Phantom of the Paradise vs The Rocky Horror Picture Show

Well, I haven't voted yet...
It's funny; last week, during the big 'ol "Simpsons" marathon, one of the later Halloween episodes has a small cameo of the Phantom..... of The Paradise, of course!

 

Honestly Phantom of the paradise is my favorite out of these two films. I never really felt anything with Rocky Horror. I never got "the feels" for lack of a better term.
With phantom not only did I get the feels I also found songs and characters that I could identify with. I'm actually in the process of adapting the Phantoms theme to a female voice with my friend so I may be able to sing it on stage someday but I digress. Phantom of the paradise hands down.

 

Yes. He did the first scene introducing Swan and his background and the story to come. "The man who made it. The girl who sang it and the monster who destroyed it." Love it.

 

Phantom. I love Brian De Palma's work. Paul Williams makes a great villain, Jessica Harper is the perfect heroine and William Finley is both sympathetic and creepy as the Phantom. And, of course, Gerrit Graham is the ultimate scene-stealer as Beef.

Rocky runs out of steam for me after "Sweet Transvestite". As good as Tim Curry is in the movie, I feel it just meanders as it goes along and it's tiresome when watching repeats.

 

Agreed. On all counts save for Pheonix. I got kind of annoyed with her. She turned into a really greedy person once she achieved fame. When Winslow is dragging himself towards her and she just stands there all confused and crying...I'm like are you freaking kidding me. Go to his side.... Don't get me wrong. Goregous voice but they should have kept her innocent and sweet but then again it IS a statement on how messed up the music industry is so I can understand. Still an awesome movie. I loved Beef and I actually really felt sorry for him...
Rocky Horror sort of petered out for me after Hot Patootie...the rest of it made me go Whaa???

 

I saw Phantom when it came out. Thought it was OK. Never bothered with it again. Certainly nothing worth noting in the theater happend ("audience participation")

Saw my first Midnight Showing of Rocky at a place where it was totally nuts, up to and including riding a motorcycle through the theater when Eddie does it on screen. Over. The. Top. Very memorable. Dance line at the front of the theater. Rice. Newspapers. Bic's, Trivia contests (answer within a tenth of a second or forget it), ad libs shouted out from the audience, etc etc etc.

Rocky all the way.

 

The Rocky Horror Picture Show, for me. Love the movie and the soundtrack.

 

Funny thing is that Rocky Horror was actually filmed one year after Phantom of the Paradise came out. Kind of makes you wonder who copied who. Either way it's a great scene in either film imo.

 

Yes, he did the opening narration. What's sad is that Serling died a year after the movie was made, after many years of a 4-pack-a-day cigarette habit.

I love all the split-screens and fancy cutting that Brian DePalma did on Phantom. I had to recreate a bunch of those for the Blu-ray a couple of years ago, and it was a nightmare conforming all the original negative. But it was such an enjoyable film for me, it was totally a labor of love. Great movie.

Although... Rocky Horror was an off-Broadway stage musical in 1973, long before the movie was made. It's fair to say both movies had similar roots, but did it in very different ways. The producers of Phantom say they just took the story of Faust and wrote rock songs to go with an updated modern story, which makes sense. Rocky Horror is more of a true musical in that the songs advance the plot as sung dialogue, whereas the songs in Phantom are more performances of a song, before an audience or in the studio.

 

bump

 

Yoo know what.... I just voting "Horror", 'coz of the couple of mid-night shows I went to as a teen-ager, on Long Island.
It changed the 'clique' dynamic of my high-school, seeing the 'stoners' and the 'drama' kids unite in this weird, yet 'campy' movie. We all recognized each other from the halls of high-school, and THIS was our 'common-ground'!

 

Audience participation has developed for "Phantom" - including shadowcasting and callbacks, though most of the callbacks just compare it to RHPS and Shock Treatment. (Like, singing "There's a liiiiiight" when you see Swan's castle in the rain.)

 

Phantom.

 

Snuck in to see 'Phantom Of The Paradise' at the theater as a nine-year-old kid in Winnipeg back in the winter of 1974. Scared the bejeebus out of me & my pals! That scene where Winslow breaks into the Death Records pressing plant had me filling my drawers. So of course I went to see it about 50 more times. It played in The Peg for over a year! Bought the soundtrack LP & still play it regularly to this day. It's a Winnipeg thing...
Why Winnipeg? The 1975 'Phantom of the Paradise' Phenomenon | Part 1

 

I've never understood why Paul William's contribution to Phantom is under appreciated. He wrote wonderful songs, witty sophisticated parodies that were as musically inspired as they were hilarious. His performance as Swan was note perfect. De Palma's direction was fine, but it was pretty linear and the art direction (by Jack Fisk and his future wife Sissy Spacek) was more memorable than the directorial technique.

I'm a big fan of this period of De Palma, but he never came close to making a good comedy again and I think it shows how much credit Paul Williams deserves for Phantom.

 

I think it's just way ahead of it's time. If this movie came out now it would be hailed as an insightful deconstuctionist masterpiece of 21st Century pop-stardom. Maybe back in the 70's people weren't ready to look into that mirror. But nowadays that cinematic approach would really work with this subject matter. You could load a remake with tons of current talent. Hell, they would probably do it for scale...

 

It certainly was ahead of its time. The audience participation is what made Rocky such a if deal for many. I watched it on blu-Ray (thanks Vidiot) with my daughter and we recreated the event in the house. It wasn't playing anywhere near us at the time that I can recall. This is the value of an audience--it changes the perception of a movie because even if you are a quiet member of the audience, those around you sense your reaction. Then again you also have asshats that make the experience totally a pain in the butt.

 

Phantom here.

Rocky runs out of steam after Time Warp.

 

Phantom of the Paradise was released nationally on Halloween 1974. Rocky Horror Picture Show started filming October 20th 1974. The film based on a musical that premiered June 1973 in London. Paradise was written somewhere around 1969. There's only a few times one could ask who copied who but it's obvious neither copied anyone. Rocky Horror was a send up of old horror films and intentionally copied looks from the Hammer Horror films of Britain. No relation to Paradise who parodied the music industry and wove in elements of The Picture Dorian Gray, Faust, and obviously Phantom of the Opera. No relation, however they were both billed together on the midnight circuit.

 

I think of Ricky horror as a stage musical made into a film (which it was) and Phantom as a film with musical numbers. Different approach. Both are exceptional but very very different approaches to the material and origin.