1:10:01
made in 1927 with Gustav von Seyffertitz,
1:10:04
and its 20th Century Fox remake in 1942,
1:10:07
Dr Renault's Secret,
with George Zucco and J Carrol Naish.
1:10:13
Leroux's travels
and experiences as a reporter
1:10:16
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,
1:10:24
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
1:10:36
into the body of his creation,
a humanoid automaton named Gabriel,
1:10:40
and so pursues the vampirish nobleman
who is the true fiend.
1:10:45
The Phantom of the Opera caused
no great stir when first published
1:10:49
in an English translation
by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos.
1:10:53
A new translation
by Lowell Bair appeared in 1990.
1:10:56
Here's the review
from The New York Times
1:10:58
of the de Mattos translation in 1911:
1:11:02
"So long as it is a ghost story,
it holds the reader as ghost stories do."
1:11:06
"But when the phantom
ceases to be a phantom
1:11:08
and things begin to be accounted for,
one's interest sensibly weakens."
1:11:14
"Moreover, do we ever forgive a writer
for cheating us into shudders?"
1:11:17
"If we are introduced to a ghost,
let him be a ghost to the end, no less."
1:11:21
"Despite these faults, however,
the book is effective."
1:11:24
"It is a far cry, however, from the author's
thrilling Mystery of the Yellow Room
1:11:28
to this elaborately constructed
melodrama."
1:11:31
Leroux was also a playwright,
writing his first stage production in 1902.
1:11:35
He founded a motion-picture production
company, La Société des Cinéromans,
1:11:39
in 1911, with René Navarre,
1:11:42
the portrayer of Fantomas, for whom
Leroux had already written two scenarios.
1:11:46
Leroux broke the Cinéromans in 1922,
the same year he met Carl Laemmle.
1:11:51
Red-bearded, Leroux was a gourmand
whose waistline increased with his fame,
1:11:56
leading to obesity
and severe health problems.
1:11:58
He lived to see
the Universal Phantom open in 1925,