Brian Trenchard-Smith on The Phantom Of The Opera

Cary Grant starring in a Hammer Film? It almost happened! After a stillborn incarnation as an in-house Universal domestic production from producer William Alland, this third film version of Gaston Leroux's warhorse finally emerged via Hammer with Herbert Lom in a very underrated performance as the benighted Phantom. When televised on NBC, the more intense sequences were replaced with added footage of Scotland Yard inspectors shot at Universal with no input from Hammer, a common network practice at the time which kicked in on both Kiss of the Vampire and Evil of Frankenstein.