:11:02
Mr Skeffington and The Sea Hawk.
:11:05
Note how Claudin commits a faux pas by
calling Miss Dubois by her first name.
:11:10
Rains' playing is wonderfully tender,
how he bites his lip and looks contrite.
:11:15
In the original script, Claudin was
Christine's father. She does not know this.
:11:20
We'll learn more about this diverted
subplot as the picture unfolds.
:11:25
Rains was much in demand
for outside pictures
:11:27
such as Mr Smith Goes
to Washington and Notorious.
:11:30
He had previously acted
for George Waggner in The Wolf Man,
:11:33
which is surprising, in that he had turned
down in 1938 an offer from Universal
:11:38
"because Rains did not like it
as it was a Frankenstein".
:11:42
That's a quote from a memo
from Roy Obringer to Hal Wallis
:11:45
regarding Rains' contract's
allowal of an outside picture.
:11:49
If Robin Hood's Prince John
wouldn't play Wolf Frankenstein,
:11:52
Robin Hood's Sheriff of Nottingham,
Basil Rathbone, would be loaned out
:11:55
as the Son of Frankenstein.
:11:58
Rathbone, coincidentally,
covered for Rains as the phantom
:12:01
when the Lux Radio Theater broadcast
a one-hour dramatisation of the film
:12:05
in September 1943, with Susanna Foster
and Nelson Eddy reprising their roles.
:12:10
Miss Foster recalls Rathbone keeping
an oxygen tank in his dressing room
:12:14
and charging up before the performance.
:12:18
Rains completed Casablanca
just prior to Phantom.
:12:20
His contract was up at Warners
when he took Phantom as a freelance.
:12:24
March 15, 1943,
the day after shooting wrapped,
:12:27
he signed a new two-year four-picture
deal with Warner Brothers.
:12:31
When Phantom became a money machine
for Universal, they wanted a sequel.
:12:35
But Rains said no. He much preferred
Mr Skeffington and Passage to Marseille
:12:39
than more horror films.
:12:41
Rains, according to Arthur Lubin,
spent one month in preproduction
:12:45
learning to play piano and violin
so that he would be technically correct.
:12:52
Rains loathed the Hollywood life
:12:54
and lived in Pennsylvania farm country,
and later New Hampshire.
:12:58
He endured Hollywood
for the time it took to make a picture,