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Phantom of the Paradise, 1974
Winslow Leach (William Finley) is a mild-mannered, overly-trusting composer who makes the mistake of showing his compositions to devious music producer Swan (Paul Williams), owner of the Paradise. Just when Leach has met the lovely Phoenix (Jessica Harper) and imagined his career coming together, Swan has him framed for a crime and sent away to jail. Leach escapes, but is irreversibly mutilated. Returning to the Paradise, attempts to reclaim the music as his own, but Swan may be more nefarious than Leach could ever imagine.
Wildly imaginative and stuffed full of musical numbers and references to books, movies, and music, this is a joyful ride.
Sometimes you watch a film and, even if you don’t exactly love it, you totally get why others do. I think it might take a rewatch or two for me to feel out if this is a favorite for me, its charms are totally apparent even on a first viewing. This is a film where everything works, because it all exists in the same strange universe. It’s a film that asks you to expect the unexpected, and then consistently delivers.
The main strength of this movie is the world it builds, which is at time realistic, at times hyperbolic, and at times outright supernatural. And yet it all blends together so that we don’t blink when a problem is crooked police officers, and we don’t blink when it turns out that maybe someone is actually Satan. The world in this movie is a cynical one, to be sure. People in power only use that power to take advantage or and/or harm others. Beauty is only appreciated for how it can be exploited for profit and power. We don’t just need our main characters to overcome the antagonists, we need them to overcome the cruelty of the universe.
And while I think that the world building is the best part of this movie, the pitch-perfect cast of characters that populates that world runs an easy second place. Finley’s Leach is obviously too nice, something that can be a bit frustrating at the beginning. Even when he seemingly snaps and becomes the Phantom, he’s still somehow too trusting. Williams is really the star of the show as Swan, a man who craves money and power at any cost, and is willing to chew up and spit out anyone who gets in the way. Something that adds dimension to Swan’s character is the fact that he is genuinely talented, both at recognizing talent and using technology to turn Leach’s work into smash hits.
Harper is likable enough as Phoenix, a character who is very much like Leach, right down to just wanting to be allowed to share her talents. When she first shows up to audition, the “audition” is a leering group of men sexually assaulting or coercing the women on a couch in a seedy backroom, and Phoenix runs away in disgust. I honestly didn’t really buy her return to the Paradise, and it feels very much like something that’s a bit artificially put into the script in order to drive the conflict between Swan and Leach. But Harper is talented enough and likable enough that she mostly (mostly) escapes feeling like just a trophy for the two male leads to fight over.
Rounding out the lead cast is a truly entertaining performance from Gerrit Graham as Beef, a singer who is brought in to sing Leach’s music. Beef is a totally over-the-top personality, and Graham’s performance is at turns hilarious and demented. Every minute that Beef is on screen is incredibly engaging.
The set design and costuming deserve special mention, because the movie is absolutely bursting with details both large and small. Obviously there’s the infamous image of Leach’s bird-like face mask. But every set and every costume has a special touch to it.
There wasn’t much here that I disliked. I thought that Phoenix was underdeveloped as a character. She’s nice and dumb, and she’s the character whose actions seem most dictated by what the script needs her to do in order to motivate Leach or Swan to a certain course of action. I wish just one scene or two had been used to deepen the relationship between Leach and Phoenix to ground his fixation on her a bit more. Like I wrote before, Harper is too good to be reduced to a mere trophy, but she’s really the only female character and it’s frustrating that someone named Beef feels more fully formed than her. (Look, Leach is also nice and dumb, but he’s proactive whereas she is merely reactive and almost entirely passive).
Oodles of fun, and probably a perfect midnight movie.
Phantom of the Paradise, 1974
Winslow Leach (William Finley) is a mild-mannered, overly-trusting composer who makes the mistake of showing his compositions to devious music producer Swan (Paul Williams), owner of the Paradise. Just when Leach has met the lovely Phoenix (Jessica Harper) and imagined his career coming together, Swan has him framed for a crime and sent away to jail. Leach escapes, but is irreversibly mutilated. Returning to the Paradise, attempts to reclaim the music as his own, but Swan may be more nefarious than Leach could ever imagine.
Wildly imaginative and stuffed full of musical numbers and references to books, movies, and music, this is a joyful ride.
Sometimes you watch a film and, even if you don’t exactly love it, you totally get why others do. I think it might take a rewatch or two for me to feel out if this is a favorite for me, its charms are totally apparent even on a first viewing. This is a film where everything works, because it all exists in the same strange universe. It’s a film that asks you to expect the unexpected, and then consistently delivers.
The main strength of this movie is the world it builds, which is at time realistic, at times hyperbolic, and at times outright supernatural. And yet it all blends together so that we don’t blink when a problem is crooked police officers, and we don’t blink when it turns out that maybe someone is actually Satan. The world in this movie is a cynical one, to be sure. People in power only use that power to take advantage or and/or harm others. Beauty is only appreciated for how it can be exploited for profit and power. We don’t just need our main characters to overcome the antagonists, we need them to overcome the cruelty of the universe.
And while I think that the world building is the best part of this movie, the pitch-perfect cast of characters that populates that world runs an easy second place. Finley’s Leach is obviously too nice, something that can be a bit frustrating at the beginning. Even when he seemingly snaps and becomes the Phantom, he’s still somehow too trusting. Williams is really the star of the show as Swan, a man who craves money and power at any cost, and is willing to chew up and spit out anyone who gets in the way. Something that adds dimension to Swan’s character is the fact that he is genuinely talented, both at recognizing talent and using technology to turn Leach’s work into smash hits.
Harper is likable enough as Phoenix, a character who is very much like Leach, right down to just wanting to be allowed to share her talents. When she first shows up to audition, the “audition” is a leering group of men sexually assaulting or coercing the women on a couch in a seedy backroom, and Phoenix runs away in disgust. I honestly didn’t really buy her return to the Paradise, and it feels very much like something that’s a bit artificially put into the script in order to drive the conflict between Swan and Leach. But Harper is talented enough and likable enough that she mostly (mostly) escapes feeling like just a trophy for the two male leads to fight over.
Rounding out the lead cast is a truly entertaining performance from Gerrit Graham as Beef, a singer who is brought in to sing Leach’s music. Beef is a totally over-the-top personality, and Graham’s performance is at turns hilarious and demented. Every minute that Beef is on screen is incredibly engaging.
The set design and costuming deserve special mention, because the movie is absolutely bursting with details both large and small. Obviously there’s the infamous image of Leach’s bird-like face mask. But every set and every costume has a special touch to it.
There wasn’t much here that I disliked. I thought that Phoenix was underdeveloped as a character. She’s nice and dumb, and she’s the character whose actions seem most dictated by what the script needs her to do in order to motivate Leach or Swan to a certain course of action. I wish just one scene or two had been used to deepen the relationship between Leach and Phoenix to ground his fixation on her a bit more. Like I wrote before, Harper is too good to be reduced to a mere trophy, but she’s really the only female character and it’s frustrating that someone named Beef feels more fully formed than her. (Look, Leach is also nice and dumb, but he’s proactive whereas she is merely reactive and almost entirely passive).
Oodles of fun, and probably a perfect midnight movie.