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Murders happen in the grand guignol theatre in the Rue Morgue, starting with the two monkey-suit actors, both of whom had acid thrown into their faces, then it's Genevre (Maria Perschy), a prostitute acquaintance of theatre owner Charron (Jason Robards), as well as escape artist Orsini (Marshall Jones), both of which also suffered from faces eaten up by acid. Thing is, both Genevre and Orsini were once members of Charron's ensemble, back when his then leading lady (Lilli Palmer) poured acid into her lover Marot's (Herbert Lom) face. Charron was in love with her, too, but even after that accident she preferred Charron, and ultimately ... she was killed by acid poured into her face - Marot's revenge it seemed, but he died as well ... and yet, these murders look like Marot's doing.

Charron in the meantime is married to the dead actress's daughter Madeleine (Christine Kaufmann), who's also his leading lady ... and who has nightmares that seem to have to do something with the death of her mother. Naturally, it worries Madeleine more than a bit that her husband is now in the center of inspector Vidocq's (Adolfo Celi) murder investigations, so she decides to find out some things on her own and goes to the theatre her mother has acted in all those years back ... where she meets Marot very much alive (but wearing a mask to hide the disfigured parts of his face. Charron saves her though, and the two kill Marot ... but he again doesn't stay dead (he has learned a trick or two from escape artist Orsini is the explanation) and he kidnaps the two again, puts Madeleine under a hypnotic spell, and lets Charron that it was in fact he who killed Madeleine's mother, and the others who were killed had helped him put the blame on Marot. Once that's achieved, Marot decapitates Charron, then escapes just as the police comes to rescue Madeleine.

Marot now though seems to have fallen in love with Madeleine, so he wants to kidnap her during a live performance - but this attempt fails and this time he's really killed for good ...

Now one can't denie it, this movie has next to nothing to do with Edgar Allan Poe's story of the same name, but quite a bit more with Gaston Leroux's Phantom of the Opera - which in itself wouldn't be a bad thing. The problem with this film though is that it tells its simple story in an over-convoluted way, stretches believability beyond breaking point a few times too often, and just drags on and on and on. And that the directorial effort by Gordon Hessler is not exactly inspired, and Christine Kaufmann as the central damsel-in-distress is incredibly pale and flat as a character doesn't help much, either. Sure, lovers of vintage horror will find quite a few things about this one to like, like the performances by Jason Robards, Herbert Lom and Adolfo Celi, as well as some nice sets and macabre details, but all of this is not enough to carry a film, unfortunately.

Oh, and in regards to Phantom of the Opera - Herbert Lom did actually play the Phantom in Terence Fisher's 1962 adaptation of the novel [click here].

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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