Principal Archivist

Paul has a cameo as a dubious weapons dealer. Which may be redundant. Edgar Wright is a huge Phantom fan.

A swan? No... At least from Finley's perspective: "I wanted it to be somewhere between a sort of bird of prey and a little bit of an alien, the notion of a human being transforming into something totally different." And no, I'm not a principal IRL. :-)

Hi Cakebug - (can I call you Cakebug?) Thanks for the generous words about the site. It's been kind of a labor of love. To answer your questions - I fell in love with the movie when it came out, I was 12 years old. I loved the music, the look of the film and, especially, the dazzling camerawork and technique. Even then, I recognized that De Palma was an extraordinarily careful and creative visual storyteller. I sought out his prior films (which was not so easy in the pre-VHS days), and the release of every one of his films since then has been an event for me. I started collecting stuff on the film because where I lived (the San Francisco area), unlike in Winnipeg, the film came and went in an instant, and the only way to maintain a connection to it was to haunt cinema stores, comic conventions and the like, and try to find memorabilia to possess. Much, much later, starting around 2005 or 2006, I became an insider of sorts, I guess: I put up my website, and had a hand in producing Phantompalooza II, in Winnipeg, which the entire cast attended, and co-produced and co-directed most of the supplemental features on the Scream Factory disc, and also helped with aspects of the Opening disk (France) and Arrow's (UK). Much of the cast and crew and their families have become friends in the years since then, some closer than others, and some very close. Bill Finley's widow (Susan, who by the way is the person you see wearing the Phantom's helmet at the end of the movie...because she could be trusted not to run off with it before the next take) asked me to give a eulogy at his memorial service, which was one of the more nerve-wracking (the pews were filled with many of the icons of my childhood) and moving experiences I've had.... A guy named Roger Leatherwood wrote a piece for Bright Lights Film Journal that gives a fair idea of how the collecting and the site got underway, if you're interested in that: http://brightlightsfilm.com/the-phantom-archivist-and-the-phantom-archives-the-amateur-online-archive-of-brian-de-palmas-phantom-of-the-paradise-1974 How did I find out you were discussing it in the forum? Someone in an earlier post in this thread had linked to my site and, like many webmasters, I track incoming links, so I can see what people are saying about the site, and perhaps connect with likeminded folks. Fortunately, with respect to Phantom, there seem to be more of them every day.

Thank you Mr. Tranch... if that IS your real name... pretty much everything I know has already been brain-dumped into the pages of my site, but happy to help if I can!

Nooo, not quite. The three claims were the Phantom comic book title issue, the Swan Song claim, and Universal's claim that the storyline hewed too closely to their Phantom of the Opera storyline (which differed from the original novel, and from the story in the Lon Chaney and other early film versions). The Swan Song claim was brought by Led Zeppelin's manager, Peter Grant, and part of his motivation for bringing the claim was that he had previously managed a band whose lead singer, in Beef-like fashion, was electrocuted onstage. It's all explained on my Swan Song Fiasco page, here: https://www.swanarch...tion_Fiasco.asp