The Phantom of the Opera (1962)

Edward De Souza

Michael Gough

**The Phantom of the Opera** is a British film version of Gaston Leroux's ***Le Fantôme de l'Opéra*** made by Hammer Film Productions in 1962 and directed by Terence Fisher.

## Plot

The film opens in Victorian London on a December night in 1900. The first night of the season at the London Opera House finds the opening of a new opera by Lord Ambrose D'Arcy, a wealthy and pompous man, who is annoyed and scornful when the opera manager Lattimer informs him the theatre has not been completely sold out. No one will sit in a certain box because it is haunted. Backstage, despite the soothing efforts of the opera's producer, Harry Hunter, everyone, including the show's star, Maria, is nervous and upset as if a sinister force was at work. The climax comes during Maria's first aria, when a side of the scenery rips apart to reveal the body of a hanged stage hand. In a panic, the curtain is rung down, and Maria refuses to sing again.

With the show postponed, Harry frantically auditions new singers. He finds a promising young star in Christine Charles, one of the chorus girls. Lord Ambrose lecherously approves of the selection, and invites Christine to dinner. In her dressing room, Christine is warned against Lord Ambrose by a Phantom voice. At dinner, Lord Ambrose attempts to seduce her, but as they are about to leave to his apartment, she is saved by Harry. On the ride back home, Christine tells Harry about the voice she heard. Intrigued, Harry takes Christine back to the opera house, where in her dressing room, the same voice tells Harry to leave her there and go. At the same time the rat catcher is murdered by the Phantom's lackey, a dwarf. Investigating the murder, Harry leaves Christine by herself where she is approached by a man dressed in black, wearing a mask with only one eye, The Phantom of the Opera. He tells her she must come with him but she screams and The Phantom flees. Harry comforts her and takes her home.

The next day Lord Ambrose sends a dismissal to Christine for refusing to come back to his apartment. Lord Ambrose chooses a more willing but less talented singer to take Christine's place. When Harry refuses to accept this he is also dismissed by Lord Ambrose. Visiting Christine at her boarding house, Harry finds some old manuscripts which he recognizes as a rough draft of the opera he has been producing. Questioning Christine's landlady Mrs. Tucker, he learns that it was written by a former boarder by the name of Professor Petrie, who had been killed in a fire at a printers that was to print his music. Making further inquiries, he learns that Petrie did not actually perish in the
fire, but was splashed with Nitric Acid while apparently trying to extinguish the blaze, had run away in agony and was drowned in the River Thames. This is confirmed by the policeman who was in the area at the time, but the body was never recovered. Harry and Christine have a romantic day together. While having a moonlight carriage ride Harry tells her about Petrie, and that he is convinced that Lord Ambrose stole Petrie's music. He leaves it at that, as he believes that the Professor is long since dead.

When Christine gets home she is confronted by the dwarf and faints from fright and is carried off. When she wakes she is in the Phantom's lair deep in the cellars of the opera house and the Phantom is playing a huge organ. He tells the frightened girl that he will teach her to sing properly, and rehearses her with fanatical insistence until she collapses from exhaustion. Meanwhile, Harry, reinstated as the opera producer, is worried about Christine's disappearance. Pondering the story of the mysterious Professor, he checks the river where he had
last been seen. At that same moment, he hears the echo of Christine's voice emanating from a storm drain, and soon finds himself following the voice through one of London's water-filled sewers. The faint sound of the organ playing draws him down a tunnel where the dwarf attacks him with a knife. Harry subdues him, and finds himself facing the missing Professor as Christine looks on from a bed, where she'd been sleeping.

Harry asks the professor what had happened in his past. In a flashback, the Phantom says that five years before, as a poor and starving composer, he had been forced to sell all of his music, including the opera, to Lord Ambrose for a pitifully small fee with the thought that his being published would bring him recognition. When he discovered that Lord Ambrose was having the music published under his own name, Petrie became enraged and broke into the printers to destroy the plates. While burning the music that had already been printed, Petrie unwittingly started a fire, then accidentally splashed acid on his face and hands in an effort to put it out, thinking it was water. In terrible agony, he ran out, jumped into the river, and was swept by the current into an underground drain, where he was rescued and cared for by the dwarf. The Phantom says that he is dying but he wishes to see his opera performed by Christine. They both agree to allow him time to complete her voice coaching.

When the opera is presented several weeks later, Lord Ambrose is confronted in his office by the Phantom. He rips off The Phantom's mask and sees his terrifying face, he runs out screaming into the night. As the curtain rises, with Christine in the lead role, the Phantom watches eagerly in the "haunted" box. Her performance brings him to tears as he hears his music finally presented. Listening enraptured to the music, the dwarf is discovered in the catwalks by a stage-hand and in the chase, he jumps onto a huge chandelier poised high above the stage over Christine. As the rope begins to break from the weight, the Phantom spots the danger. He rips off his mask, leaps from his box to the stage and pushes Christine safely from harm. He is impaled by the chandelier before the eyes of the horror-stricken audience. The films ends with Harry and Christine and many other workers looking at the disaster, while the dwarf, still hanging from the rope above, somberly looks down at the Phantom's body below.

## Cast

* Herbert Lom - Professor Petrie/The Phantom
* Heather Sears - Christine Charles
* Edward De Souza - Harry Hunter
* Michael Gough - Ambrose D'Arcy
* Ian Wilson - The Dwarf
* Thorley Walters - Lattimer
* Harold Godwin - Bill
* Martin Miller - Rossi
* Patrick Troughton - The Rat Catcher