By Richard Winters
My Rating: 7 out of 10
4-Word Review: Record producer exploits songwriter.
Winslow Leach (William Finley) is a talented, but unknown songwriter whose written a cantata based on the Faust legend. Famous record producer Swan (Paul Williams) overhears Winslow singing it and decides he’d like to use if for the grand opening of his new concert hall. Swan speaks with Winslow about the piece leading Winslow to believe he’s finally found his ‘big break’ but then doesn’t hear back from him for another month. Winslow then goes to Swan’s office but is kicked out when Swan refuses to see him. He then makes several other attempts to meet with him before Swan has him arrested on trumped up drug charges and sent to prison. It is there that Winslow realizes that Swan had his cantata stolen and now plans on using it to stage his own production while not giving Winslow any credit for having written it. This so enrages Winslow that he manages to escape from prison and storms the production headquarters only to accidentally fall into a record press machine that severely disfigures him. Now, while wearing a mask, Winslow continues to terrorize the place as ‘The Phantom’, which causes Swan to decide to make a deal with him. He asks Winslow to rewrite the cantata with beautiful new singer Phoenix (Jessica Harper) in mind to sing it. Since Winslow is secretly in love with her and also admires her immense talents, he agrees, but then Swan forces him to sign a contract in blood that has some very unusual clauses.
This was writer/director Brian De Palma’s attempt to mix horror with the irreverent quicky comedy of some of his earlier films from the late 60’s. The result is a mishmash of ideas with some of it mostly working. I really liked the visual style that has to be seen on the big screen, which I was fortunate enough to do at the Alamo Drafthouse recently, to fully appreciate it. I loved the over-the-top set pieces like Swan sitting in the center of his desk that’s made to look like a giant record. The outrageous costumes, garish music, quick edits, and his trademark split screens all help to make it highly entertaining on a visual scale.
Where it starts to have problems is with the humor. Like with De Palma’s earlier experimental films it has an engaging, offbeat quality that I liked and even found funny, but it gets a bit overboard and it ruins the tension. A good example of this is when Winslow goes to Swan’s office and gets kicked out, but in a very silly way that comes complete with cartoonish sound effects. This would’ve worked better had there been more of an attempt to make it a legitimate horror with only a little dark humor sneaked in versus an all-out camp feast that unfortunately hurts the story’s darker moments.
The acting though is quite engaging and does help save it even during its goofier moments. When I first saw this, years ago I felt Finley was miscast as the protagonist. With his thick glasses, bulging eyes, crooked teeth, and hair trigger temper, he actually comes off as scarier when he’s still looking ‘normal’ than after he gets disfigured, but in retrospect this helps create a more three-dimensional protagonist. A lot of people that are very talented in one area can also be quite dense in others, so the way Swan is able to con him so easily made sense. Also, if they spend a lot of time alone writing songs it would seem logical that they would be awkward socially, so his sometimes cringey behavior was a logical fit and thus the bespectled Finley, who would never be deemed a good-looking hunk like the conventional hero, was an astute casting choice.
Williams was another one that initially came off as wrong for the role. Originally De Palms wanted him to the play the part of Winslow especially since he is a real-life songwriter who wrote the entire soundtrack for this, but he wasn’t right physically for it, so asked if he could play the bad guy instead. Seeing such a short guy playing such an intimidating figure does come off as ironic, and Williams shows some surprising confidence in the role both with his terse delivery and facial expressions, but it would’ve been better had we not seen him right away. Instead, he could’ve been this voice we hear through the shadows and only had the big reveal occur during the second or third act, which then would’ve heightened the irony of his small stature even more.
Harper is fantastic in support. This gets labeled as being her official film debut and her angelic face, beautiful singing voice, and great dancing ability, solidify making her a joy to watch every time she’s on the screen. Gerrit Graham is hilarious as the bulky shock rocker Beef, who behind-the-scenes is quite effeminate, and the very rotund George Memmoli is great too as Swan’s no-nonsense henchman.
Spoiler Alert!
The way Swan makes a pact with the devil didn’t make sense and needed better elaboration. He apparently meets him while sitting in the bathtub contemplating suicide as he didn’t want to ever get old. The only question is why would the devil suddenly show up just because of that? There’re many people who contemplate killing themselves and some even do, but there’s no devil jumping in trying to make a deal with them, so why does he come into play here? A better idea would’ve had Swan, in an attempt to maintain his youthfulness, start dabbling in witchcraft and through this he would inadvertently summon the devil.
My Rating: 7 out of 10
Release: October 31, 1974
Runtime: 1 Hour 32 Minutes
Rated PG
Director: Brian De Palma
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Video, YouTube
Scopophilia 