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Monday February 17th 2025

Phantom Of The Paradise | 1974

Phantom of the Paradise filming location: Majestic Theatre, Dallas, Texas
Phantom of the Paradise filming location: the Paradise rock palace: Majestic Theatre, Dallas, Texas | Photograph: Wikimedia: Joe Mabel

Brian De Palma’s deliriously crazy rock spin on The Phantom of the Opera and Faust was shot on sets in Los Angeles, with some exteriors in Dallas, Texas.

The Gothic exterior of the ‘Swanage’ palace of music mogul Swan (Paul Williams) is the old 1892 Dallas County Courthouse, now housing the Old Red Museum, 100 South Houston Street, dedicated to the history of the Dallas County Area.

Phantom of the Paradise filming location: Dallas County Courthouse, Dallas, Texas
Phantom of the Paradise filming location: the exterior of the ‘Swanage’ mansion: Old Red Museum, Dallas County Courthouse, Dallas, Texas | Photograph: Wikimedia / Leaflet

The ‘Swanage’ Interiors, though, were filmed in Los Angeles, in the familiar old Greystone Mansion, 905 Loma Vista Drive, in Beverly Hills. You can see it onscreen in films as diverse as Spider-Man, Ghostbusters, The Big Lebowski and The Prestige, as well as All Of Me, The Disorderly Orderly, Death Becomes Her, Indecent Proposal and There Will Be Blood

Phantom Of The Paradise film location: Greystone Mansion, Beverly Hills, Los Angeles
Phantom Of The Paradise film location: the interior of the ‘Swanage’ mansion: Greystone Mansion, Beverly Hills, Los Angeles

The forbidding hi-rise block of Swan’s ‘Death Records’ is now the HQ of Exxon Mobil, 3000 Pegasus Park Drive, south from North Stemmons Freeway, in West Dallas. A couple of years later, the tower crops up again as another sinister headquarters, this time of ‘Sandman’ in Logan’s Run.2

The ‘Paradise’ rock palace itself, haunted by the disfigured composer Winslow Leach (William Finley) is the Majestic Theater, 1925 Elm Street, a baroque movie palace built in 1921 as the HQ of the Interstate theatre chain. It was donated to the city of Dallas in 1976, and has subsequently been restored.