: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.
:08:03
Susanna Foster says he was one of the
most harmonious people she ever knew,
:08:07
and not just musically.
:08:09
Eddy loved Phantom and hoped it would
revive his career-sadly, it did not.
:08:13
When the picture wrapped, he gave Lubin
an autographed photo that read
:08:16
"You made me what I am today.
I hope the world is satisfied."
:08:21
Eddy kept on working in films, notably
the voice of Willie the Operatic Whale
:08:25
in Disney's animated feature
Make Mine Music.
:08:28
But he began doing more club,
concert and recording work.
:08:32
A pro to the end, he collapsed onstage
and died of a stroke
:08:35
while touring Australia in 1967.
:08:39
Dialogue coach on the picture
was Joan Hathaway,
:08:42
a great friend of Arthur Lubin's.
She rehearsed the cast and ran their lines.
:08:46
"She got a little out of hand at times"
Lubin told me affectionately.
:08:50
"She'd say 'Don't listen to Lubin.
That's what I'm here for."'
:08:56
Frank Puglia
as Monsieur Villeneuve, the maestro.
:08:59
Puglia's acting career spanned
55 years until his death in 1975.