Review of The Phantom of the Opera

I just revisited the Terence Fisher film for the first time in a while and thought it was only fair, at best. Kind of like the phantom of The Phantom of the Opera. That's being kind about it, actually. I didn't find it at all engrossing, rather kind of slow and tedious. Cheaply made and expedient, with unimpressive sets standing in for the phantom's secret domain. Homely Heather Sears was a rather unattractive leading lady and is not worthy of the role of Christina. Herbert Lom 'looks' fine as the phantom, but what a wimp he actually turns out to be! The friendly climax of the film, with a new re-working of the famous falling chandelier stunt, is so unnecessarily sweet, it almost made me gag. Michael Gough might as well have been the phantom, since he's the real villain of this picture - or even the needlessly-added servant dwarf (take your pick). Fans talk about the 1943 Claude Rains version featuring "more Opera than Phantom," but the masked man seems to be prowling about even less often in this Hammer film. And though I'm no Opera fan, the singing in this version (especially at the key grand finale) struck me as pretty lame. This is one of the least of the Phantom of the Opera movies, and any relation to the original work is purely coincidental. ** out of ****