" Roll on thunder, shine on lightening The days are long and the nights are frightening Nothing matters away and that's the hell of it" Lyrics for closing song of Phantom of the Paradise Words and Music by Paul Williams
Brian DePalma has had a most interesting career. Like the other movie brats Coppola, Scorsese and Spielberg, DePalma cinematically came of age in the 70's. Today DePalma's best known films to the casual moviegoer would be his gangster epics Scarface and The Untouchables, with the first Mission : Impossible movie probably figuring in the mix as well. Prior to Phantom, DePalma caught the eye of critics with his 1973 release Sisters, in which he indulged what several critics called his fondness for imitation-Hitchcock. Phantom of the Paradise was another kind of rip-off, this one being a spoof/homage to those Phantom of the Opera films {by 1974 there had officially been three previous versions in 1925 with Lon Chaney, 1943 with Claude Rains and 1962 with Herbert Lom}. DePalma's version was the first to have a tongue-in-cheek approach with a mash-up of both the music and the mood of the story. This Phantom, coming nearly a full year earlier than the renown cult fave The Rocky Horror Picture Show, was a mid-70's glitter/glam rock version of the famous original book by Gaston Leroux, chock full of reference's to other horror films, with the rock music world as a backdrop also having it's share of skewering and references to the Faust and Beauty and the Beast legends, the tale of Frankenstein as well.
William Finley as Winslow Leach aka The Phantom, composing his "rock cantata" in Swan's studio.
Along with William Finley, who previously had been in Sisters, as Winslow Leach/The Phantom, and newcomer Jessica Harper as his muse Phoenix , DePalma made an inspired choice in the casting of the evil Swan character: composer Paul Williams. By the early 70's Williams had been much in demand as a songwriter with well-known hits like Three Dog Night's An Old Fashioned Love Song, The Carpenters' hit song and wedding favorite We've Only Just Begun, and the melancholic Rainy Days and Mondays among others. But Williams, a multi-talented individual, had also appeared in some bit parts in films such as 1965's The Loved One and 1966's The Chase, and he was trying to build his acting resume. DePalma had brought Williams aboard to do the songs for Phantom but upon meeting and liking Williams, DePalma insisted that he play the diabolical Swan.Other standouts are Gerrit Graham, stealing every scene he appears in, as Beef the Alice Cooper/David Bowie-like rock star selected by Swan to bring The Phantom's songs to life {at last}.
When I first encountered Phantom it was on a thing called Channel 100, a precursor to HBO, SHOWTIME and the like. Channel 100 would show movies that had been in theaters the previous year, with no cuts or censorship {then rare and big thing back in the day, but no letterboxing}. This was a huge deal in 1975 when the most we got was Channel's 2 thru 13, and one of those was the Spanish channel {channel 8, as I recall}, that seemed to show nothing but bullfights. I don't know if Channel 100 was a local channel or what, but being only 15 or so and finally having access to all these movies just as my spark in movies was being lit, was a divine intervention. Watching diverse fare, things like Rafferty and The Gold Dust Twins, Freebie and the Bean, The Way We Were, The Last Detail, Blazing Saddles, Bang The Drums Slowly, Cinderella Liberty, Mean Streets, and on and on and on, it became my personal screening room to films I either didn't have the opportunity to see or were shown in theaters before I much cared about film {other than Planet of the Apes and it's spawn}. So I used the channel to catch up on what I had only heard about. If memory serves {and it has been nearly 40 years} Channel 100 was on the air from 5PM until the wee hours of maybe 3 or 4 in the morn and they only played one movie, continuously, all night. It was here that I saw Phantom. I can only think I watched it because of the Phantom of the Opera connection since the type of movies I related to early on were the Universal Horror films, and this seemed a perfect fit for my off-beat, loner, misunderstood-youth mentality.
The Phantom swoops down from the balcony to unmask Swan. A variation on the famous unmasking scene that is in every Phantom of the Opera film, all with differing degrees of success.
The movie made a big impression on me. I purchased the soundtrack album, played it all the time. I don't know how many times I saw the thing on Channel 100, but it became ingrained in my memory bank. I was much captivated by the pale, waif-like Jessica Harper. She never made a lot of films and the one's she did {Suspiria, Inserts, Shock Treatment, Pennies From Heaven, etc} were of the cult, off-beat, midnight matinee variety. Her one real mainstream movie, in which she played a nice, mainstream person, was 1982's My Favorite Year with Peter O'Toole as Alan Swann , an Errol Flynn-like alcoholic movie star. In Phantom, Harper projected an almost plain sexiness, along with a naive, innocent, sweet, though not quite virginal quality that had me enamored and was the type I wished for back in my high school years.A very talented performer who never got the really big break she deserved in her career, Harper also sang her own songs in the film. I would follow her career up to the early 1980's when she seemed to slip through the cracks and disappeared from the movies.
Jessica Harper as Phoenix, the waif-like muse to William Finley's Phantom. I had a big crush on her back in the day.
Released on October 31, 1974 Phantom Of The Paradise bombed in the U.S., the only successful country it played was in "Winnipeg, Canada, where the film played for four months and in one theater non-continuously until 1976", according to Wikipedia. Some fun facts : actress Sissy Spacek was the film's set dresser, helping her then-boyfriend- now husband, Jack Fisk, who was the film's production designer. Twilight Zone narrator and creator Rod Serling does the voice-over intro. Paul Williams would receive an Oscar nom for Best Original Song Score and would win a Golden Globe for Best Original Score. De Palma was to follow up Phantom in 1976 with Obsession, a Hitchcock/Vertigo-type film with Cliff Robertson and Genevieve Bujold, and the big hit that really put him on the map Carrie, based on the book by Stephen King novel with Sissy Spacek, Piper Laurie and featuring up-and-comers John Travolta and DePalma's future wife and muse, Nancy Allen.
The Phantom's revenge on Swan.
Though a failure in it's day, like Rocky Horror Picture Show, Phantom of the Paradise has enjoyed a cinematic afterlife as a cult favorite. In 2005 a "Phantompalooza" was organized in Winnipeg with William Finley and Gerrit Graham making appearances and a second one in 2006 with a concert by Paul Williams. I myself have yet to run into anyone who shares the enthusiasm for Phantom that I do, however I have daily contact with someone who thinks it's a pretty lame movie. That would be my girlfriend and she's a horror movie fan! Maybe she likes her horror films straight with no chaser. Go figure. I will continue to champion the film. I find it wicked fun, with some wonderfully adroit performances, with a biting satire, a great score by Williams and the sure handed direction of Brian DePalma, who was just beginning to feel his way around the labyrinth of cinema.
