:13:01
then raced home to the farm back East.
:13:04
His daughter Jessica recalls a childhood
milking cows and gathering eggs.
:13:08
For more insights into Rains, I
recommend Rudy Behlmer's commentary
:13:12
on the DVD of The Invisible Man, available
from Universal Studios Home Video.
:13:17
There were casting difficulties,
getting this picture started.
:13:21
Susanna Foster, 17 years old,
was a late addition to the cast.
:13:24
She turned 18 just as production began.
:13:27
She attracted attention in Paramount's
The Great Victor Herbert in 1940,
:13:31
but they failed to groom her talent
and she left.
:13:34
Her entrée to the Phantom cast
was felicitous.
:13:36
Lubin, hearing Susanna sing
at a dinner party
:13:39
at the home of Hollywood
reporter-writer Ed Brestray,
:13:42
asked her to audition
for his music director, Edward Ward.
:13:45
Susanna told me "Eddie played the piano
for me. I sang an aria from La Traviata,
:13:50
and 'Ah! Sweet Mystery of Life',
the usual stuff."
:13:53
"Eddie wanted me for the picture,
so Arthur did a screen test."
:13:56
"He was ahead of his time.
Instead of having me act,
:13:59
he had contract player
David Bruce interview me,
:14:01
so I was just myself,
then I sing a couple of songs."
:14:05
Principal photography
started on January 17.
:14:08
One of the first scenes filmed was
between Raoul and Christine's aunt,
:14:12
where the sleuthing baritone forces her to
confess that Claudin is Christine's father.
:14:18
The scene would wind up
on the cutting room floor,
:14:20
as did the entire subplot
of Raoul playing detective.
:14:24
This left Rains' paternal concerns for
the girl explicable only by sexual motives.
:14:29
Most reviewers at the time
commented on the muddled relationship.
:14:32
"They were confused about how to handle
it, even while we were filming"
:14:36
Susanna Foster told me.
:14:38
Lubin said "I always felt
that he should be her father."
:14:41
"Otherwise, it would be a little nasty."
:14:43
Lubin did not like this December-May
romance that the film now implies
:14:48
between the older man and the young girl.
:14:50
Universal didn't help
:14:53
by releasing a story that a scene had been
made of Claudin, in his madness,
:14:57
hearing Christine as a child singing
Claude Debussy's Clair de Lune,