry way after not signing a contract, this approach was still retained and the role was given to 45 year old Herbert Lom who was 2 years away from Inspector Dreyfus in the PINK PANTHER films.
Director Terence Fisher wanted the emphasis to be on the music as well as the characters and that emphasis is quite clear in the finished film. This called for more elaborate staging and more people to be involved and so the cost grew. The BBFC (British Board of Film Censors) then insisted on a number of cuts and when released, the film was poorly received in England and wound up losing big money. This failure caused Fisher to be unofficially “retired” and he wouldn’t make another Hammer film for 2 years after directing 12 Gothics for them in the previous 5 years. That film would be THE GORGON and would restore him to the studio’s good graces but he essentially never recovered and would make only 6 films during the next 12 years. Now on to the film itself.
PHANTOM is gorgeous to look at and is full of Fisher’s masterful use of color and light. It also features his enhanced narrative editing style and sophisticated moving camerawork. In addition to Lom, who is superb, Heather Sears is a wonderfully naive Christine while Eduard De Souza’s Harry (not Raoul) is charming and engaging. It’s also good to see Hammer regular Thorley Walters not doing his usual befuuddled old man routine. After Lom, the top prize goes to Michael Gough as the thoroughly detestable Lord Ambrose D’Arcy. He’s so vile that you want to open a window as soon as he’s offscreen. So forget the horror, enjoy the music and the settings, and let the Phantom’s tragic tale envelop you. If you do that, you’ll find that there is much here to admire.
The Capsule Critic 