:19:01
and Cesar Romero as Raoul.
:19:04
Psychologically wounded in World War l,
:19:07
the new Phantom was a shell-shocked
music master in contemporary Paris,
:19:12
whose mental derangement
made him imagine his disfigurement.
:19:16
Would he be played
by Karloff the Uncanny,
:19:19
or the great opera star Fyodor Chaliapin?
:19:23
1936 economy measures
at the new Universal,
:19:26
coupled with the British embargo
on horror films, banished this Phantom.
:19:31
Twentieth Century Fox
seized the moment,
:19:33
and cast Boris Karloff as a masked
Mephisto in Charlie Chan at the Opera.
:19:39
But like all good Universal monsters,
:19:42
the Phantom was only resting,
waiting for new life to come.
:19:46
By 1939, a son was born
to the House of Frankenstein,
:19:50
along with a daughter,
teenage songbird Deanna Durbin,
:19:54
whose box-office appeal
was also of monstrous proportions.
:19:59
She was the star of the studio.
:20:03
The studio had recovered
from going down financially
:20:07
because of Deanna's first picture,
Three Smart Girls.
:20:10
In 1941, the Phantom was to be reborn,
remade, rejuvenated once again,
:20:17
even if he must play
second fiddle to Deanna.
:20:19
Charles Laughton,
acclaimed for his portrayal of Quasimodo
:20:23
in the 1939 remake
of The Hunchback of Notre Dame,
:20:27
had just played Durbin's
surrogate father in It Started with Eve,
:20:31
for director Henry Koster.
:20:33
"Why not", thought Koster, "reunite them,
:20:36
and make Erique and Christine
father and daughter?"
:20:39
Koster told the press that his Technicolor
movie would present the backstage opera
:20:44
in tones of grey and brown,
:20:46
and then the splash of bright red blood.
:20:50
Durbin saw red, too,
and rejected the script.
:20:54
As 1941 ended,
Universal's family included
:20:57
the immensely popular
comedy team of Abbott and Costello.