Hammer by this point had a winning formula with their take on the Universal Monsters. They nailed Dracula, charged up Frankenstein...so why not tackle the earliest Universal Monster? With their best director at the helm, how would they do Gaston Leroux's madman of the opera?
December, 1900. The Royal Opera House is gearing up for its latest season, but things are looking grim already. Lord Ambrose D'Arcy (Michael Gough), the new owner of the opera, is outraged. Posters have been torn down, sheet music slashed, and generally pranks seem to be happening by the minute. The lead soprano Maria (Liane Aukin) is almost hysterical with fright, claiming to see a scared man lurking in her room.
D'Arcy doesn't care about that, but rather why the stage manager Lattimer (Thorley Walters) is telling him the show is sold out when he can clearly see an empty box. Lattimer tells him he tried, but no one will buy the seat as they claim it's haunted.
When the corpse of a missing stagehand drops down during Maria's solo, the entire show is thrown into a panic. Producer Harry Hunter (Eric de Souza) scrambles to find a replacement, and seems to succeed with a young singer named Christine Charles (Heather Sears). She's raw, but she has the chops. With a little training she might even be better than Maria. D'Arcy approves, but it ain't her singing he likes. He invites her back to his apartment for...'training' but Hunter swoops in at the last minute and takes her back to the opera house.
Unseen by them, the rat catcher (Patrick Troughton) is murdered by a sinister dwarf (Ian Wilson), who seems to be taking orders from a shadowy figure. The figure tries to snatch Christine away, but flees when Harry returns.
The next day both are fired. At Christine's apartment, Harry chats up her landlady (Renee Houston), who tells him that many of her lodgers were and are musicians. The most tragic one she can think of is the late Professor Petire (Herbert Lom), who died before he could publish any of his work. Putting off their lunch date, Harry follows a hunch and goes to the printers where Petire might have sold some pieces. They vaguely recall the man, but there a was a fire some time ago you see. Nasty bit of work too, as the arsonist broke in and started a fire and tried to put it out with acid. The police described a burned and scarred man leaping into the river. No body was recovered, but Harry is starting to put things together, like how could a boorish clod like D'Arcy actually write an opera?
The simple answer is that he didn't. He simply cheated Petire out of ten years work and wrote his name over the material. It was Petire who broke into the printers, and it was Petire who flamingly leapt into the rushing water.
Meanwhile, the Phantom has formally introduced himself to Christine and decided that she is perfect to play the lead. With some forced captivity and music lessons she'll be perfect! Can Harry rescue her in time?
Not bad, and honestly better than the 1943 version. The Phantom here is perfectly cast as both victim and villain, and Lom's performance hits all the right notes. The major downside to the film is D'Arcy. Gough instils him a smug oiliness. He's a perfect villain, but there's no comeuppance. All the Phantom does is lift his mask up. Yes, I suppose scaring the man slightly is good, but hardly makes up for stealing your life's work, does it?
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