In 1973 New Zealander Richard O'Brien conceived of the live Rock Opera stage-play Rocky Horror. It did a pretty decent take of encapsulating the then short-lived androgynous Glitter Rock music scene. Enjoying a successful run on-stage in London before playing to packed houses on L.A.'s Sunset Strip at Lou Adler's new Roxy Theatre..or was it the Rainbow Bar and Grill..the Whisky AU Go Go? I dunno. I know that it wasn't at Rodney Bigenheimer's English Disco where the likes of Iggy Pop, Alice Cooper and Kim Fowley hung out.
Lou Adler would then partner with Richard O'Brien to develop it into the 1975 film, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, that would initially flop at the box office. However, when repurposed as a midnight movie it would over time grow into a cultural phenom.
After watching 1974's The Phantom of The Paradise, I have to believe Brian De Palma was in the audience for at least one of those live staged L.A. Rocky Horror performances. Unfortunately, when it came time to collaborate on songs he didn't go with someone like Lou Adler or better still, Kim Fowley. Who beside his personal faults - which he made no bones about - was a pretty decent Rock -N- Roll songwriter, contributing songs like Department of Youth for Alice Cooper, and Flaming Youth for KISS. He was also someone who was well in tune with the waning Glitter Rock scene of 1974 L.A. Heck, Kim Fowley was still troping on the Glitter Rock aesthetic as late as 1979!
Paul William's on-screen performance is solid. You want someone who can play a bipedal, talking Orangutan or write a commercial jingle that can later be repurposed into an inoffensive, middle-of-the-road easy listening adult contemporary radio hit - he's your guy. He manages to portray a keen passive sinister malevolence here.
But as a composer of contemporary Rock-N-Roll...forget it. Definitely a miscall on De Palma's part.
I ask you, how on earth can you conceive of a film that is based on the visual trappings of early '70's Glam Rock and not hear a single chugging Chuck Berry barre chord or Bo Diddley shuffle guitar riff for the entire film?!!
Where would the careers of producer Mike Chapman (The Sweet, Mudd, Suzi Quatro) or Marc Bolan (T Rex) have been back-then without the shuffle style Bo Diddley guitar riff or chugging barre chord?
True, Mike Chapman would have still had Blondie, but you get my point.
Not even a single squiggly sounding synthesizer or farfisa organ vamp to be heard anywhere?!
Before Brian De Palma cast her as an autistic, bullied outcast high school girl with telekinetic powers, Sissy Spacek was responsible for movie set decoration. On this point, I thought she succeeded in capturing the garish, over-the-top visual excess of the time.
Although Bay-area band The Tubes with singer Fey Waybill as Glitter Rock alter-ego, Quay Lude summed up the whole excessive decadence of 1974 L.A. much more succinctly in their excellent 1975 Rock-N-Roll vignette, 'White Punks On Dope.'