PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE (1974), dir. Brian De Palma

Had anyone else directed this movie, it may have only turned out half as good. That’s the biggest compliment I can pay De Palma, who wrote and directed this otherwise B-grade trash film, but elevates it through sheer force of will, dark wit, and the casting of songwriter/actor Paul Williams.

As the title indicates, “Phantom of the Paradise” takes inspiration from Gaston Leroux’s novel “Phantom of the Opera,” about a disfigured musical genius who helps turn the ingénue he’s in love with into a star. This time around, the phantom is a tortured piano player named Winslow Leach (William Finley), the ingénue is an aspiring actress (Jessica Harper), and Paradise is a club owned by the record producer Swan (Williams), who is seeking a new sound to open with.

Swan decides Leach’s music is perfect; however, instead of buying it, he has him wrongfully imprisoned and destroys his face and voice. In a plot that freely borrows from “The Hunchback of Notre Dame,” “Faust,” and others*, Leach escapes, sneaks into the Paradise, and begins sabotaging it until he’s offered a deal he cannot refuse: complete his masterpiece, an opera based on “Faust,” Swan tells him, and he will get creative control and the means to make music again. All he needs to do is sign a lifetime contract in blood, which really, should have been the first sign for Leach that the terms wouldn’t be in his favor.

“What does this mean?” Leach asks regarding legalese stating the contractor gets all rights to fetch and carry forth his “soul, flesh, blood, or goods.” “Oh, that’s a transportation clause,” Swan nonchalantly replies, in a scene seemingly lampooning the real-life music industry, where to this day, lawsuits claiming thievery and mismanagement by producers run rampant. Of course, it’s also an example of the mocking humor that peppered De Palma’s work right up to 1978’s “The Fury.”

There is always some undercurrent of humor to go with the film’s escalating violence and mayhem; nevertheless, “Phantom” feels like a movie done in two halves. Despite being concerned with Leach’s fall from grace, the first half is B-movie-ish in its aesthetic, featuring moments that are manic in tone and downright experimental: a jailbreak played for laughs; a sped-up chase sequence done to classical music; even some rickety, handheld camera work. As Leach, Finley’s dorky looks and lack of traditional leading man stature only add to the film’s cheapie feel, which some will doubtlessly find charming.

Once the second half gets rolling, however, the set pieces become more elaborate and the tone settles into more of a slow burn. True, De Palma throws in some twists – it’s as if he decided, “I’ve ripped off three classics so far, what’s another?” – coming close to derailing the whole enterprise if not for his willingness to simply throttle his way through to the end. In addition, he was fortunate to have Paul Williams to lean the film on; his youthful looks and boyish smile help make everything he said or did seem extra sinister, and his real-life success as a songwriter for The Carpenters, among others, made him the perfect casting choice for Swan.

De Palma has always been something of a cult director, and fans will undoubtedly note the use of split screens – one of his lasting trademarks – as well as his thing for recording technology, which would reappear in 1981’s “Blow-Out.” Meanwhile, beneath such over-the-top touches as a muscular lead singer who is flamboyantly gay off-stage, De Palma the screenwriter does seem to have something halfway-subversive to say about the music industry and pop culture: namely, that everyone’s worth more dead than alive. But the more practical message for struggling musicians might be never sign a contract in blood, at least not without having a lawyer read it first.

Overall rating: *** (out of ****)