:21:02
Their director, Arthur Lubin,
moved to the A roster.
:21:05
No stranger to horror, Lubin could scare
up a phantom on time and on budget.
:21:11
His producer, George Waggner,
knew something about horror,
:21:15
having produced The Wolf Man
and other chillers.
:21:18
Mr Waggner was a complex man.
He was a cowboy, basically.
:21:22
Big, you know, impressive person,
:21:26
with steely blue-grey eyes,
:21:29
and with a lot of music
and things inside him.
:21:32
And it was a great opportunity
for him to do Phantom.
:21:36
He loved music. Like most of the...
:21:39
Most of the producers at Universal
had something to do with music.
:21:44
Either it was their hobby,
or it had been their profession,
:21:47
or it still was their profession.
:21:49
Waggner also knew about the "Son
of a Thousand Faces", Lon Chaney Jnr,
:21:54
who lobbied to reprise
his father's greatest role.
:21:59
Chaney was never seriously considered,
:22:01
but the equally unlikely contract player
Broderick Crawford was.
:22:05
Suggestions that "budget bobbysoxer"
Grace MacDonald portray Christine
:22:10
were quickly gagged.
:22:12
Phantom was now a million-dollar movie,
needing a million-dollar star.
:22:17
Universal's Invisible Man, Claude Rains,
:22:19
was between contracts
at Warner Brothers.
:22:23
In Hollywood, Rains
always projected urbane sophistication,
:22:27
but it was an image hard earned.
:22:29
I am always in awe
of how terribly elegant he was.
:22:35
He was one of 12 children.
:22:39
All but two died from
poverty-related illnesses in London.
:22:44
This was not an elegant upbringing.
He had a very strong cockney accent,
:22:48
which I couldn't understand
when he spoke with it.
:22:52
He also had
a couple of speech impediments.
:22:54
He couldn't say Rs.
:22:57
His name was William Rains,
so he called himself Willy Wains.