Wouldn't it have been odd for Universal to have pulled Rathbone from the Sherlock Holmes series and cast him as the Phantom? I can see the studio considering him in 1940-41, but within a year or so he was appearing in the Holmes series, on radio and on film, and doing nicely by it. At last, he was playing a benign character, his days as one of the screen's most hissable villains apparently behind him. As Rathbone was playing Holmes at Universal might they have hestitated before casting him in a horror? Admittedly, Erik the phantom was ultimately a tragic and pathetic character, not a loathsome villain, but still, we're a far cry from Baker Street. (Yes, I know that Rathbone had played sympathetic characters before, in Dawn Patrol, for instance, but they were few and far between.) I'm thinking that Universal might have gone for another, younger Brit had Rains proved unavailable.