 Phantom of the Paradise (1974) I'd been hearing about Phantom of the Paradise for years from my better half, and everything she told me about it screamed "Shitty Cult Movie," especially since I'd recently developed a Shitty Cult Movie Checklist™: Glam rock musical – check. Brian DePalma – check. Paul Williams – check. 1974 – check. I figured I'd have about as much fun watching this movie as I do swabbing my boss's gum rot. But in the grand comic tradition that is my existence, I was dead wrong. Phantom of the Paradise is pure candy, start to finish. So bold and over the top it zooms past the ridiculous into the realm of the sublime. It's funny and exciting and suspenseful, well-acted and brilliantly directed, and the songs are damn good, too. The closest film analogy to Phantom is probably The Rocky Horror Picture Show, but POTP is by far the superior movie on all levels (with the exception of Susan Sarandon, who's a better female lead than POTP's uncharismatic and plain Jessica Harper). Where Rocky Horror is cutesy, POTP is genuinely comedic; where RHPS is campy and gay, POTP is emotional and sad; where RHPS is boring and messy, POTP is clever and coherent. The only explanation for why RHPS remains the enduring pop-cult classic, and POTP languishes in obscurity, is that America is too fucking stupid to understand the difference between smarmy crap and melodramatic wonderfulness. We – the "royal we," for whom I am the sole spokesperson – apparently need our irony delivered on silver platters with big signs that say, "Here's the irony! Get it?" And yet, it's perfectly okay for us to invade Mexico and depose King Hectór with no provocation and zero proof of him or his henchmen having the disintegration beam. That's America for ya. Okay, enough quasi-disguised political ranting. You know, of course, that I'm actually referring to Britain's debacle in the Falkland Islands. What a mess! POTP tells the story of Winslow Leach (William Finley), a young songwriter who gains the attention of mysterious and never-seen music producer Swan (Paul Williams). Swan uses his power to steal Leach's rock opera, which brings out the songwriter's unexpected fury.
Through a series of bizarre and hysterical twists of fate —all at the expense of Leach's sanity—Leach becomes the Phantom of the Paradise (the Paradise being a theater Swan built to showcase the stolen rock opera). But just when you think the film will be about the crazed Phantom trying to kill Swan, and everyone trying to find the Phantom, the film takes a 90-degree turn, then another, then another. The end result is one of the strangest, funniest, coolest films you'll see. Yes, it's infuriating at times, like all cult films … but it's also really entertaining. You can't help but sympathize with both Leach, who's the ultimate victim of circumstance, and Swan, who's either really evil or really pathetic. The acting is generally good, naturalistic as we've come to expect from the 70s. It continues to boggle my mind how ugly most of the people were in 1970s-era films. Finley is straight out of the "Average Joe" reject pile, Paul Williams is a fat little troll, and even the supposedly hot women are mostly hideous and disgustingly hairy. Look at some films of the 60s, and you'll see some very beautiful actors hamming it up all over fake city streets. Then suddenly, everyone—male and female—looks like Fredo Corleone after a bad night drinking. Then the 80s hit, and all the actresses have huge tits and leg-warmers, and the guys are in track suits and feathered hair. I mean, what the fuck? It's like the 70s were the hangover from the 60s, and the 80s were the day after the hangover when you get all cleaned up and resolve to change your life and never get that drunk and stoned again. That said, DePalma's cocaine-fueled genius was clearly just getting started in '74. POTP has all of his best tricks, from split screens to long pans and zooms, to strangely orchestrated shots that sometimes take a moment to comprehend, and lots of suspenseful sequences that end in carnage. But there's a weird underlying sweetness and sympathy encased within a cynical and cruel worldview. And the songs and musical numbers are not only mostly very catchy, but are actually listenable, way more than I could say for "The Time Warp"—which, I'm sorry, is just a bad, irritating song, for the most part. And the film has a literary theme as well—Leach's rock opera is an adaptation of Faust, and both Swan and Leach are Faustian characters. And there's a clever Dorian Gray reference as well, only in this case, it's a videotape. That any of it manages to make a bit of sense, have something of an emotional impact, and result in a logical, though chaotic, climax is really a testament to the quality of filmmaking. DePalma, for all his excesses, really knows how to tell a story. Granted, the story is totally insane, but he tells it well and ends it confidently. The point being, if you were willing to blow all that time and energy on Rocky Horror, at least give Phantom of the Paradise a chance— it's a better film that you can genuinely enjoy without having to pretend to "get it," or to employ the use of props to augment the experience. And it'll increase your superiority-complex score by 32 points.
Review by Crimedog |
