{"id":18985,"date":"2022-10-18T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-10-18T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/?p=18985"},"modified":"2022-10-17T20:19:45","modified_gmt":"2022-10-18T03:19:45","slug":"the-singing-scream-queen-jessica-harpers-horror-movies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/the-singing-scream-queen-jessica-harpers-horror-movies\/","title":{"rendered":"The Singing Scream Queen: Jessica Harper’s Horror Movies"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Throughout the 1970s and \u201880s, Jessica Harper made her way into the Hey It\u2019s That Guy pantheon with a series of memorable appearances across a variety of films. Her naturalistic screen presence, understated line readings, and crack comic timing were a high point of the movies in which she appeared, and her wide-eyed girl-next-door appearance made her a pinup for cult film fanatics. While she never had the cultural cachet of her peers Teri Garr or Madeline Kahn, her effortless performances and willingness to try different genres and skills have given her a unique legacy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Horror film fans hold Harper in especially high esteem. In the 1970s she made her name in a pair of horror movies, singing, dancing, and shrieking through The Phantom of the Paradise <\/em>and Suspiria<\/em>. Her role in Suspiria<\/em> was so influential that she appeared in Luca Guadagnino\u2019s 2018 reimagining. Harper\u2019s regular-girl charm made her an ideal point-of-view character, guiding viewers through heightened and grotesque worlds and reacting the way we might imagine ourselves reacting to Faustian battles of wits and demonic ballet academies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the time Harper auditioned for a film called Phantom of the Fillmore<\/em>, she had appeared as a member of the tribe in the Broadway production of Hair<\/em> and booked a few roles in student films. Her screen test paralleled her introductory scene in Phantom<\/em>. \u201cI\u2019m walking by Jessica, and she\u2019s singing to herself, \u2018Long ago and oh so far away,\u201d Paul Williams recalled in a 2019 interview with Billboard<\/em><\/a>. \u201cAnd then she came in to audition for Brian and I, and she sang, \u2018Long ago and oh so far\u2019 in a Broadway voice. \u201cI think I said to her, \u2018Sing it to yourself.\u2019 And when she did, it was indicative of how brilliant the performance would be when she actually did it on film.\u201d Harper would eventually make her big screen debut in Phantom of the Paradise<\/em>, beating out no less than Linda Ronstadt for the role of muse\/love interest Phoenix. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Phantom of the Paradise<\/em> could be described as a farcical cautionary tale of the music industry or as a hodgepodge of myths, fairy tales, and gothic fiction, all tarted up for the glam rock era. The malevolent impresario Swan (Paul Williams, looking like a discarded prototype for Milo Bloom<\/a>), steals the score for a cantata inspired by Faust<\/em> from the ungainly composer Winslow Leach (William Finley) and plans to present it as the opening night attraction for his new nightclub, the Paradise. He then has Winslow framed for drug possession. Winslow escapes prison, but is disfigured when he falls face-first into a record press and breaks into the Paradise to confront Swan. Oh yes, and all of this happens in the first 15 minutes. At times, De Palma\u2019s references to The Picture of Dorian Gray<\/em> and Phantom of the Opera<\/em>, his homages to Hitchcock and Welles, and his use of whip pans and split-screen editing make Phantom of the Paradise<\/em> look like a coked-up cineaste\u2019s karaoke night. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both of the male protagonists become infatuated with Phoenix when she shows up at casting calls for the cantata; after hearing Phoenix sing \u201cFaust\u201d at a cattle call early in the film, Winslow decides that only she can sing his finished work. Harper\u2019s performance makes their feelings for her easy to understand. In her introductory scene, her voice rises from a cacophony of vocalists warbling their own off-key variations on Winslow\u2019s melody. Her affectless performance, combined with her friendliness and willingness to take direction from Winslow, shows the audience that she\u2019s perhaps the only likable character to that point. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fast pace and an operatic tone are established from the earliest frames, and Finley and Williams are able to match De Palma\u2019s manic energy; Finley expresses Winslow\u2019s fears through avian gestures and tantrum-like outbursts of rapid-fire dialogue, while Williams\u2019 clenched mid-Atlantic accent, downcast gaze, and swaggering physicality blunt the shock of his nastier dialogue. Harper\u2019s subtle performance contrasts with her costars. Her skeptical facial expressions and understated line readings effectively communicate the confusion and frustration Phoenix experienced as she rehearsed for the cantata. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even Phoenix\u2019s big moment towards the beginning of the film has a charming subtlety. When she shows up at a second open call to perform a different song from the cantata, DP Larry Pizer shoots her at eye level in a flattering soft-focus backlit closeup. As Harper sings \u201cSpecial to Me\u201d<\/a>\u2014a song whose smooth melody and organ-driven, proto-yacht rock arrangement belie the desperation in the lyrics\u2014she bobs and weaves towards the camera, regarding the lens with a wary expression.  