The New Pictures

The Phantom of the Opera (Universal) contains more opera than phantom, more trills than thrills. In this it differs from the original Phantom, which Universal produced in the shock-absorbing '20s as a shivery vehicle for the late multiform Lon Chaney. The 1943 Phantom is bantam-sized Claude Rains, who attempts to terrify by sheer force of character, scar tissue and Technicolor. Scuttling about in a robin's-egg blue mask, Cinemactor Rains scares nobody but his fellow cinemactors.

A sensitive bit of casting finally lands Baritone Nelson Eddy in his first horror picture. Here Eddy is Anatole Carron of the Paris Opera, who loves operatic Understudy Christine Dubois (Susanna Foster). She seems fated to go on understudying indefinitely until befriended by Enrique Claudin (Claude Rains). For Christine, Claudin has a vast but secret passion. Fired from the orchestra, a pan of acid is thrown at him, starts him on his exhilarating career as Phantom.

To further Christine's career he steals the master key of the opera house, puts a Mickey Finn into Christine's rival's drink, sends poison-pen letters, strangles a soprano and her maid, saws a huge chandelier from its chain during the performance of an opera in which Christine's rival is singing. The hard-pressed Surete (French FBI) ultimately has to call on Composer Franz Liszt (German Shakespearian Actor Fritz Leiber) to aid them in bagging the cagey Phantom.

Holy Matrimony (20th Century-Fox) unites that bland bully Monty Woolley (The Man Who Came to Dinner) and British Singer Grade Fields, results in a bouncing comedy. The fun revolves around a corpse. When his valet (Eric Blore) dies, great British Painter Priam Farll (Monty Woolley) has the body buried in Westminster Abbey as his own.

This brisk bit of skulduggery permits antisocial Painter Farll to assume his valet's name and begin a new life as a starving artist. The arrangement works well until 1) the valet's wife (Una O'Connor) and family turn up and denounce the fraud; 2) an art dealer is accused of selling forged Farlls.

Big scene: Cinemate Fields ending the masquerade by partially disrobing bearded Cinemactor Woolley in a courtroom. She discloses two large identifying moles (near his collarbone).

Those who expect Gracie to sing in this picture will be disappointed. Not until the last scene does she join with Woolley in a brief unprofessional warble. But the show has a smart story (from the late novelist Arnold Bennett's Buried Alive), smart acting by nearly everybody, smart handling by Director John Stahl (Back Street, The Immortal Sergeant).

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.