Phantom of the Opera (1943) is the strangest thing
Like first off, there's hardly any Phantom. It's just. Opera. While yes, the first 20 minutes is devoted to Phantom backstory, and that's fine, but the WHOLE REST OF THE MOVIE is just Christine and Anatole being lovey-dovey in the opera house while Raoul is solving murders and looking for the Phantom.
There's also a love triangle between Christine, who's apparently Mms. DuBois now??? And Raoul Dubert?? And the new guy, who I assume is here ONLY for the love triangle, Anatole Garron. "But what about the Phantom?" Well he's a father figure, a-fucking-parrently. He's a really, really, bad father figure.
Oh, and the Phantom backstory? Yeah, no, it does not include the Rosy Hours of Mazerdan, because that's a different Phantom. No, this one's name is Enrique Claudin, and he was a violinist in the orchestra, and also "something happening to the fingers on my left hand" which is important, because the left hand is the one that's doing the notes, the right hand is just the one holding the bow -you can tell that I have no idea how violins work- anyway so Claudin gets fired, someone steals his composition, he strangles someone, gets acid splashed on him, and retreats into the sewers. He then proceeds to murder 3 more people and fuck around the opera house until the end of the movie, where he saws the chandelier down, brings Christine to the basement, plays the piano, and then gets crushed under a bunch of rocks.
But wait! There's still like 5 minutes left in the movie! OK so Christine chooses her career over both Raoul and Anatole, they become sad, and then Raoul goes "Hey you wanna go on a date?" And Anatole goes "Heck yeah bro!" And they're all happy and gay. The end.
