:00:03
Hello. This is Scott MacQueen.
:00:05
If you Universal fans miss the traditional
Plexiglas Universal globe here,
:00:10
that's because Universal
never reshot it in Technicolor.
:00:13
None of the colour features
made in the 1940s
:00:15
opened with the dazzling globe
that Alexander Golitzen designed
:00:19
for the black-and-white studio signature.
:00:22
Phantom was the second
Technicolor film made by Universal,
:00:25
which, at this time, was run by
Cliff Work and Nate Blumberg -
:00:28
men from the theatre exhibition
side of the business,
:00:31
who cranked out inexpensive
B-pictures for middlebrow audiences.
:00:35
Arabian Nights had been in Technicolor
only because producer Walter Wanger
:00:40
had brought his own Technicolor contract
with him to the studio.
:00:45
Phantom's director, Arthur Lubin, was the
kind of director who excelled at Universal.
:00:50
He was smart, efficient,
with no ego, no sense of auteurism,
:00:54
a top-notch craftsman who made
efficient movies that audiences liked.
:00:58
In his career, he directed
62 feature films and 600 TV episodes.
:01:03
He did everything: John Wayne westerns,
Karloff and Lugosi horror movies,
:01:07
Abbott and Costello comedies,
dramas, dead-end-kid movies, musicals,
:01:11
Maria Montez movies,
Francis the Talking Mule movies,
:01:15
and later, in the 1960s, created Mister Ed.
:01:19
This was the first A-budget picture
for producer George Waggner,
:01:23
who, like Lubin, had toiled
at Monogram as a B-movie writer,
:01:26
often under the pen name Joseph West.
:01:28
Lubin had directed Waggner's script for
Midnight Intruder at Universal in 1938,
:01:33
and Waggner got the chance
to produce, direct and write
:01:35
Lon Chaney Jr's pilot horror quickie,
Man Made Monster, in 1941.
:01:40
Completed for under $90,000,
:01:43
Man Made Monster
and its co-feature, Horror Island,
:01:46
put Waggner on the map at the studio,
:01:48
with regard to quality and efficiency
on a ridiculously low budget.
:01:52
Waggner was rewarded
with The Wolf Man,
:01:54
and ultimately broke
the big time with Phantom.
:01:57
Please note, in his filmography
the movie The Phantom Stage