Winslow Leach (William Finley) is between rock and a hard place. A geeky composer, he's almost completed his Faustian cantata when it's stolen by Swan (Paul Williams), the satanic exec behind Death Records, who needs a new sound for the opening of his rock palace, the Paradise. After the consequences of the theft leave him with disfigured body and twisted soul, Winslow haunts the dark reaches of the Paradise while completing his cantata for his elusive love Phoenix (Jessica Harper), a young singer whose life belongs to Death. A frantic, cartoon-like musical that collides Ken Russell's Tommy and Lon Chaney's Phantom of the Opera with Oscar Wilde's Picture of Dorian Gray, this early De Palma has a kind of arch virtuosity as it offers up its dyspeptic survey of American rock in songs that go from ducktailed fifties rockabilly to glittery seventies glam (all written by Williams, who penned Carpenters hits like “We've Only Just Begun”). Along the way, Phantom slams the music biz for its devil-may-care duplicity. If memory serves, it's always been Swan's way.