:35:02
breaking records around the country.
Box-office receipts poured in.
:35:07
The most they'd made. Even any Durbin
film never made the money it made.
:35:12
Phantom went on to win
two Academy Awards,
:35:15
for colour cinematography
and art direction.
:35:19
For audiences
who didn't see it in theatres,
:35:21
Basil Rathbone played the Phantom,
with Susanna Foster and Nelson Eddy,
:35:25
in a "ghost to ghost" broadcast
on the Lux Radio Theater.
:35:29
Take off the mask! Go on, take it off!
:35:33
Why did you do it?
:35:35
Now you've seen my face.
:35:37
The only real story that I have
about The Phantom of the Opera
:35:41
is that when I was about six or seven,
:35:46
one Hallowe'en, he called Universal
:35:49
and he borrowed the cape and the hat.
:35:54
And two of my friends and I dressed
as goblins and hid under this cape.
:36:00
He would knock on the door,
and there he was,
:36:03
standing there doing
this insane Hallowe'en poem.
:36:07
And then he would open up his cape,
and we would jump out and say
:36:10
"Trick or treat? Trick or treat?"
:36:14
Four days after Phantom's opening,
Universal announced The Climax,
:36:18
a direct sequel,
reuniting cast and creative team.
:36:22
Nelson Eddy was enthusiastic
about the sequel,
:36:24
but when production neared,
he was not available.
:36:28
Claude Rains had forsworn the mask and
signed a contract with Warner Brothers.
:36:33
Finally reworked as a follow-up
rather than a sequel,
:36:37
The Climax starred Boris Karloff
as a demented theatre physician,
:36:41
worshipping the embalmed corpse
of his murdered wife,
:36:44
while menacing Susanna Foster,
:36:48
whose voice bears an uncanny
resemblance to that of the deceased diva.
:36:53
Tonight you give
your voice and your will to me.
:36:59
I'm in control.