1:09:04
In 1901 his first novel was published.
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In all he wrote 33 books, of which only
Phantom has become a standard today,
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though The Mystery of the Yellow Room -
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which introduced his detective hero
Joseph Rouletabille
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in a seminal
locked-room murder mystery -
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still enjoys a firm reputation
among armchair detectives.
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Rouletabille, sort of
a Gallic Sherlock Holmes,
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appeared in a total
of seven novels by Leroux.
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Yellow Room has been filmed five times.
1:09:31
Balaoo, published
the year after Phantom in 1911,
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features Dr Coriolis
turning an ape into a semi-human.
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Complications ensue when his creature
falls in love with his daughter, Madeleine.
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Yet another take
on the Beauty and the Beast fable.
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In a 1913 French motion picture,
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Madeleine was portrayed
by Madeleine Grandjean,
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believed to be Leroux's daughter,
who was an actress named Madeleine.
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In America, Balaoo was the basis for the
lost Fox silent horror movie The Wizard,
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made in 1927 with Gustav von Seyffertitz,
1:10:04
and its 20th Century Fox remake in 1942,
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Dr Renault's Secret,
with George Zucco and J Carrol Naish.
1:10:13
Leroux's travels
and experiences as a reporter
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are expressed in his fantastic narratives,
often written in journalistic prose.
1:10:20
Leroux's other novels, full of
the occult and criminal detection,
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would make great movie melodrama,
particularly The Bleeding Puppet,
1:10:28
where an inventor is wrongly guillotined
for the lurid murder of young women.
1:10:32
But he has planned for this event
and his brain is transplanted after death
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into the body of his creation,
a humanoid automaton named Gabriel,
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and so pursues the vampirish nobleman
who is the true fiend.
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The Phantom of the Opera caused
no great stir when first published
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in an English translation
by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos.
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A new translation
by Lowell Bair appeared in 1990.
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Here's the review
from The New York Times
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of the de Mattos translation in 1911: