:06:00
because Universal was cheap,
and the war in Europe
:06:03
made it virtually impossible
to negotiate with publishers and agents.
:06:07
Later on I'll talk about the difficulties
involved with the opera scores.
:06:11
William von Wymetal, a former stage
manager at the Metropolitan Opera,
:06:15
staged the two original operas
we see later,
:06:17
just as he had staged Faust
for the 1925 Chaney picture.
:06:21
"He knew nothing about placing
the camera" Lubin said.
:06:23
"All he knew was the musical number as
one piece. I'd break it down into shots."
:06:27
"Eddie Ward would work with Wymetal,
and we had a full orchestra,
:06:31
about 34 players, in the pit."
:06:33
This is Edgar Barrier,
a talented radio actor
:06:35
who had returned to Hollywood
with Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre
:06:39
and been scheduled to appear
with Welles in Heart of Darkness.
:06:42
Barrier had started in summer stock,
graduated to the Theatre Guild,
:06:45
and played with Alfred Lunt
and Lynn Fontanne.
:06:48
Educated in Switzerland and England,
he was fluent in several languages.
:06:52
Barrier worked in Hollywood
in the early sound period,
:06:55
making foreign versions
of American talkies,
:06:57
such as Jacques Feyder's
Le Spectre vert, "The Green Ghost",
:07:01
a French version of Lionel Barrymore's
1929 MGM chiller The Unholy Night.
:07:06
Amazingly, 23-year-old Barrier
played the ancient Chinese mystic
:07:09
that Sojin had played
in the American film.
:07:12
Barrier, 37 when he made Phantom,
excelled at character work.
:07:15
He played the old mask-shop proprietor
:07:17
who was Betty Field's mentor
in the "Cinderella" episode
:07:20
of Julien Duvivier's supernatural omnibus
Flesh and Fantasy that same year.
:07:25
Welles finally used Barrier
in Journey Into Fear in 1943,
:07:29
and cast him as Banquo's ghost in his
eccentric and engaging Macbeth of 1948.
:07:35
Nelson Eddy was a boy soprano in the
church choir in Providence, Rhode Island,
:07:39
who, as a teenager, worked as
a shipping clerk, switchboard operator
:07:42
and newspaper reporter before
winning a song competition at age 21.
:07:47
He joined the Philadelphia Civic Opera
and by 1924 he made the Met,
:07:51
playing Tonio in Pagliacci,
and in the 1930s
:07:54
was partnered with Jeanette MacDonald
for a legendary series of MGM operettas.
:07:58
The team broke up and MGM dismissed
him before the offer for Phantom came.