:36:00
He would knock on the door,
and there he was,
:36:03
standing there doing
this insane Hallowe'en poem.
:36:07
And then he would open up his cape,
and we would jump out and say
:36:10
"Trick or treat? Trick or treat?"
:36:14
Four days after Phantom's opening,
Universal announced The Climax,
:36:18
a direct sequel,
reuniting cast and creative team.
:36:22
Nelson Eddy was enthusiastic
about the sequel,
:36:24
but when production neared,
he was not available.
:36:28
Claude Rains had forsworn the mask and
signed a contract with Warner Brothers.
:36:33
Finally reworked as a follow-up
rather than a sequel,
:36:37
The Climax starred Boris Karloff
as a demented theatre physician,
:36:41
worshipping the embalmed corpse
of his murdered wife,
:36:44
while menacing Susanna Foster,
:36:48
whose voice bears an uncanny
resemblance to that of the deceased diva.
:36:53
Tonight you give
your voice and your will to me.
:36:59
I'm in control.
:37:01
The Climax originally was
an old show from New York from the '20s,
:37:04
that had one horrible song in it.
:37:07
Not horrible. The songs in the movie The
Climax were more operetta than opera.
:37:17
It had all the ingredients for success,
including a solid cast.
:37:21
In The Climax, I played
a young Viennese boy called Franz,
:37:25
who was a musician
in love with Susie Foster,
:37:29
who realises what an evil influence
:37:33
the Boris Karloff character
had on this girl.
:37:37
By 1944, Boris Karloff
had become such an indelible horror icon
:37:42
that his simple presence
in a film signified shudders.
:37:46
Boris Karloff, the classic horror actor.
:37:49
He did very little with his voice.
:37:53
He did very little with his face.
He just let it be there.
:37:57
And the eyes are so expressive.
:37:59
I don't know whether you remember the
close-ups of Boris Karloff in The Climax.