:14:01
so I was just myself,
then I sing a couple of songs."
:14:05
Principal photography
started on January 17.
:14:08
One of the first scenes filmed was
between Raoul and Christine's aunt,
:14:12
where the sleuthing baritone forces her to
confess that Claudin is Christine's father.
:14:18
The scene would wind up
on the cutting room floor,
:14:20
as did the entire subplot
of Raoul playing detective.
:14:24
This left Rains' paternal concerns for
the girl explicable only by sexual motives.
:14:29
Most reviewers at the time
commented on the muddled relationship.
:14:32
"They were confused about how to handle
it, even while we were filming"
:14:36
Susanna Foster told me.
:14:38
Lubin said "I always felt
that he should be her father."
:14:41
"Otherwise, it would be a little nasty."
:14:43
Lubin did not like this December-May
romance that the film now implies
:14:48
between the older man and the young girl.
:14:50
Universal didn't help
:14:53
by releasing a story that a scene had been
made of Claudin, in his madness,
:14:57
hearing Christine as a child singing
Claude Debussy's Clair de Lune,
:15:01
and that they had a childhood recording
of Susanne singing the song.
:15:06
Not true, Susanna says.
"I never sang Clair de Lune in my life."
:15:13
Renewing their story option for Phantom
of the Opera on September 17, 1941,
:15:18
for the sum of $1,
Universal intended to cross-pollinate
:15:21
their two most lucrative genres: horror
movies and Deanna Durbin musicals.
:15:25
Phantom was to be produced by Joe
Pasternak and directed by Henry Koster
:15:29
as a showcase for Durbin. Lon Chaney Jr
wanted badly to reprise his father's role.
:15:35
But the studio wanted Charles Laughton.
His performance as Quasimodo
:15:39
in the recent RKO remake
of The Hunchback of Notre Dame
:15:42
made him a logical successor
as a character actor.
:15:44
He had also
just co-starred with Deanna Durbin,
:15:47
playing her surrogate father
in It Started with Eve.
:15:50
Following story conferences
and a reading of Leroux's novel,
:15:54
writer John Jacoby recommended
dispensing with the supernatural mood.
:15:58
He said "The phantom could be played
by any well-made-up extra."