Her hunched shoulders and tentative steps give way to a more open posture at the chorus; she rolls back on her heels, straightens her back, and relaxes her face as she holds the root note in the chord at the end of the chorus. When she slips out of the frame at the end of the chorus, she gathers herself up and falls back into the cautious facial expression and stiff dancing of the verses. While the rest of the film is frenetically edited, De Palma and editor Paul Hirsch allow Phoenix\u2019s audition to play out over a series of 13 edits, giving viewers the chance to relax into Harper\u2019s performance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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After a troubled production, Phantom of the Paradise<\/em> opened to indifference on Halloween 1974. Harper\u2019s career would flourish in the years after Phantom<\/em>; she received positive reviews for the box-office bomb Inserts<\/em> and took on a supporting role in Love and Death<\/em>.  Her debut film eventually found an audience in Rome, giallo director Dario Argento\u2019s home, and she booked the lead in part on the basis of Argento\u2019s admiration for Phantom of the Paradise<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Suspiria<\/em> takes place at the prestigious Tanz Academy, a dance school in East Berlin where American ballerina Suzy Bannion has enrolled. A series of gruesome deaths have broken out among students and faculty members attempting to escape the Academy, and when Suzy falls ill, she learns that the school is run by a coven of murderous witches. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though Phantom of the Paradise<\/em> bombed in its home country, its influence can be felt throughout Suspiria<\/em> in the performance milieu, high dramatic stakes, expressionistic performances, exaggerated production design, primary color-saturated cinematography, and fast editing. Argento directs his cast to turn in big performances that lean heavily on mannerisms, clearing a lane for Harper\u2019s wry, sober depiction of Suzy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The wide-eyed tentativity that Harper brought to Phantom of the Paradise<\/em> and the way it contrasted with the big performances around her reads as skeptical in Suspiria<\/em>. She regards the instructors at Tanz and her childish classmates with a weary expression, as if she has a lot of questions about what\u2019s happening but doesn\u2019t know if she should ask. Towards the end of the film, her unasked questions are answered. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the rest of her classmates are attending opening night of the Bolshoi Ballet, Suzy searches the school building for proof that something malevolent is happening within its walls. She passes through a hidden hallway and overhears a faculty meeting in which the headmistress (Constance Bennett) is plotting her demise. Argento and DP Luciano Tovoli emphasize Suzy\u2019s vulnerability by shooting her from a low angle as a diminutive, white-clad figure against a black hallway, but Harper\u2019s subtle facial expressions and stealthy body language emphasize to viewers how terrified Suzy is. In the final shot, after Suzy\u2019s murder of the headmistress causes the school to implode, she escapes the school, and we can feel her relief through her looser gait and less defensive body language. When the camera closes in on her as she slowly smiles, we can let out a sigh of relief after 90 minutes of suspense. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Harper would return to the world of\u00a0Suspiria<\/em> in a small but pivotal role toward the end of Luca Guadagnino\u2019s 2018 remake. As Anke, the ghost of psychiatrist Lutz Ebersdorf\u2019s wife, Harper appears to him in a vision, speaking in hushed tones about her escape from a German death camp and eventual relocation to England. Her portrayal of Anke contrasts with the circumspect ingenues with whom she\u2019d made her name; her gestures seem more confident and she\u2019s able to take up space in a way her previous characters didn\u2019t, and even in German her dialogue could inspire a sympathetic, sensible chuckle. Though Anke is a symbol of Ebersdorf\u2019s inability to believe women at a previous point in his life, the warmth in Harper\u2019s performance makes her a real character.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though Harper is at an age where her peers have slowed down, she\u2019s continued working at a steady clip across different media. She took on another small but pivotal role in Guadagnino\u2019s upcoming film Bones and All<\/em>; she\u2019s a regular on the TV series The Old Man<\/em> and See<\/em>; and her podcast memoir \u201cWinnetka\u201d was named one of the best podcasts of 2019. Harper\u2019s 1970s tenure as the singing scream queen will always hold a special place in horror fans\u2019 hearts.\u00a0\"\"\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the 1970s, character actress Jessica Harper starred in a pair of influential horror movies. Here’s why horror fans hold her in such high esteem.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":607,"featured_media":18987,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1399],"tags":[1422],"class_list":["post-18985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-looking-back","tag-looking-back"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/607"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18985"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18985\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}