The Phantom of the Opera ** (1983, Maximilian Schell, Jane Seymour, Michael York, Jeremy Kemp, Diana Quick) – Classic Movie Review 5102

Maximilian Schell makes a fair job of The Phantom in director Robert Markowitz’s sumptuous, fast moving and well-cast 1983 TV movie remake, attractively filmed in Hungary. This tolerable but not special film makes no special case for yet another version, though, to be fair, it does tell an interestingly different story.

This time, in a revised, new-spin version of the famous Gaston Leroux novel written by Sherman Yellen, it is the Budapest Opera House’s diva Elena Korvin (Jane Seymour) who commits suicide after the sinister owner Baron Hunyadi (Jeremy Kemp) ruins her career for having rejected his advances.

However, her conductor-husband Sándor Korvin (Schell), believed killed in a fire, becomes the badly burned, masked Phantom of the Opera and plans his revenge on the Baron, while terrorising those who stand in the way of Maria Gianelli (Seymour), a chorus girl who looks like his dead wife.

It co-stars Michael York as Maria’s stage director lover Michael Hartnell, Diana Quick as Madame Bianchi, Philip Stone as Kraus, Paul Brooke as the Inspector and Andras Miko.

It is written by Sherman Yellen, shot by Larry Pizer, produced by Robert Halmi Jr and Robert Halmi Sr, scored by Ralph Burns and with special effects by Stan Winston.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 5102

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