The Climax
Directed by George Waggner
Written by Curt Siodmak and Lynn Starling from a play by Edward Locke
1944/USA
Universal Pictures
First viewing/Netflix rental
[box] Dr. Hohner: You don’t want to ruin that voice, do you? It isn’t yours, remember? Now tell me, whose voice is it?… Tell me!
Angela: Marcellina’s![/box]
In 1944 as now, a sequel seemed to be the quickest shortcut to success. Universal must have thought, “Well, we still have all those expensive Oscar-winning sets from Phantom of the Opera, let’s do it again!” But the story got watered down with much too much lame opera despite a chilling performance by Boris Karloff.
Dr. Friedrich Hohner (Karloff) is medical doctor to the singers at the Vienna Opera. Earlier, he became obsessed with keeping the voice of his mistress Marcellina to himself. After she defied him, he killed her but has been able to maintain the facade of mourning her “disappearance” for many years. Then he hears of the voice of Angela (Susanna Foster), a young soprano under the tutelage of her fiancé, Franz Muzner (Turhan Bey). Angela’s voice is so uncannily like that of Marcellina that Hohner is triggered to try the same scheme over again. This time, he decides to hypnotize her so that she is under his complete control and unable to sing a note. His hypnotism skills are only so-so however and most of the story deals with her repeated attempts to sing and Franz’s efforts to wrest her away from Hohner. With Gail Sondergaard as Niemann’s faintly creepy housekeeper.
If we had stuck more closely to the Hohner story, this might have been fairly effective. Certainly Karloff is in top form. However, this film can’t quite decide whether it wants to be a horror movie or a musical. Unfortunately, it opts for the later and some of the opera scenes are almost laughable in their badness.
The Climax was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Art Direction-Interior Decoration, Color.
Trailer
