Brian De Palma, directors of movies like "Scarface", "Carrie" and "The Untouchables", reaches the audience with a horror/musical in 1974. The movie titled "Phantom of the Paradise" tells about the story of Winslow Leach, musician and writer of an entire opera based on the story of "Faust" written by Goethe in 1808. Winslow would like to have his music reviewed by Swan, owner of Death Records label in the process of inaugurating "The Paradise" with a massive live performance. Winslow is tricked by the label into giving in his work in exchange for a review and a call from Swan, but days go by and the naïve artist doesn't hear a single word back from him. When he visits the studios and asks to speak to Swan in person, he's escorted to the door finding himself robbed of the work of his life. At a private audition reserved for ladies only, Winslow meets Phoenix and falls in love with her voice. Winslow is caught by Swan's henchmen, beaten, thrown out, left with a purse filled with cocaine and arrested by the cops. At Sing Sing prison, after months used for experiments funded by the Swan's foundation, Winslow hears his music on the radio sang by a pop band named "The Juicy Fruits". Blinded by anger and pain, he escapes prison through the mail box delivery service to go vandalize Swan's record factory and, after getting caught into a disc press, he runs away with his face burnt and disfigured. Now unrecognizable and in despair, he sneaks into "the Paradise" venue, where Swan is working on the opening act, and haunts the place terrorizing the band and the technicians. Swan finds him and offers Winslow a deal: the writing of "Faust" ending in exchange for choosing the artist he desires to perform his opera on stage. The choice is, obviously, Phoenix. Winslow is, once again, misled by Swan's real intentions; the young girl is destined to be one of the background vocalists, and the star will be a rocker named Beef. Winslow learns about Swan's plot and sabotages the show by electrocuting Beef during the performance. Phoenix is sent on stage to save the night and enchants the audience performing a delicate piano ballade. The woman is manipulated and used by Swan who's planning on killing her on camera during the next big "spectacle" in her honor. Winslow discoveres the awful truth about Swan, a spoiled and empty man on the verge of depression from aging. The devil comes to him while he's taping his suicide with promises of eternal youth, and now Swan finds strength into making other souls signing life-lasting contracts with their blood, and preseving the tapes proving that the blood bonds are concluded. Winslow knows that destroying the cassettes will end in both his and Swan's death, but he sacrifices his life to set Phoenix, the love of his life, free.
The movie collected mostly negative reviews after its release, but the soundtrack has always been its strong point. Each song is beautifully and eloquently written by a superb Paul Williams, and it is a shame that this movie wasn't celebrated as much as other musicals such as "Grease" or "Saturday Night Fever". I get it, there's no huge names involved in the making of this film that I consider extremely underrated, but the quality of its direction and musical composition have nothing to envy to other pictures that caught mainstream consideration. I guess not much was different in 70's Hollywood: big names got the most attention and the biggest marketing strategies, not forgetting that sometimes certain people in real life sign deals with the "devil" (aka amoral human beings). Some cases like, for example, the tie between John Travolta or Tom Cruise and Scientology, and the obscenity hiding behind that cult have been largely talked about and still carry a lot of mistery. Anyway, if you have never seen this movie, I highly recommend it! Best, Martina.
Cult Classic
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