Brian DePalma's "Phantom of the Paradise" is great fun, if you're in the right mood. It is bizarre, it is silly, it is campy. Yet somehow, this film works when it really shouldn't.
Bill Finley, who co-starred in DePalma's previous film "Sisters", this time stars as Winslow Leach (a play-on-words of DePalma's film teacher Wilford Leach), a budding songwriter whose songs catch the attention of Swan (Paul Williams, who's great). Swan proceeds to steal Leach's songs and send him to jail on a false dope charge. Leach escapes and is permanently scarred when he tries to destroy Swan's Death Records pressing plant. He then comes back as The Phantom of the Paradise, hell bent on destroying Swan. That is until Swan makes a deal with him..a costly deal.
That's all I want to say because I really don't want to spoil some of DePalma's nice surprises. What I will say is that on one level "Phantom of the Paradise" is a bad movie. But it's so skillfully made, funny and good-natured that you end up loving it in a very strange way.
The performances go a long way to making this work. Bill Finley has a gift for playing strange characters (among his DePalma credits include "Sisters", "The Fury", and the voice of Bobbi in "Dressed to Kill") and DePalma makes good use of it here; you feel sympathy for Leach/The Phantom and root for him all the way to the end. Paul Williams is surprisingly good as Swan, the villain of the film. He seems both benign and menacing; Williams is able to pull it off despite limited acting experience. He also wrote the songs for the film. You will want to own the soundtrack after seeing this. The film's funniest performance is by Gerrit Graham (another DePalma regular; "Greetings", "Home Movies" are among his credits) as Swan's discovery; a very strange singer named Beef.
"Phantom of the Paradise" is not one of the great DePalma films, but it is an entertaining diversion that you'll never forget long after the final frame has played out.
***1/2 out of 4 stars
Bill Finley, who co-starred in DePalma's previous film "Sisters", this time stars as Winslow Leach (a play-on-words of DePalma's film teacher Wilford Leach), a budding songwriter whose songs catch the attention of Swan (Paul Williams, who's great). Swan proceeds to steal Leach's songs and send him to jail on a false dope charge. Leach escapes and is permanently scarred when he tries to destroy Swan's Death Records pressing plant. He then comes back as The Phantom of the Paradise, hell bent on destroying Swan. That is until Swan makes a deal with him..a costly deal.
That's all I want to say because I really don't want to spoil some of DePalma's nice surprises. What I will say is that on one level "Phantom of the Paradise" is a bad movie. But it's so skillfully made, funny and good-natured that you end up loving it in a very strange way.
The performances go a long way to making this work. Bill Finley has a gift for playing strange characters (among his DePalma credits include "Sisters", "The Fury", and the voice of Bobbi in "Dressed to Kill") and DePalma makes good use of it here; you feel sympathy for Leach/The Phantom and root for him all the way to the end. Paul Williams is surprisingly good as Swan, the villain of the film. He seems both benign and menacing; Williams is able to pull it off despite limited acting experience. He also wrote the songs for the film. You will want to own the soundtrack after seeing this. The film's funniest performance is by Gerrit Graham (another DePalma regular; "Greetings", "Home Movies" are among his credits) as Swan's discovery; a very strange singer named Beef.
"Phantom of the Paradise" is not one of the great DePalma films, but it is an entertaining diversion that you'll never forget long after the final frame has played out.
***1/2 out of 4 stars