The Phantom of the Paradise [1974]

The Phantom of the Paradise [1974]:
01). Winslow Leach, The Phantom… William Finley.
02). Swan… Paul Williams.
03). Phoenix… Jessica Harper.
04). Beef… Gerrit Graham.

The story is of a composer who has his music stolen by the devil. Who goes by Swan in this. He tries to go after Swan but get caught and thrown into jail where his teeth are all pulled out. He then hears the announcement of his music to be recorded and escapes jail. He tries to destroy all the music but gets his head crushed by a record… thing of the bobber. As he walks around there is this strange Darth Vader like breathing… only the thing is… this is before Star Wars! So it’s not a rip-off.
He then begins to haunt the Paradise. He then meets Swan again and makes a deal with him. He will finish Faust as long as he has control over it. They hold auditions for it again. He hears a woman he had meant earlier… Phoenix. He says that only she is able to sing his music.
Swan helps the Phantom figure out a way to speak because he lost his voice in the accident. They rig up a voice box for him to use.
Soon, Swan has Phoenix moved from the lead to the chorus, and hires a new lead a man named Beef. That is one thing about this movie, really strange names… mostly named from birds apparently.
Beef is sort of the comic relief. The Phantom is not pleased with this and so he threatens Beef to not sing his music. At first Beef listens and starts to leave, but they convince him to stay anyways. While performing Beef gets electrocuted by his guitar. Hey, I just saw an episode of CSI with that. Maybe they were watching this movie.
Phoenix then takes over and the crowd loves her. Soon she is wrapped up in the life of a rock star. The Phantom continues finishing Faust and Swan plans to have Phoenix assassinated onstage because that creates more publicity.
The Phantom learns of this plan by watching some videos some of which involve Swan’s deal with the Devil so he could be young forever, and his true face only show up on pictures…. Apparently he is Dorian Gray! Phoenix also has a deal with Swan aka Dorian Gray as well.
Once the Phantom learns of Swan’s plan he hurries in to save her as well as burning the tapes which will destroy Swan. He stops the assassin, saving Phoenix and then the Phantom rips off Swan’s mask revealing his face that is burning away…. Wait! The Phantom rips off someone else’s mask? That a switch! Anyways, his own mask then gets ripped off and the crowd begins climbing onto the stage. Do they have no security there? How does the crowd not see that people are dying? Oh, well. Soon Phoenix recognized the Phantom as Winslow. She goes over to him as he dies.
So far, this movie is only okay…. Not really to my taste especially in music. Faust isn’t too bad though. I do like Winslow’s costume in it. Most of the other characters in it are driving me nuts! Though Beef is rather comically in his own way. Phoenix’s voice is really nice.
I know I left out a lot but this is only my first viewing. I hear that this movie gets better the second time you watch it, because you know what type of movie it is that you are getting. I do plan on doing this, and do actually hope to like it better. I know that there is a following for this movie. There is also suppose to be a remake of it coming out this year. So I guess we will see what happens.