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In 1911, the not-terribly-successful detective novelist Gaston Leroux, who admitted that most of his 63 novels were adaptations of Conan Doyle's plots, hit upon the Paris Opera House as the perfect setting for a story about a tortured,  disfigured soul suffering from unrequited love in his novel Phantom of the Opera.
When the Paris Opera House was built in 1861, the whole of France was agog at its grandeur. The auditorium accounts for only a fifth of the building's total space and this, along with the fact that out of the 17 storeys only 10 can be seen above ground, and the existence of labyrinthine passages and a lake underneath the building gave the site
Hollywood has frequently returned to Phantom with versions starring Claude Raines and Herbert Lom, among others. Then the British stage played host to him when Andrew Lloyd Webber turned the tale into a hit musical. Now the race is on between film and TV companies to cash in on renewed interest in the story. The Lloyd Webber version is to be filmed and Nightmare on Elm Street's Robert
Meanwhile, Tony Richardson (Look Back In Anger, The Entertainer |
an aura of intrigue and mystery. Leroux's novel would be forgotten now if Hollywood hadn't picked up on it and made Phantom of the Opera into a film starring Lon Chaney. Ever since then, film makers, theatre producers and audiences alike have been transfixed and inspired by the story of the disfigured man who looms in the gloom beneath the great opera house and falls in love with the voice of 
a young singer.
Englund has made a slasher version, directed by Dwight (Halloween 4) Little, which Sky Movies will screen next year.
and Tom Jones, for which he won the Best Director Oscar) has completed filming a lavish two-part made-for-TV movie. It is this latest version that Sky Movies is screening over two nights on Saturday and Sunday at 8 pm, and the film featuers a starry cast; Charles Dance plays the title role, with Burt Lancaster as his father and Ian Richarson as the Opera House manager.