(re)search my Trash

<body> <div align="left"> <table border="0" cellspacing="0" width="800" cellpadding="0" height="100%"> <tr> <td width="100" rowspan="3" background="../stylepix/square.gif" valign="top">  </td> <td width="4" rowspan="3"></td> <td width="592" height="1%" valign="top">  </td> <td width="4" rowspan="3"></td> <td width="100" rowspan="3" background="../stylepix/squareright.gif" valign="top">  </td> </tr> <tr> <td width="592" valign="top" height="99%">   <p>It should have been the triumphant premiere of arrogant composer D'Arcy's (Michael Gough) opera <i>Saint Joan</i>, however, the performance comes to a sudden halt when a hanged stagehand swings into the scenery, in plain sight to everyone. After that, the leading lady leaves the production - rather understandably.</p> <p>However, D'Arcy and the opera's producer Hunter (Edward De Souza), who rarely agree on <i>anything</i>, soon agree that they have found a more than appropriate replacement in modest chorus girl Christine (Heather Sears). Christine and Hunter soon become a couple, much to the dismay of D'Arcy, who wants Christine to be more than just his leading lady, and eventually D'Arcy fires both, Christine as well as Hunter.</p> <p>But then there's someone else interested in Christine, the opera house's masked phantom (Herbert Lom), who wants to give her singing lessons, and to this end kidnaps her.</p> <p>Acting on a mere hunch, Hunter soon finds the phantom's lair in the catacombs underneath the opera house, and he has also figured out pretty quickly who the Phantom is, or rather was: A poor composer who wanted D'Arcy to help him publish his work, but D'Arcy instead blatantly stole his music, and in an attempt to burn his music rather than having D'Arcy publish it under his name, the phantom has badly burned himself and was since reduced to living beneath the opera, his only companion being a crazy dwarf (Ian Wilson) - who for no reason at all does some killings in the course of the movie.</p> <p>Eventually, Hunter confronts the Phantom, but when he and Christine hear his story, they grow all soft and agree to let him continue teaching Christine ...</p> <p>Eventually, Hunter is re-instated as the opera house's producer, and the first thing he does is to re-hire Christine as the leading lady.</p> <p>The night of the premiere: The Phantom confronts D'Arcy and scares the heebiegeebies out of him (nothing more), then he goes to watch the opera, <i>Saint Joan</i> (<i>his</i> opera, incidently), while the crazy dwarf is doing some climbing in the scaffoldings above the stage, eventually causing a chandelier to crash onto the stage. The Phantom, seeing the chandelier is about to hit Christine, jumps from his box onto the stage and pushes her aside - but is himself hit and killed by the chandelier.</p> <p> </p>  <p>In the late 1950's/early 60's, director Terence Fisher directed a string of gothic horror films for <i>Hammer</i>, many of which became undisputable classics, and he handled all the traditional horror monsters (in films like <b><a href="curseoffrankenstein(1957).shtml">Curse of Frankenstein</a></b>, <b><a href="dracula(1958).shtml">Dracula</a></b>, <b><a href="mummy(1959).shtml">The Mummy</a></b>, <b><a href="curseofthewerewolf(1960).shtml">Curse of the Werewolf</a></b> or <b>The Two Faces of Dr Jekyll</b>, to name a few). However, his version of <b>The Phantom of the Opera</b> (which has only very little to do with Gaston Leroux' novel) is in no way on par with his earlier films, the film suffers greatly from a muddled screenplay, a considerable lack of suspense, let alone shock, a considerable lack of a convincing villain (the Phantom turns out to be the good guy, D'Arcy may be arrogant and selfish but by no mean a horror baddie, and the dwarf just seems ridiculous), and the basic storyline of the film is uninvolving as hell. And Herbert Lom, one of the great cinematic villains, has an ungrateful role in this one that gives him no reason to shine. Rather a waste of time.</p> <p>  </td> </tr> <tr> <td width="592" valign="top" height="1%">  <SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript"> currentyear = "2006"; </SCRIPT> <SCRIPT language="JavaScript" src="../scripts/endcredits.js"></SCRIPT> <SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript"> dosworsdonn(); </SCRIPT> </td> </tr> </table> </div> </body>