The Phantom of the Opera (1962) on Netflix
A murdered stagehand's body drops from the wings on opening night at the London Opera House. Producer Harry Hunter auditions singers and finds Christine Charles, who hears a bodiless voice.
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Trailer
Plot summary
In 1900 the London Opera House opens a new opera by Lord Ambrose d'Arcy, and one box stays empty because nobody will sit in it. Pandemonium breaks out when a stagehand's corpse is flung from the wings while the leading lady, Maria, sings her first aria. The performance is postponed and Maria refuses to go on again, so the producer Harry Hunter auditions replacement singers and finds Christine Charles among the chorus girls. Lord Ambrose, taken with her, invites her to dinner. In her dressing room a voice with no body warns her against him. He tries to seduce her and Harry intervenes. She tells Harry about the voice, and he takes her back to the theater, where the voice tells him to leave.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Phantom of the Opera (1962)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Herbert Lom refused to smash his head against a stone pillar for a scene in The Phantom of the Opera, because the Hammer producers told him they could not afford one made of rubber. Making a rubber pillar that looked like stone took them half a day.
- Cary Grant, who had expressed interest in making a Hammer horror film, was who producer Anthony Hinds had in mind when he wrote the script; Hinds said he "wrote the script for Cary Grant," and the part was more likely the Phantom than the subordinate romantic lead.
- For the film's American television premiere on NBC, extra Scotland Yard scenes, with Liam Redmond and John Maddison as police inspectors hunting the Phantom, were shot at Universal Studios to increase the running time; Hammer Productions had no input at all.
SPOILER
All the flashback scenes showing how Professor Petrie became the Phantom were filmed with "Dutch angles," the camera noticeably tilted, to give the unreal, off-kilter effect long used in film to represent a flashback or a dream.
