The electronic voice of the Phantom, himself, is a weird and anguished hiss and rattle. Paul Williams, it should be noted, does have a tendency to speak very quietly and, in his first proper starring role (his stint in Battle for the Planet of the Apes doesn’t really count), does not really enunciate his deliveries with all that much aplomb, unless he is issuing audition commands through the microphone, but this is down to him and not the mix. The simpering, needy desperation of Winslow, and the soothing, sugar-coated smarm of Swan play well off one another. This sort of performance is emblematic of the soundtrack at its most excitingĭialogue is served well. Her voice comes across superbly, especially when she delivers her Country audition song, which she belts out with a voice that is so much bigger than she is. When Jessica Harper’s Phoenix sings, she has a great, soulful voice, at once quintessential of the era that was just slipping out of Flower Power, and also extremely individual and idealistic. Everything here is heightened and, as such, mostly unrealistic and coalescing into a vintage sort of rush that naturally lacks the scintillating clarity of more modern fare. This sort of performance is emblematic of the soundtrack at its most exciting. The screaming hubbub of the audience lends credence and dimensionality, especially when the band make the glorious transition to The Undeads later on. When The Juicy Fruits explode through the introduction with a psycho-billy fifties-esque rock ‘n’ roll ballad, the speakers come alive with vibrancy and dynamism.
PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE FULL
It features lots of songs given the full tilt of excess. This is a film that is ribald and gregarious, a rip-snorting horror musical that bolts itself together with a variety of trends and musical styles. We have 2.0 LPCM stereo and a 4-channel stereo DTS-HD MA options, and both are excellent. There are a couple of tracks for your delectation, hipsters! Arrow’s transfer gains an impressive 8 for its video transfer. It softens-up deliberately to embrace Jessica Harper, but reveals oodles of detail elsewhere. The image is lively, bright and engaging. Digital noise is not apparent, and nor is there any annoying edge enhancement (some slight haloing during the plane arrival sequence excepted), banding or aliaising. I encountered no major errors in the encode. The spectacular show with The Undeads, in pre-Kiss/Alice Cooper gothic makeup, and Beef doing a fine Frankenstein’s Monster impersonation, features lots of great lighting, crazy colours and strong contrast – a barnstorming highlight. Mixing desks, instruments and cables are keenly rendered, as are the freakish costumes and makeup that Gerrit Graham sports as the outrageously camp Beef. Detail is always apparent, even in the deepest recesses of the frame, and close-ups are especially revealing.
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Shots of Swan, in the extreme foreground, looking in at Winslow in the recording studio in the background, are wonderfully composed, and the disc displays many such visual delicacies smoothly and with a fine sense of depth. Also, the shade of midnight blue is touchingly presented.Ĭhaotic camera-angles, some guerrilla-style handheld material, fabulous montages and split-screen effects all reveal the visually avant-garde direction in which De Palma was headed. Blacks are suitably deep, with the pivotal sequence of the Phantom spying on his love cavorting with Swan through the rain licked skylight on the roof, and his subsequent tussle with his Freudian nemesis taking place mainly in the shadows. At times, there are some hazy highlights but, then again, this also ties-in with the stage lighting and the garish, inflamed palette. Skin-tones are accurate to the original filming. The blood is Hammer-bright, and the face-melting is nicely icky and drippy, very reminiscent of the pizza-face effect seen in John Carpenter’s Prince of Darkness. The blue denims of the prison inmates are thick and fuzzy. The image is actually very warm, revelling in the garish colour scheme of the production and the hyper theatricality of the design style and sleazebag, circus-like surrealism that De Palma was going for. The image is actually very warm, revelling in the garish colour scheme of the production