:01:03
He did everything: John Wayne westerns,
Karloff and Lugosi horror movies,
:01:07
Abbott and Costello comedies,
dramas, dead-end-kid movies, musicals,
:01:11
Maria Montez movies,
Francis the Talking Mule movies,
:01:15
and later, in the 1960s, created Mister Ed.
:01:19
This was the first A-budget picture
for producer George Waggner,
:01:23
who, like Lubin, had toiled
at Monogram as a B-movie writer,
:01:26
often under the pen name Joseph West.
:01:28
Lubin had directed Waggner's script for
Midnight Intruder at Universal in 1938,
:01:33
and Waggner got the chance
to produce, direct and write
:01:35
Lon Chaney Jr's pilot horror quickie,
Man Made Monster, in 1941.
:01:40
Completed for under $90,000,
:01:43
Man Made Monster
and its co-feature, Horror Island,
:01:46
put Waggner on the map at the studio,
:01:48
with regard to quality and efficiency
on a ridiculously low budget.
:01:52
Waggner was rewarded
with The Wolf Man,
:01:54
and ultimately broke
the big time with Phantom.
:01:57
Please note, in his filmography
the movie The Phantom Stage
:02:00
is a western, and not
a dry run for the movie at hand.
:02:04
Arthur Lubin had no choice
in making Phantom.
:02:07
It was assigned to him-he never knew
why-but he loved the film.
:02:10
Making it was a very happy occasion,
and he always felt very lucky
:02:13
that he was assigned to it.
:02:15
Arthur lived to be 94, and to the end
of his life, he was proud of this picture.
:02:20
His assistant director was Charlie Gould,
who was Lubin's regular assistant.
:02:25
This camera move,
coming off the chandelier
:02:28
to reveal Edgar Barrier at the curtains,
was Gould's suggestion.
:02:31
Lubin told me that Gould
was related to Ernst Laemmle,
:02:34
and he was a very creative man
full of wonderful suggestions,
:02:37
and that he wanted to be a director.
"He would direct me" said Lubin,
:02:41
and he'd whisper to his director "It would
be better if you'd go over this way",
:02:46
and suggest an alternate setup
for the camera.
:02:50
Lubin was born in Los Angeles in 1901.
:02:53
He was four years behind Harold Lloyd
at San Diego High School,
:02:56
and Lloyd got the teenage movie-crazy
Lubin into a real movie studio,
:02:59
Famous Players-Lasky,
during a summer vacation break.