Four Flies on Grey Velvet (1971)
"4 mosche di velluto grigio" (original title)

A musician is stalked by an unknown killer who's blackmailing him for an accidential killing of another stalker. But is everything what it appears to be?

Director:

Dario Argento

Writers:

Dario Argento (screenplay), Dario Argento (story),

Stars:

Michael Brandon, Mimsy Farmer, Jean-Pierre Marielle

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Michael Brandon	...	Roberto Tobias
Mimsy Farmer	...	Nina Tobias
Jean-Pierre Marielle	...	Gianni Arrosio (as Jean Pierre Marielle)
Bud Spencer	...	Godfrey 'God'
Aldo Bufi Landi	...	Pathologist
Calisto Calisti	...	Carlo Marosi
Marisa Fabbri	...	Amelia, the maid
Oreste Lionello	...	The Professor
Fabrizio Moroni	...	Mirko
Corrado Olmi	...	Porter
Stefano Satta Flores	...	Andrea
Laura Troschel	...	Maria (as Costanza Spada)
Francine Racette	...	Dalia
Dante Cleri	...	Coffin Salesman
Guerrino Crivello	...	Rambaldi, the neighbor

Storyline

Roberto, a drummer in a rock band, keeps receiving weird phone calls and being followed by a mysterious man. One night he manages to catch up with his persecutor and tries to get him to talk but in the ensuing struggle he accidentally stabs him. He runs away, but he understands his troubles have just begun when the following day he receives an envelope with photos of him killing the man. Someone is killing all his friends and trying to frame him for the murders...

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Plot Keywords:

drummer | murder | stalker | musician | being followed | 

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Taglines:

When the flies start to crawl, so will your flesh...

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Genres:

Mystery | Thriller

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Certificate:

PG

Details

Official Sites:

Official site [jp]

Country:

Italy France

Language:

Italian

Release Date:

25 August 1972 (USA)

Also Known As:

Four Flies on Grey Velvet

Filming Locations:

Incir De Paolis Studios, Rome, Lazio, Italy

Company Credits

Production Co:

Marianne Productions, Seda Spettacoli, Universal Productions France

Technical Specs

Runtime:

104 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Argento didn't want to use the "image caught in the retina" plot device since it was too fantastic for the giallo genre. But once Carlo Rimbaldi showed him how the effect would look like in the finished film, he soon changed his mind.

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Crazy Credits

You have just seen Four Flies on Grey Velvet.

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Connections

Referenced in Childrens Hospital: The '70s Episode (2011)

User Reviews

Glad to Be Grey

As with the previous two entries in the unofficial Animal Trilogy, Four Flies on Grey Velvet is short on explicit gore but brimming with atmosphere and artistic ingenuity, with set-piece murders primed and mined for maximum tension. It was with this film that Argento began to cement his particular style and is something of a crucible for future ideas. The murder of Roberto's maid in a local park foreshadows John Saxon's fate in Tenebre, and with its sudden lapses in time and attempted escape through the cobwebbed space between two buildings (to a soundtrack of whispers and sighs) it also sows seeds that would flourish in Suspiria. Other visual motifs (crimson curtains, extreme close-ups, inanimate objects suddenly wielded by a seemingly maniacal camera) would be repeated or re-jigged in Deep Red, Phenomena and Opera.

Argento's original intention was to have a gay protagonist and though the character of Roberto is still open to such a reading - his victimisation being as a result of a fear of being outed (as a murderer) has obvious correlations (note also Brandon's shaggy mane v Farmer's gamine crop or the rather tame bathtub scene with Francine Racette which sees Roberto playfully seducing his mirror image) - the more overt references are passed to Jean-Pierre Marielle, who brings immense likability to a small role and whose swish factor is tempered by a steely determination to finally cracking a case. A frosty Farmer acquits herself well, though Brandon is merely okay. Argento's fascination with weird science (here ludicrous by design but ingenious in execution) gives the film its animal-themed title, and the finale boasts one of his greatest sequences - a stunning, slow-motion shot of a car impacting with the back of a lorry, which marries chillingly beautiful aesthetics to Hollywood folklore, scored with Morricone's haunting "Come un Madrigale".

Four Flies is a solid giallo and an important entry in the Director's canon which bears repeated viewing, blurring gender roles and sexual identity, adding subtext and hit and miss humour, asylum flashbacks, well-executed deaths and a recurring nightmare in the form of a sun-bleached, public beheading - the significance of which turns out to be twofold. It also has in spades what a good Argento giallo conveys like no other, that chilling feeling of something wholly alien on the loose in human form.