Four Flies on Grey Velvet

Deluxe giallo from writer-director Dario Argento, with a presentation so stylish it threatens to overwhelm the plot. Dedicated husband and drummer for a rock band angrily confronts a mysterious man who's been following him; they scuffle and the stranger ends up stabbed with his own knife. No one is around to help the shaken musician, but there is one witness: a person in costume with a camera. This isn't a blackmailer--they don't want money--but the musician is quickly taunted with photos and notes...and soon, the people closest to him start dropping like flies. Argento shows an uncanny grasp of character here, and his roster of victims and suspects is delicious (there's also a scripture-quoting con-man who acts as a lookout, a terrified postman afraid of delivering the mail and a gay gumshoe hired by the protagonist who hasn't solved one case in his last 87!). Argento is a cinematic madman; his screenplay might not hold up under close scrutiny, but it's hard to nitpick with the small details when the end results are this tantalizing. *** from ****

I had heard about the giallo genre and had been curious to check out a film or two. I grabbed the very first one that I came across and it turned out to be this film.

The first thing to strike me was the camera work. Of course, by today's standards it seems outdated, but judging a film from the 1970s by today's standards is simply wrong. Argento's direction is captivating and conveys the feeling of being stalked very well. Audience can feel the paranoia of the main protagonist. There were some moments that would stand out even today (especially the ending) As for the plot, it's a murder mystery with some blackmailing thrown in, but finding out who the murderer is is not that complicated. I found the plot rather weak. The characters seemed quite stereotypical (the gay detective is hilariously funny). we also get some psychology explanation (that really doesn't explain much) and probably the stupidest murder motive I have ever seen in a film. I'm sorry, but it was seriously disappointing.

So did I like it? I think yes, I did. But it's definitely not a film for everyone. It's slow and more atmospheric than bloody. Yet it does have a certain charm of its own.

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.

Four Flies on Grey Velvet is Dario Argento's rarest genre film. It completes the Animal Trilogy and is the movie that preceded the magnificent Deep Red. Having never been officially available on video or DVD, Four Flies remains a bit of an enigma. It's fair to say that it is not an entirely successful movie – it has serious flaws in story and acting – however, it showcases early stylistic experimentation by Argento. And, as such, is an important entry of giallo cinema.

The story involves a rock drummer who accidentally kills a man and is drawn into a web of murder by a masked assassin who appears to have a vendetta against him.

The opening credit sequence is a memorable affair, incorporating pounding drums and close ups of a beating heart. This title sequence, however, is a good indicator of the inconsistencies of the film we are about to see, as included within this impressive opening is a silly section involving a fly that irritates rock drummer Brandon. The inclusion of this nonsense is an early example of one of the films major weaknesses – the comedy. It is never funny. We have a completely unfunny postman, a guru fisherman God who says absolutely nothing of interest at any point and a man with a moustache who tells a succession of abysmally unfunny stories to an audience of giggling women. Argento has never had flair for comedy, it's just not his arena and this film shows why. Imagine how bad a giallo directed by Woody Allen would be, well that's how bad comedy directed by Argento is.

But onwards and upwards. Thankfully he handles the suspense scenes very well indeed. We have the bizarre opening murder in the theatre witnessed by a highly creepy masked figure. A scary scene involving a girl hiding in a cupboard while the killer stalks outside. A sleazy episode in the underground. And, best of all, an excellent set-piece where a woman suddenly realises that she is alone in a menacing empty park that was previously filled with children and haunting carousel music playing over the tannoy. Four Flies is predominantly an exercise in suspense as all of these well handled sequences testify. The violence is restrained even for giallos of the period. Argento more than makes up for this with stylistic flourishes like the nice camera pan of the phone wires leading to the location of the killer, the shots of Michael Brandon driving his car quickly edited together with his subsequent POV approach to the private investigator's office and the deranged asylum flashback scenes. The movie is well shot with a number of inventive jump edits and unusual angles, giving a taste of Argento's films to come.

However, all of these excellent elements are strung together by a somewhat ridiculous plot. There are certainly holes here, for example, how could the newspapers report finding the body of the dead man if he's not actually dead?! And as for the 'four flies' revelation near the end, well I won't spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen the movie but it really is quite ridiculous. And the killer's motivations are, to say the least, uneven. The acting, too, is not helpful. Sadly, Michael Brandon resembles a plank of wood for the majority of his screen-time. His acting range stretches from 'a bit bored' to 'quite annoyed'. He certainly doesn't help draw the viewer in. And where Brandon under-acts, Mimsy Farmer over-acts. It makes for quite unusual viewing when they are on screen together. There is a lack of chemistry here for sure. In general, the exposition scenes are a bit clunky throughout the movie. And we even have a bit of unintentional humour in the exchanges between Brandon and the homosexual private investigator. If you turned the movie on at this point you could be forgiven for thinking you were watching Carry On Giallo.

The music is variable. This was the first movie where Argento incorporated rock music. From here on he would use it extensively. Similar to the rock music provided by future collaborators Goblin, the rock music here is strange, except here it is not strange in a good way. The vocalist sounds like a deaf man trying to copy Robert Plant. It's grim. And it's by Ennio Morricone so it's a bit of a shock but fortunately he also provides some good avant-garde jazzy compositions too. Much better.

Overall, despite its short-falls, Four Flies on Grey Velvet is too interesting a giallo movie to be disregarded. It is a key experimental work in Argento's cannon. It may be flimsy of plot and misguided of humour but, as is the way with giallo cinema, these elements have to be weighed against the more sensory aspects – the visuals, the music, the atmosphere. And happily, there is more than enough good to outweigh the bad.

'Four Flies On Grey Velvet (1971)' is the last instalment in Dario Argento's so-called 'Animal Trilogy', and it was apparently initially intended to be his Giallo-genre swan song. Thankfully, he subsequently decided not to abandon the genre he's so readily associated with. The film doesn't feel like the product of someone fed up with a framework they've helped define but are also trapped by, but rather as an attempt to widen the boundaries of said framework. At the same time, it is a very classic Giallo and it arguably suffers from not having the same strong aesthetic of Argento's later work. The story starts out strong by inverting the typical inciting incident: instead of the protagonist witnessing a murder, someone witnesses him committing one. Our strangely blasé hero must then try to figure out exactly who that was, because they begin to blackmail him without actually demanding any money. It's definitely a strong premise, but unfortunately it sort of gives way under the pressure of the generally loose plotting. The lead character kind of just takes everything in his stride, taking way too long to actively try and alleviate his situation. Even then, the steps he takes to get the better of his blackmailer are kind of vague, and the blackmailer themselves doesn't really seem to have a plan that's all that solid. It all just seems to be spinning its wheels somewhat. However, its elements of soft pseudo surrealism are kind of compelling in their own way, as are its bouts of unexpected broad comedy. It's always fairly entertaining, even when it's at its least propulsive. The opening and closing movements are notably better than the midsection, too. Ultimately, this is a solid Giallo thriller that may be one of Argento's weaker efforts, but is still a fair bit of fun throughout.