Phantom of the Paradise (1974) on Netflix
PG19741h 31mComedyDramaFantasy
Songwriter Winslow Leach's Faust cantata is stolen for the opening of Swan's rock palace, The Paradise. Disfigured and masked as the Phantom, Winslow demands Swan stage his music.
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- Netflix4.0/5
- IMDb7.3/1026,600 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes86%
Trailer
Plot summary
Winslow Leach performs a song from his Faust cantata, and the producer Swan decides the music should open The Paradise, his new concert hall, so his right-hand man Arnold Philbin takes it. Thrown out of Death Records, Winslow sneaks into Swan's mansion during auditions for female singers and meets Phoenix, an aspiring singer he thinks suits his music. After further attempts to reach Swan, Winslow is beaten, framed for drug dealing and sent to Sing Sing, where his teeth are replaced with metal ones. Six months later, hearing that the Juicy Fruits have made a hit of his music, he escapes, tears up the Death Records building and the record factory, and falls into a press. Burned and voiceless, he slips into the East River, then hides in The Paradise's costume department as the masked Phantom.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Phantom of the Paradise (1974)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The press that disfigures William Finley's character Winslow was a real injection-molding press at Pressman Toys; the crew packed it with foam pads and chocks so it could not close completely, but the machine crushed the chocks and kept closing anyway.
- Contrary to urban legend, Finley's reaction in the press scene was not genuine fear: the sequence was filmed MOS, without sound, because of the noise of the hydraulic press, and the scream heard in the film was dubbed in post-production.
- De Palma met Paul Williams, then known mainly for songwriting, while making the rounds of studios for funding, and felt he suited Winslow Leach; Williams thought he was not scary enough and suggested playing Swan, a character once named Spectre after producer Phil Spector.
- As filmed, Swan's media conglomerate was called Swan Song Enterprises, but the name had to be deleted before release because Led Zeppelin already had a label called Swan Song Records; most references went, though Swan Song is still visible in several scenes.
- Daft Punk's Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter met at the cinema-going ages of 13 and 12, and the one movie they saw together more than 20 times was Phantom of the Paradise; like their own Electroma, it has a hero in a black leather outfit and a helmet.
- Sissy Spacek worked on the film as its set dresser, assisting production designer Jack Fisk, whom she later married; she went on to star in De Palma's Carrie in 1976.
