The Phantom of the Opera is a 1962 British horror film directed by Terence Fisher, a loose adaptation of the 1910 novel Le Fantôme de l'Opéra by Gaston Leroux. The film was made by Hammer Film Productions but performed unsuccessfully at the box office.
Plot
In 1900, at the London Opera House, a new opera by Lord Ambrose D'Arcy opens. However, the theatre is not completely sold out. No one will sit in Box #5, which is believed to be haunted. When the body of a murdered stagehand swings out of the wings during the first aria of Maria, the show's star, pandemonium ensues.
With the show postponed and Maria refusing to perform again, producer Harry Hunter auditions new singers. He finds a promising star in Christine Charles, one of the chorus girls. Enamored, Lord Ambrose invites Christine to dinner. In her dressing room, Christine is warned against him by a body less voice. That night, Lord Ambrose attempts to seduce Christine, but Harry saves her. On the ride back home, Christine tells Harry about the voice she heard.
Intrigued, Harry takes Christine back to the opera house. In her dressing room, the voice tells Harry to leave. Meanwhile, the rat-catcher is murdered by a dwarf. Investigating the murder, Harry leaves Christine, who is then approached by a masked man, The Phantom of the Opera. He says she must come with him, but she screams, making him flee.
The next day Lord Ambrose sends a dismissal to Christine for refusing to come back to his apartment. He chooses a more willing but less talented singer to take Christine's place. Visiting Christine at her boarding house, Harry finds an old draft of the opera he produced. It was written by Professor Petrie, a former boarder who was supposedly killed during a fire at the press that was to print his music. Petrie was splashed with Nitric Acid while trying to extinguish the blaze. According to a policeman, Petrie then ran away in agony and was drowned in the Thames. However, the body was never recovered. Harry is convinced that Lord Ambrose stole Petrie's music.
Returning home, Christine is confronted by the dwarf and faints from fright. When she wakes, she is in the Phantom's lair deep in the cellars of the opera house. The Phantom tells Christine that he will teach her to sing and rehearses her with insistence until she collapses from exhaustion. Meanwhile, Harry, reinstated as the opera producer, is worried about Christine's disappearance and checks the river where Petrie had last been seen. He then hears the echo of Christine's voice emanating from a storm drain. He follows the voice through a water-filled sewer. The faint sound of the Phantom's organ-playing draws Harry down a tunnel where the dwarf attacks him with a knife. Harry subdues him and finds himself facing the Phantom, who is actually Petrie himself.
Five years before, as a poor and starving composer, Petrie had been forced to sell all of his music, including the opera, to Lord Ambrose for a small fee with the thought that his being published would bring him recognition. After discovering that Lord Ambrose was publishing the music under his own name, Petrie became enraged and broke into the printers to destroy the plates. While burning the already printed music, Petrie unwittingly started a fire and accidentally splashed acid on his face and hands in an effort to put it out, thinking it was water. In agony, he jumped into the river and was swept by the current into an underground drain, where he was rescued and cared for by the dwarf. The Phantom is dying and wishes to see his opera performed by Christine. Harry and Christine agree to allow him time to complete her coaching.
Weeks later, on the eve of a performance of "Saint Joan," the Phantom confronts Lord Ambrose. He rips off The Phantom's mask and runs out screaming into the night after seeing his deformed face. The Phantom then watches Christine sing from Box #5. Her performance brings him to tears. Listening enraptured, the dwarf is discovered in the catwalks by a stage-hand, and in the chase, he jumps onto a chandelier poised high over Christine. As the rope begins to break from the weight, the Phantom rips off his mask, leaps to the stage and pushes Christine safely from harm. The chandelier impales him before the eyes of the horror-stricken audience.