Fritz Leiber and Fritz Leiber and The Phantom of the Opera
Writer Fritz Leiber. The Phantom of the Opera. How are they connected? Or are they? Perhaps the answer is behind that mirror. Or hidden in a cellar beneath the Paris Opera…
The Phantom and Me
When I was in junior high, I was a huge Phantom of the Opera geek. (OK, I still am.) I discovered the story because a local TV station showed the 1943 version of The Phantom of the Opera starring Claude Rains. I even memorized the names of many of the costars. And begged my father until he agreed to take me to a special showing of the movie at a local community college.
Then, of course, I somehow managed to see the famous 1925 The Phantom of the Opera with Lon Chaney, Sr. (Back then, you couldn’t just watch it for free online.) Many fans consider this one the version of the movie. While I’m partial to the 1943 version, the Chaney version is a better movie. It’s also closer to the book than any version I know.
Following that, I read the original novel — which was hard to find back then as it was in a sort of gray area: out of print but not in the public domain yet. Dad had to request it from the library, and the librarians had to go to (of course!) the cellar to find it. Dad joked that, like the Phantom, the librarian had to go “five cellars down.”
