Hammer Studios became well known for their horror output. This is mostly due to the way they remade all the classic Universal Monster movies – Dracula, Frankenstein, The Mummy, etc., though they did make a great deal of other films, some of which were not horror-related at all.

In 1962 they adapted another famous horror story, The Phantom of the Opera, with mixed results. The Gaston Leroux book has been adapted numerous times and, of course, was turned into a Broadway Musical. I loved the book, and have seen at least a couple of those cinematic adaptations (though I’ve never seen any version of the musical, much to my wife’s surprise.)

Directed by Hammer stalwart Terrence Fischer the action is moved from Paris to London. Quite a few other things have been changed as well, but my memory is too faulty to lock those down for you.

The basics are the same. A pretty opera singer named Christine (Heather Sears) gets a chance to sing the lead in a brand-new opera. Producer Harry Hunter (Edward de Souza) takes a liking to her. Meanwhile, the Phantom (Herbert Lom) keeps causing problems.

There is a different backstory for the Phantom and Harry takes a much more active role and is more of a hero here. The Phantom spends a great deal of time training Christine to be a better singer than she already is. The real villain in this story is Lord Ambrose D’Arcy (a wonderful Michael Gough) who stole the opera from the Phantom (which we see in a flashback). And most of the really horrible things the Phantom usually does is given to a henchman to do.

All of this is fine, if a bit staid and clunky. The story never has any real oomph to it, and the ending is a dud. Lom is good and the sets have that usual Hammer charm to them. There are definitely better adaptations of the story than this one, but if you are a Hammer aficionado then you’ll probably like this just fine.