Meanwhile, Harry, reinstated as the opera producer, is worried about Christine's disappearance. He tells the frightened girl that he will teach her to sing properly and rehearses her with fanatical insistence until she collapses from exhaustion. When she wakes, she is in the Phantom's lair deep in the cellars of the opera house, and the Phantom ( Herbert Lom) is playing a huge organ. When Christine gets home, she is confronted by the dwarf and faints from fright and is carried off. He leaves it at that, as he believes that the Professor is long since dead. While having a moonlight carriage ride, Harry tells her about Petrie, and that he is convinced that Lord Ambrose stole Petrie's music. Harry and Christine have a romantic day together. This is confirmed by the policeman who was in the area at the time, but the body was never recovered. Making further inquiries, he learns that Petrie did not actually perish in the fire, but was splashed with Nitric Acid while apparently trying to extinguish the blaze, had run away in agony and was drowned in the River Thames.
Tucker, he learns that it was written by a former boarder named Professor Petrie, who had been killed in a fire at a printing press that was to print his music. Visiting Christine at her boarding house, Harry finds some old manuscripts that he recognizes as a rough draft of the opera he has produced. When Harry refuses to accept this, he is also dismissed by Lord Ambrose. Lord Ambrose chooses a more willing but less talented singer to take Christine's place. The next day Lord Ambrose sends a dismissal to Christine for refusing to come back to his apartment. He tells her she must come with him, but she screams, and The Phantom flees. Investigating the murder, Harry leaves Christine by herself, where she is approached by a man dressed in black, wearing a mask with only one eye, The Phantom of the Opera. At the same time, the rat-catcher ( Patrick Troughton) is murdered by the Phantom's lackey, a dwarf ( Ian Wilson). Intrigued, Harry takes Christine back to the opera house, where in her dressing room, the same voice tells Harry to leave her there and go. On the ride back home, Christine tells Harry about the voice she heard. That night, Lord Ambrose attempts to seduce her, but as they are about to leave for his apartment, Harry saves her. In her dressing room, Christine is warned against Lord Ambrose by a Phantom voice. Lord Ambrose lecherously approves of the selection and invites Christine to dinner. He finds a promising young star in Christine Charles ( Heather Sears), one of the chorus girls. With the show postponed and Maria refusing to perform again, Harry frantically auditions new singers.
When the body of a murdered stagehand swings out of the wings during Maria's first aria, pandemonium ensues. No one will sit in a certain box because it is haunted.īackstage, despite the soothing efforts of the opera's producer, Harry Hunter ( Edward de Souza), everyone, including the show's star, Maria, is nervous and upset as if a sinister force was at work.
The first night of the season at the London Opera House finds the opening of a new opera by Lord Ambrose D'Arcy ( Michael Gough), a wealthy and pompous man who is annoyed and scornful when the opera manager Lattimer ( Thorley Walters) informs him the theatre has not been completely sold out. The film opens in Victorian London on a December night in 1900.