Phantom of the Opera
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:30:01
Some of the highlights include
:30:03
Paul Leni's 1929 haunted-theatre
mystery comedy, The Last Warning,

:30:09
and its 1939 remake, The House of Fear.
:30:13
Also in 1925, PáI Fejös
made The Last Performance,

:30:17
starring Mary Philbin and Conrad Veidt.
:30:22
Bela Lugosi attended
the ballet in The Raven.

:30:26
David Bruce as The Mad Ghoul
attempted to throttle Turhan Bey,

:30:31
while Evelyn Ankers sang her heart out
on the Phantom stage.

:30:35
In A Double Life Ronald Colman
played a mad actor

:30:38
in a legitimate New York theatre,
which was doubled by the Phantom stage.

:30:42
John Barrymore, in Svengali, again
brought madness to the forefront.

:30:47
The interior of the theatre
had supporting columns to give it variety,

:30:50
and in Svengali the grand staircase foyer
was also featured.

:30:55
More mundane, normal presentations
:30:58
include the 1926 Universal film
The Midnight Sun,

:31:01
where it doubled as the Russian ballet,
:31:04
Alfred Hitchcock's Torn Curtain, where
it was an East German opera house,

:31:08
Thoroughly Modern Millie,
:31:10
and a burlesque house in the
Paul Newman/Robert Redford The Sting.

:31:16
By January 5, 1943 Samuel Hoffenstein
had reworked the script with Eric Taylor,

:31:21
switching the part of Raoul
from inventor to operatic baritone,

:31:25
after Nelson Eddy,
whose MGM contract had expired,

:31:28
was signed for the picture in December.
:31:30
Eddy's hair was nearly blond,
and Lubin suggested dying it black

:31:35
as "in those days, you always
thought of a Frenchman with dark hair".

:31:39
Eddy protested that
he'd rather give up the part,

:31:42
until Lubin explained
to the reluctant baritone

:31:44
that they would find
a hair dye that would wash out.

:31:47
So he put a black hairdressing on him
and he was thrilled.

:31:51
Samuel Hoffenstein was a Russian
whose best work was done

:31:54
with the Armenian director Rouben
Mamoulian at Paramount in the early '30s:

:31:58
Love Me Tonight with Chevalier
and Jeanette MacDonald,


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