CommentsXp Best movie ever!

Afouotos Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Matylda Swan It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

Fatma Suarez The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Edendsen I loved phantom of the paradise.When I was a kid,I watched it first Paul Swan scared me with all his selling his soul to the devil stuff but it is a rock opera the likes of which is not around anymore.Very great film it is up there with Tommy and I miss this era in filmmaking.i want to bring back the Rock opera a la Jesus Christ Superstar.It was sad when he got his head stuck in the record machine,I was also freaked out but the lead character prevails.He was quite the hothead,you know,but people took advantage of him stealing his songs oh but he got even!Great,amazing film loved this!!!!!

Martin Bradley This deliriously daft rock musical filters "Faust" through "The Phantom of the Opera" throwing in "The Picture of Dorian Gray" while plagiarizing God-knows how many movies on the way. It's an early De Palma and it contains many of his signature marks. When it came out I thought it fresh enough to choose it as my best film of the year. Now it looks like a period piece but it's a fun movie nevertheless. Paul Williams, Jessica Harper and Gerrit Graham are still very good but the soon never to be heard of William Finley simply can't carry the role of the Phantom. Today it's a cult movie, beloved by those who prefer De Palma's more off-the-wall efforts. Certainly it's no longer 'best film' material but it's still worth seeing.

PimpinAinttEasy Dear Brian De Palma,you really hate the American music industry, don't you? You didn't even spare The Beach Boys. The songs in the film were truly awful, lol. I guess that was deliberate. Phantom of Paradise is an over the top depiction of American excess, debauchery and bad taste. That and the characters with grotesque faces and garish sets makes Phantom of the Paradise America's Satyricon (the Fellini film) - a study of how uninhabited devotion to pleasure eventually leads to the decline of a civilization. The exaggerated social satire set to music reminded me of A Clockwork Orange. The film might have had an influence on the makers of This is Spinal Tap. William Finley is such a great actor to have in your movie. His odd long face with the big nose, peppered with the cat eyes makes him almost like a special effect. Jessica Harper was disappointing, it was hard to imagine that the talented song writer (Finley) would be so enamored by her. I wonder what you and Dario Argento saw in her. She did act reasonably well though. Paul Williams nailed the creepy and cruel music producer. I noticed some of your trademarks like split screens, long point of view tracking shots and morally repugnant Italians. I was not enamored by the film beyond a certain level. I mean, I like the fact that you are being tongue in cheek with all the over the topness. But there are times when you lost your way with this style (Get to Know Your Rabbit was also an example of this).Best Regards, Pimpin.(5/10)

MBunge Like a dog playing the bassoon or Rush Limbaugh delivering the keynote address at the annual convention of the NAACP, there are some things in life you have to see to believe. Phantom of the Paradise definitely falls into that category. A willfully campy stab at creating a "Rocky Horror" style midnight movie, this film inherently defies critical analysis. Almost everything about it that's goofy or terrible is intentionally that way. All you can authoritatively say about it is that it features a lot of great music by Paul Williams and it shows that Brian De Palma had no freakin' idea what to do when his characters started singing.As the title implies, this is a take off on The Phantom of the Opera but one where the origin of the Phantom is acted out twice in the story. It's also a musical version of Faust where the a main character has actually written a musical version of Faust. Then if that wasn't enough for you, the movie also throws a heaping portion of The Portrait of Dorian Gray into the cinematic stew pot. The end result is an intentionally bizarre muddle that you have to enjoy for its own dreadfulness. William Finley stars as Winslow Leech, the talented musician who is betrayed, disfigured, becomes the Phantom and is then weirdly betrayed again by the same guy. Of course, since Finley looks like the genetic results of a four way orgy of Barry Manilow, Randy Neuman, Gene Wilder and Marty Feldman, he's probably the only Phantom in history to look better after he's disfigured. Paul Williams is Swan, the mega-successful and manipulative record producer who steals Winslow's music to christen the opening of his new theater, "The Paradise". Jessica Harper is Phoenix, the young singer caught between Swan and the Phantom. Harper appears to be the only one in the cast to not understand that she's in a deliberately bad film, resulting in her giving both the best and most incorrect performance in the whole mess. There's also George Memmoli as Swan's chief stooge and Gerrit Graham as a glam rocker Swan recruits to perform Winslow's cantata about Faust, which somehow transforms into a rock opera about Frankenstein.I could go on and on about how Phantom of the Paradise sucks in this, that and every other way…but that would miss the point. Even the abominable 70s fashions on display are so obviously exaggerated beyond what even people in the 70s wore that you can't really comment on it. All I can say is that the music, written but not usually performed by Paul Williams, is quite catchy. If they'd been part of a straightforward musical, even a terrible one, some of these tunes would probably have become standards that get covered over and over again by different artists. The other noteworthy thing about this movie is the direction of Brian De Palma. I t's interesting to see him work before he threw in the towel and became a Hitchcock drag queen, but the experience is somewhat spoiled by De Palma being completely out to lunch when it comes to making a musical. The singing and dancing in Phantom of the Paradise is so blandly staged and lamely filmed that you could show those scenes to the most devoted De Palma fans in the universe and they would never guess he directed them.If you can imagine The Rocky Horror Picture Show starring The Monkees, you have a fairly good idea of what this film is like. If that sounds like something you would enjoy, you can either rent this DVD or get yourself some much needed therapy.