(aka 4 Mosche Di Velluto Grigio / Vier Fliegen Auf Grauem Samt / 4 Flies On Grey Velvet)
Director: Dario Argento
Producer: Salvatore Argento
Writer: Dario Argento, Luigi Cozzi, Mario Foglietti
Music: Ennio Morricone
Starring: Michael Brandon, Mimsy Farmer, Jean-Pierre Marielle, Aldo Bufi Landi, Calisto Calisti, Marisa Fabbri, Oreste Lionello, Fabrizio Moroni, Corrado Olmi, Stefano Satta, Bud Spencer
Dario Argento’s Four Flies on Grey Velvet has been out of print, and highly sought after, for many years now. Only bootleg versions of this film have previously been available on DVD, until now. Germany’s RetroFilm have the pleasure of releasing the first official release of this gem of a film. Unfortunately sections of the print were damaged and have been replaced with a lower quality source, so this copy isn’t near as good as we would hope for, but considering its obscurity it”s hard to complain after waiting so long to see this film again.When leaving a recording session one evening after his band complete their work for the night, Roberto Tobias (Michael Brandon) sees the figure of man that he has seen several times that week. Believing the man has been following him, he follows the man to confront him and find out what he wants. When he catches up with him in a confetti covered theater he confronts the stranger, but a knife is pulled on Roberto by the stranger. They struggle and the man is accidentally stabbed and killed. Mysteriously though, there is a witness to the crime who is watching from up in the balcony seats, and has taken pictures of the whole thing.
Roberto leaves the scene and the witness to the crime but he is plagued by what has happened, worried about going to prison for what was an unfortunate accident. When he reads in the paper the next morning that an unidentified body has been found, his nerves are really on edge.
It quickly become apparent that who ever took the photo’s of the stabbing is now toying with Roberto. He receives the dead mans drivers license in the mail, and then at a party he finds photo’s of the stabbing put in between his records. The photographs appearance begin to make Roberto suspect that it is someone he knows, someone that is at his party.
After Roberto is attacked one night in his home, his wife Nina (Mimsy Farmer) forces him to tell her whats going on. But when he tells her she doesn’t believe him at first, having not seen the attack. When she returns to the bedroom and finds a blood stained wallet with the dead man”s initials on it her doubts are quickly gone however.
At a loss with what to do Roberto turns to God. The soundtrack rings out cries of “Halaluya”, as Roberto’s meets up with his friend Godfrey (Bud Spencer) in the hopes of some helpful advice. Godfrey suggests hiring a private investigator to look into the case and protect him, and also suggests having the Professor (Oreste Lionello), one of Godfrey”s friends, keep an eye out for strange characters hanging around his house.
Earlier, after overhearing Roberto confessing to Nina, the maid discovers the identity of the ”blackmailer” and starts trying to get some money out of them. She arranges a meeting in the park, but after the park empties she is left alone and the ”blackmailer” doesn’t show up. As she is leaving the park however she notices she’s being followed, she runs but is unable to escape. She yells for help when she arrives at a wall and on the other side some people hear her, but it’s too late the killer catches up with her. Although we don’t actually see much of the murder you can’t help but cringe as her nails scratch noisily along the wall. Ouch!
After the police inform Roberto and his wife that the maid was found dead, and the Professor is found knocked out after playing lookout outside, enough is enough. Roberto takes Godfrey’s advice and hires a private investigator, and sends Nina away to stay with relatives.
The private investigator isn’t quite what Roberto had been hoping for. Gianni Arrosio (Jean-Pierre Mariell), another quirky gay character from Argento, explains to Roberto that of all the cases he’s investigated in the last 3 years he’s failed to solve any of them, making it a 100% failure rate. Gianni goes on to proudly explain that “statistically speaking one of the most impressive records of failure is destined to be broken”. Roberto doesn’t look so convinced.
As it turns out though, Gianna manages to beat all the odds and gets very close to solving the case. But before he can tell Roberto what he knows the killer strikes again, and Roberto is left with Godfrey and the Professor to figure out what is going on, and why.
Four Flies is perhaps the film that sets Argento apart from his contemporaries. While other directors were producing solid films in the Giallo genre Argento managed, especially with Four Flies, something more. Not only is Four Flies a solid film, but it’s also perhaps his most experimental, up until this point. Inconsequential scenes that seems somewhat bizarre add on to the multi layered element of Four Flies. The film begins with a fly, and pretty much ends with a fly. A dream of an execution style beheading that continues to plague Roberto throughout the film hints at what there is to come, as the blade gets closer and closer to the neck of the victim while the film progresses.
There are a lot of things in Four Flies that would be visited again in later films. You can see a lot of Argento’s masterpiece Profondo Rosso (1975) in Four Flies. It is definitely a transition from the standard Giallo, which the likes of Sergio Martino and Aldo Lado were producing, to the heavily textured pieces that Argento would produce, and master. The affair between Argento and the camera is being pushed further with Four Flies than it had previously. The graceful gliding movements of the camera during moments with the killer and before scenes of the macabre, add a sense of serenity within the killers madness. This coupled with snappy editing to show off the almost snapshot quality of certain scenes as we are bombarded with glorious image upon image, gives the film its depth, which is something that many other directors fail to achieve. There is a certain erotic and surreal quality to any Argento film, something he manages to produce not just with the image, but mostly with the way he presents and goes about getting those images. No one else is, or was, doing that.
Add to that the quirky characters, the moments of dialogue delight, the many humourous touches through out Four Flies on Grey Velvet. What we have here is a real classic of the giallo genre. And I haven’t even mentioned the impressive and highly effective score by Ennio Morricone. Four Flies is a film that has rarely been seen these past few decades, and is ripe for re-discovery, providing someone gives this film the deluxe treatment it deserves. For now though, RetroFilm’s release should do the job.
Specifications: Widescreen 2.35:1; Dolby Digital 2.0 (English, German, Italian); German Subtitles.
Extras: Teaser, Trailer, Alternative Credits, Extended Ending (Italian).
