Review: Phantom of the Paradise

Nerdy, temperamental composer Winslow Leach (William Finley) has composed a musical version of “Faust”, which is promptly stolen by record producer Swan (Paul Williams!), and screwing Leach out of any profit. He also gets the hapless Leach framed for drug possession. Escaping, an enraged Leach sets upon seeking revenge on Swan, but a mishap with a record pressing machine leaves his face permanently scarred and Leach reported as dead. He isn’t dead, though, but his mental state has further diminished. Now sporting a mask to hide his disfigured face, he lurks about at Swan’s expansive Paradise theatre/studio, but eventually the two agree to form a partnership. However, as Leach looks at the grotesque spectacle Swan is making of his Faust, he turns to murder. Meanwhile, the girl Leach pines for, Phoenix (Jessica Harper) becomes the star of the show. Gerrit Graham turns up in a flashy role as mincy (no pun intended), drug-abusing rock star ‘Beef’, recruited by Swan for the show (and for obvious publicity reasons).

 

Released after “The Rocky Horror Show” hit the stage but before it was turned into “The Rocky Horror Picture Show”, this 1974 musical/comedy/horror from writer-director Brian De Palma (“Sisters”, “Carrie”, “Dressed to Kill”, his masterpiece “The Untouchables”, and a lot of shit) is actually more consistently enjoyable than “The Rocky Horror Picture Show”, but similarly bizarre. It’s hard to shake “RHPS” from you mind whilst watching this film, as it’s essentially a rock-musical version of “The Phantom of the Opera”. Personally I found it a little loud and obnoxious at times, but at least you won’t be thinking about Hitchcock or any of De Palma’s other films, because this is unlike anything he had made before or has made since. In fact, I was surprised at just how faithful it was to “Phantom of the Opera”.

 

The late William Finley was good in De Palma’s previous “Sisters”, but he’s on another level of weirdness here, he’s terrific. Talk about a one-of-a-kind, idiosyncratic performer, he’s really interesting to watch. Since he spends much of the film behind a mask and using a voice modulator, however, the film ends up being stolen by veteran character actor and voice artist Gerrit Graham. Although he has much less screen time than Finley’s Phantom, Graham’s mincy rock star ‘Beef’ is instantly hilarious, albeit obviously politically incorrect. Although no great actress, Jessica Harper was pretty, charismatic and is quite fine here. I don’t think that’s really her singing, but her big ballad sounds like a cross between Karen Carpenter and Laura Brannigan (No surprise, as the songwriter had written for The Carpenters). As for the inimitable Paul Williams (who was born to play Truman Capote if you asked me), I don’t think he ever really was an actor as such. He is, however, a creepy little bastard, and since he’s largely playing a creepy little bastard, his casting works even if his acting is somewhat wooden. His seemingly innate weirdness gets him over the line. It really is an oddball collection of people on show here, and it’s an interesting ensemble.

 

It isn’t entirely “Rocky Horror” (it’s more consistently engaging than that film, for a start), if anything it’s the “Rocky Horror” sequel “Shock Treatment” (starring Harper in her career nadir) done right, and with a large helping of “Phantom of the Opera”. Bizarre, but fairly entertainingly so, though I’m not quite one of the cult here. Paul Williams fans will definitely appreciate the music a lot more than I did, however. I think he’s a pretty average songwriter for the most part (I dearly love ‘Rainbow Connection’, of course), myself and these songs are very Paul Williams. Interestingly, his score won an Oscar. Bizarrely cast, with William Finley and especially a riotous Gerrit Graham standing out. Best of all, De Palma doesn’t rip-off Alfred Hitchcock for a change (There’s a brief “Psycho” parody, but let’s face it, lots of filmmakers take the piss out of the shower scene).

 

Rating: B-