The Phantom of the Paradise

Who would think there would be a cut-rate version of The Rocky Horror Picture Show? Brian DePalma’s weird, campy twist on The Phantom of The Opera is a violent musical in which the only star is Paul Williams. It bombed, by the way. Now that it’s forty years old, it’s bypassed painful unwatchability and moved straight into hilarious train wreck. It’s also interesting to see the director that Brian DePalma would become. (One also remembers the trivia about DePalma, who laughed at the rough-cut of Star Wars, sure that it would bomb…)