Ready for a Super Soylent Green Day Saturday Night, well, here you go! I never saw "Phantom Of The Paradise" until recently, and the basic reason is that I was never a fan of the schmaltzy pop music of Paul Williams, and that's what I thought it was all about! I was wrong, and I stand corrected, this movie rocks, and as an extra bonus, it even comes with introductory narration by Mr. Twilight Zone himself, Rod Serling!
"Phantom Of The Paradise is a musical, and as bright and snappy as it might look, the funniest thing is that it's not really a comedy, in fact despite some moments of hilarity, it is actually a pretty gruesome horror tale that was both written and directed by Brian De Palma, so what else would you expect? Mr. De Palma hasn't made any movies since 2007, but has written, and is directing a new murder mystery that is coming out next year entitled "Passion." Might be something new to actually look forward to!
So, let's just start at the end, the multi-talented Paul Williams has credits that go on forever, and if writing all the songs for the incredibly bad movie "Ishtar" in 1987 didn't kill his career, maybe he really did sell his soul to the devil! For this role, Paul is Swan, the over the top devious head of Swan Records, and the owner of the ultimate rock palace, The Paradise!
There's a young pianist named Winslow Leach who thinks the world should be his oyster, and his rebellious soul is just about to meet up with, "Did somebody call security?"
This is indeed the last guy in the world whose finger or leg you want to pull. Not only was Winslow Leach forcibly ejected from The Paradise, he now also has drugs planted on him. He was playing around with the wrong people!
Next stop, The Nuthouse!! Speaking of The Nuthouse, he ain't Irish, but today is Tabonga's birthday!
Winslow Leach didn't really die, but he was horribly disfigured, a condition he hides behind this wacky mask!
William Finley met Brian De Palma when they both attended college, and went on to work with Brian on numerous projects that included "The Fury," and "The Black Dahlia!"
Deals are made between the devil and the dead!
The desk that Swan sits at for the auditions looks like a giant 7" 45 record! Hard to believe that millions of people today have no idea what that even is! Harder to believe is that two years before De Palma's "Carrie," Sissy Spacek was the Art Department set dresser for "Phantom Of The Paradise!"
Swan's number one act is The Juicyfruits, a moldable group of guys that morph easily from Doo-Wop to Surf to Death! Left to right are Archie (Eat Or Be Eaten) Hahn, Jeffrey Comanor in his only acting gig, but he did write some of the music for "Midnight Cowboy," and Peter (Disco Beaver From Outer Space) Elbling! In all my meanderings, this is the first time I've been able to reference The Firesign Theatre, and National Lampoon in the same caption!
You gotta love these thee guys, here they are again in their incarnation as The Undeads!
Next up is the fabulous Gerrit Graham as Beef! Gerritt would be irreplaceable in flicks like "Beware! The Blob," "Tunnel Vision," and "TerrorVision!"
How about a little role reversal on the "Psycho" shower scene?
We've been trying to cut back on our photos about a third, but Beef is so animated, I could have easily just shown you 20 shots of him and been done a whole lot sooner!
The supposed so pure and innocent love interest of Winslow is Jessica Harper as Phoenix! You'll remember Jessica from her starring role in "Suspiria" when Zillagord gets around to doing it one of these days! Another one of the weirdest things about "Phantom Of The Paradise" is that if I'm not mistaken, every person I have mentioned so far is still alive and kicking to this day! That's not something that happens too often around here!
When Beef goes down, it's finally time for Phoenix's star to shine, before she is dragged down into the quagmire of despair known as Swan's world!
I told you this wasn't a comedy, and as you can well see for yourself, it's no laughing matter, nor was I kidding!!!
I took a class on the films of Jean Renoir many, many years ago, and if there was one thing I learned, it was that movies don't have to necessarily be just comedy or drama, that they can be like real life, funny one minute and tragic the next. That pretty much sums up this cross between "Faust" and "The Phantom Of The Opera!" Yeah, and no happy ending neither!
It's Monster Monday with Tabonga, here at The Dungeon!.. Our offering is one of my very favorite 'bad' sci-fi movies. For comparison, remember, 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY came out the same year! It was released as ENDSTATION MARS in West Germany.
The music for this flick is great, one reason that makes it a Cult-O-Holic Favorite! And, we have a soundclip from it, so, push the big red 'GO' button catty-corner from the little yellow tweety boid, now, Ralphie The Tarantula! Here's the theme song from our Dungeon Redo of... MISSION MARS!
Dudes ain't screwing around here, that's a freakin' Saturn 5 rocket!! Darren McGavin plays Col. Mike Blaiswick, Nick Adams plays Nick Grant and George De Vries plays Duncan. I love those old THE NIGHT STALKER episodes because of Darren McGavin, he was perfect as Kolchak. And, we totally love Nick Adams, here at The Dungeon! 
They even use this famous stock footage of stage separation in reverse when they hook up with their supply capsule. 
Okay boys, dinner is served! 
After 6 months in space, the jumbo Campbell's Soup can finally comes to rest on the surface of it's destination, Mars. 
No offense, but, for a low budget movie, the miniature sets of the Martian terrain kick royal ass, very convincing well-lit work! No real info on who created these sets, though. 
In probably the most absurd moment, Nick finds (and, screams like a little girl when he does) the Russian cosmonaut they had seen flying through space earlier, stuck, standing up perfectly in the ground! Looks like he's giving them a high-five. 
Back on Earth, Nick's girlfriend and Mike's pregnant wife chat with the project head, Cliff Lawson. The bikini babes are actually in this pool scene, not on the beach as the poster shows. 
Back on Mars, the first sign that there just may be Martians on Mars! 
For me, this thing dubbed a 'Polarite' is one of the best old school monsters created, there's nothing else like it, it's just plain cool! 
Mike takes out the thing's heat-death ray! But, before long, another creature replaces it! 
Classic shot as our three spacemen observe a new menace, a large silver Orb. 
The mysterious Orb will not allow for them to take off, so, they must confront it! 
Marco!.. 
Polo!!
Mike and Nick watch in horror as the Orb drags Duncan inside and eats him! 
Mike has an interesting talk with the brain machine inside the Orb. Nick then sacrifices himself in order to blow up the Orb and destroy the Polarite creature... The Russian cosmonaut has miraculously come back to life and helps Mike launch their ship back to Earth!!
