Sándor Korvin is the villainous titular main protagonist of the 1983 television horror film Phantom of the Opera by Robert Markowitz, loosely based on the titular character in Gaston Leroux's 1910 novel The Phantom of the Opera.
He was portrayed by the late Maximilian Schell, who also played Dr. Hans Reinhardt in The Black Hole and Cardinal Alba in John Carpenter's Vampires.
Biography[]
Becoming the Phantom[]
Sándor Korvin is almost madly in love with his wife Elena.
Most of his life Sándor Korvin, the conductor of the renowned Budapest Opera House, has lived just for the art of music. Yet in his late forties he married young soprano Elena whom he loves and adores almost fanatically. Absolutely convinced that she will be the Opera's next brightly shining star he spends hours and hours to train the sensitive singer's beautiful but uncertain voice. When she refuses Baron Hunyadi's indecent offer to aid her career for certain sexual favors, the as lustful as powerful aristocrat and owner of the Opera House uses his influence to sabotage her big stage debut as Marguerite in Charles Gounod's Faust by bribing newspaper critic Kraus to write a scathing review and professional applauder Balas to mercilessly boo her out albeit he was initially hired by Sándor himself to encourage her.
Sándor encourages her moments before her singing debut as Marguerite in Gounod's Faust.
Standing on the conductor's desk during the performance Sándor had no choice but to helplessly watch his wife getting humiliated by the public audience as her voice failed due to her growing nervousness. After the terrible evening Elena dissapears very much to Sándors concern. Soon after he is called by the police to identify a dead body found in the Danube. When Elena read the outrageous review she drowned herself in shame and despair.
After Elena's suicide Sándor seeks for bloody revenge on those who wronged her.
Almost driven crazy by the loss, Sándor starts a gruesome campaign of revenge against those who wronged his late wife. At first he lurks for Balas and chops off his hand with an axe, once and for all ending his career as professional applauder. Right after he goes for Kraus and confronts him with Elena's death. Cornered by Korvin, the man reveals the whole affair to be an intrigue by Baron Hunyadi. When Sándor demands a written confession Kraus takes out his gun and the situation escalates. During the scuffle for the weapon, a fire breaks out and a shot is fired, killing Kraus.
During his rampage Sándor gets horribly disfigured by sulfuric acid.
As Sándor leans back suddenly sulphuric acid, used to etch printing plates, from a bottle on a board that was tipped over during the fight, pours all over his face disfiguring him beyond recognition. The very last moment before he too is consumed by the spreading flames he is rescued by Lajos the Opera's mute rat catcher, who is an admirer of Elena Korvin and secretly followed Sándor. Unconscious from pain, Sándor is taken by Lajos to the old storage rooms and labyrinthine vaults beneath the opera house and given a mask to hide the terrible acid burns.
Terror of the Phantom[]
Ever since Sándor hides as masked Phantom in long forgotten caverns beneath the Opera House.
The next four years, while the world believes Sándor Korvin to be burnt to death or to be drowned, he actually causes mischief, mayhem and terror as the “Phantom of the Opera”, stealing jewelry from the necks and fingers of opera-goers and also a precious compact organ he uses to play music in his hideout and furthermore removing the original construction plans of the Opera House right out of Baron Hunyadi's office.
One day during the rehearsals for a new production of Gounod's Faust, Sándor notices young italian-American soprano Maria Gianelli who bears a striking resemblance to his lost Elena. Losing himself in the delusional idea she really IS his reborn wife, he contacts her and offers to train her singing voice, making her the future star of the Opera.
Four years later the Phantom notices young soprano Maria Gianelli who looks exactly like his late wife.
During this weeks and months of secret lessons in his old house, he asks her to wear the gowns of his late wife during their sessions and never to meet or tell another man about their arrangement. Much to Korvin's dismay she starts a romantic affair with the Opera's new director Michael Hartnell anyway resulting in him jealously threatening to kill him if he won't leave her alone. About the same time Baron Hunyadi too sets his eye on her and starts to court her. At the annual Artist's Masked Ball he proposes her the same conditions he did with Elena to aid her career in exchange for certain services of gratitude.
The Phantom secretly gives Maria singing lessons.
During the exuberant celebrations Sándor appears, dressed in a broad black cloak an big feathered hat and a mask resembling his former facial features. While he dances with Maria he again declares he won't allow her to see Hartnell again and if she tries, he would kill him as well as any other man she would try to meet. Shortly after he kidnaps her and Baron Hunyadi to his hidden lair to finally take his revenge.
