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The Climax

1944, Movie, NR, 86 mins

The Climax: Review

This near relative to THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA was made one year after the successful 1943 remake and by the same director, George Waggner. THE CLIMAX stars Karloff in one of his stronger performances. He is the resident doctor of a European opera house, who labors under a chronic disability--madness. Many years before, he had been in love with a beautiful soprano who did not love him in return. He strangled her in the cellar of the opera house, embalmed her, and built a shrine around her. Twenty years later a young music student, Foster, auditions, and Karloff is struck by the similarities in their voices. When Foster is cast in the same role as his lost love, Karloff goes mad. He puts her under his influence through hypnotism, and tries to make her drop out of the show. Her fiance won't allow it, and Karloff realizes he must kill her. His housekeeper tips off the police, who chase Karloff to the opera house. He meets his death, next to the shrine of his dead love, when an overturned lamp engulfs him in flame. Ostensibly a remake of THE CLIMAX of 1930, this version appears lavish in rich Technicolor and because the ever cost-conscious Universal shot the film on the sets of THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA, which employed the original Paris Opera House used in the 1925 silent classic with Lon Chaney, Sr. The film earned an Oscar nomination for its art direction. leave a comment