Revealing his identity to Hunyadi, the greasy aristocrat tries to convince him to let him go, so he could correct the mistakes he did in the past and posthumously pay honor and respect to Elena Korvin by pushing Maria's career. Apparently deeply moved, Sándor pretends to agree and lets Hunyadi go and orders Lajos to drive the Baron home. In his car anyway, Hunyadi is pecked to death by Sándor's specially trained raven.
The Phantom abducts Maria from the annual Artist's Ball.
Three days later, when Maria awakes from the drug he used to anesthetize her, Sándor tells her that he tends to protect her from the cruel world up there so she wouldn't suffer the same fate as his late Elena. In a flash of curiosity Maria tears off Sándor's mask revealing his grotesquely disfigured face. Furiously enraged he tells her that now he will never let her go and forces her to touch his scarred flesh to convince her that it's really him and not another mask behind the mask.
In his hideout beneath the Opera Maria tears off his mask revealling Sándors grotesquely scarred face.
Afterwards Sándor mentally tortures her by showing her a young woman's corpse he probably murdered and dressed in her ballgown, tending to throw it in the Danube to make the police believe Maria Gianelli had drowned so they would end their investigation. While he prepares the body he orders her to sing for him and threatens to kill Hartnell if she wouldn't obey him.
The Phantom's final mayhem[]
After Maria escaped Sándor tends to end his life by crashing himself along with the heavy chandelier right into the audience of tonight's performance.
When Sándor returns to his lair he finds Maria gone and Lajos whom he ordered to watch over her “like Dragon's Gold” knocked out on the ground. As soon as he left with his macabre cargo Michael Hartnell who spent the last days to look for Maria by himself entered the hideout to rescue the traumatized young woman. Lajos tried to stop him but was beaten unconscious. As far as Sándor is concerned, Lajos betrayed him by not looking after Maria, so he stabs his former savior to death with a dagger in cold blooded rage.
Seconds before the fall Sándor notices Maria in the audience beneath him and tries to warn her.
Completely disillusioned because he has lost “his Elena” a second time and the police meanwile knowing his hidden lair, he decides to commit one final act of terror. While Hartnell and the police use Maria as bait to trap Sándor during the evening premiere of Faust, assuming he will try to kidnap her again, he actually has completely different plans. Equipped with a hacksaw he goes upstairs to the Opera's fly-loft and through the opening in the ceiling he climbs onto the heavy chandelier. As some kind of final revenge on humanity he tends to commit suicide by throwing himself along with the chandelier, weighting several tons, right into the audience.
She could be saved but Sándor is fatally crashed by the chandelier.
While he works on the main chain he notices Maria sitting in the crowd right under him. In a desperate attempt to abort his plan he starts to climb back but it's too late, the chain breaks and he rushes down with the large construction made of metal and glass. Literally at the last moment Maria is saved by Michael and Sándor Korvin dies – crashed under the chandelier.
Trivia[]
- The Phantom's makeup was designed by the late Special Effects artist Stan Winston and bears slight resemblance to Lon Chaney's iconic 1925 look as a hommage.
- Sándor Korvin is the third Phantom to be scarred by acid after Erique Claudin portrayed by the late Claude Rains in 1943 and Professor L. Petrie played by the late Herbert Lom in 1962.
- Alongside Erik Destler in the 1989 horror film version, Sándor Korvin is considered one of the crueler, less sympathetic Phantoms.
- Even though the original story is set in Paris, France the plot was largely changed and moved to Budaprest, Hungary for the television movie adaptation.
- The whole film was shot on location in Budapest and Kecskemét where the exterior and interior of the József Katona Theatre was used as set for the Opera House.
- For many years the film was not mentioned in any of Maximilian Schell's online biographys and/or filmographys. Only since the German Wikipedia article about the film was released on September 27th 2006, it was added to imdb and other pages too.
- Even if the Film was released under the faithful to the source material title “Phantom of the Opera” in other countries it was renamed. In Sveden for example it was shown as “Terror of the Phantom” and in Germany it was published as “Das Phantom von Budapest” (“The Phantom of Budapest”).
- The set for the Phantom's lair was built and shot in an old storage fazility beneath a brewery in Budapest.
- Due to its budgetary limitations and the overwhelming worldwide success of Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical three years later, the film is largely forgotten, but still considered as an insider tip among Phantom fans.
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