Four Flies on Grey Velvet
Dir: Dario Argento
1971
****
The conclusion to Dario Argento's
chilling Animal trilogy is good but doesn't quite come close to the
greatness of The Bird With the Crystal Plumage or Cat o' Nine Tails. I
liked it but the lack of structure is a glaring omission and is something of a
problem. I watched the recently released uncut version and in the extras the
assistant director and co-writer Luigi Cozzi explains that there wasn't much
thought involved, it's basically a bunch of scenes with some cool deaths strung
together. A lot of it is tribute to films and literature both he and Argento
admired at the time and the dialogue between the main character and the private
detective was stolen word for word, albeit in admiration, from another film.
You couldn't get away with that kind of thing these days but then there is a
lot you couldn't do before Four Flies on Grey Velvet did. While confronting a
mysterious stalker in sunglasses, rock drummer Roberto Tobias (Michael Brandon)
inadvertently stabs the man when the stalker pulls out a knife. A mysterious
masked figure shines a spotlight on the incident and snaps several photographs.
Roberto reads about the man's death in the newspaper the next day, and receives
a letter identifying the man as one Carlo Marosi. During a recording session
with his bandmates, Roberto's maid Amelia catches a glimpse of him with the
photographs, but does not intervene. That night, Roberto begins having
recurring dreams of being decapitated in a Persian arena. He awakens to find
himself being attacked by a masked person, who tells him that he could kill him
now, but won't because he "isn't finished with him." The person
knocks Roberto out and flees. When Roberto's wife Nina (Mimsy Farmer) returns
home, he confesses to her about the accidental stabbing and subsequent
harassment, telling her that he can't go to the police. Roberto goes to see
his beatnik artist friend Godfrey (Bud Spencer), who lives at a shack
with his con-artist colleague nicknamed the Professor (Oreste Lionello),
confiding in them about his problem. Godfrey (known as 'God' for short)
suggests having the Professor keep an eye on him. His tormentor has a flashback
of being committed to an insane asylum and being tied down to a bed. When the
maid Amelia (whom the tormentor evidently knows) attempts to blackmail
Roberto's tormentor, the person locks her inside of a city park after hours and
kills her with a straight razor. That evening, Nina picks up her cousin Dalia (Francine
Racette) from the train station. She comes to stay with Nina and Roberto,
despite Roberto's reluctance. His bandmate Mikro asks why he skipped rehearsal.
Nina receives a phone call informing her of Amelia's murder. Roberto has the
same nightmare of being decapitated again and awakens to a loud noise. He
investigates but only hears his pet cat hissing. The next morning, the couple
find a note from the killer, frightening Nina. Carlo Marosi is revealed to be
alive and well, in league with Roberto's tormentor to blackmail him. Carlo,
however, wants out, and is killed by the tormentor with razor wire. Meanwhile,
the Professor tells Roberto that he saw someone last night in his back garden,
holding his cat wrapped in a blanket. The Professor tells Roberto that he may
need to seek outside since he is too afraid to continue watching Roberto's
house anymore. Roberto meets with Arrosio (Jean-Pierre Marielle), an eccentric
and flamboyantly gay private investigator. Arrosio admits to never having
solved a case, but is optimistic his bad record will be broken. Arrosio asks Roberto
questions about his life and about Nina; when they met and how long they were
married. Roberto mentions that Nina received a large inheritance. Roberto drops
Arrosio off and returns to his house, where Nina is leaving with police
officers investigating Amelia's murder. She tells Roberto she is unwilling to
remain in the house anymore with someone stalking them. Roberto, however,
resolves to stay and invites Dalia over. That evening, Dalia confesses romantic
feelings for Roberto, and the two have sex. Afterwards, Arrosio arrives and
gives Roberto some photos of his past and his family as well as Nina's and
Dalia's. They find the pet cat's head severed and wrapped in plastic. That
night, Roberto has his nightmare again. Arrosio phones Roberto to say that he’s
found a "strange physical resemblance" in one photo, while going
through Roberto's old papers, but that it may only be a red herring. Arrosio
tells Roberto that he's found the name "Villa Rapidi" and asks if
anyone ever mentioned it; Roberto claims ignorance of it. The ‘Villa Rapidi’
turns out to be the name of a psychiatric clinic. Arrosio travels there where
he enquires with a doctor about a patient (whose name and gender are not
mentioned), who stayed there for three years as a teenager after being deemed a
homicidal maniac. Arrioso learns that the patient's father, who had
institutionalized the patient, died suddenly of a heart attack. The patient’s
mental symptoms then inexplicably disappeared, and the patient was subsequently
discharged. The doctor relays his suspicion that the man who committed the
teenager was not the patient's real biological father. Arrosio tracks down the
killer’s residence in a boarding house, and follows the killer into a metro
station only to be killed in a bathroom stall by the killer with a
poison-filled syringe. Learning of Arrosio’s murder, Godfrey insists Roberto
leave Rome immediately, but he refuses, determined to find the killer himself.
Meanwhile, Dalia notices a strange similarity between a recent photo of Roberto
and Nina and some unseen person in another photo. Before she can contact
Roberto, the killer breaks in. She hears noises and climbs stairs to an attic,
hiding in a wardrobe, but when she emerges, the killer stabs her to death.
Roberto returns home to find the body. The police perform an optographical test
to see the last thing Dalia saw before she died, but only get a blurry image of
four dark smudges against a gray background, an image which the technician
refers to as "four flies on gray velvet." They are unsure what this
means. Knowing the killer will likely come for him next, Roberto loads a gun
and waits. Dozing off, he has the same recurring nightmare (which now includes
the actual decapitation of the victim in the arena). Godfrey rings to ask if
he’s okay; then the line goes dead. Just then, Nina arrives home from her long
getaway, Roberto almost shooting her as she enters the front door. Roberto
tries to make her leave, when Nina's pendant necklace (a fly enclosed in glass)
swings, giving the appearance of more than one fly. Roberto realizes Nina is
the killer and tries to fight back. Nina grabs Roberto's gun and shoots him in
the shoulder. As he lies wounded on the floor, Nina explains how she was placed
in the asylum by her abusive stepfather, who both raised her as a boy, and beat
her. His death cured her condition, but when she met Roberto years later, he
reminded her of her stepfather. So she married Roberto and planned a
murder/blackmail scheme using Roberto as a surrogate for the stepfather, due to
his Roberto's striking similarity to the stepfather. Nina repeatedly shoots
Roberto, but Godfrey arrives, allowing Roberto to knock the gun from Nina's
hands. Nina runs to Roberto's car and speeds away. But in a twist of fate, she
rams into the back of a truck. Nina is decapitated by the truck's rear bumper
as it smashes through her car windshield. The car then explodes in a mass of
flames. It is an easy film to watch and what the film lacks
in structure, it makes up for in striking visuals. The slow motion bullet scene
and the slow motion car crash were both firsts – pre-dating the Hong Kong martial arts films that
used it in the mid to late 70s. It was captured with a high-speed camera that
was capable of producing 1000 frames a second and is the first known instance of
following a bullet's trajectory with high-speed cameras. Argento did not want
to use the "image caught in the retina" plot device since it was too
fantastic for the giallo genre. But once Carlo Rambaldi showed him
how the effect would look in the finished film, he soon changed his mind. It is a good example of Giallo but it isn’t the best,
Argento commented at the time that he was finished with the genre but
thankfully he soon changed his mind once his next film The
Five Days, did poorly at the box-office. The Elephant in the room is Michael Brandon's
performance. Some of the earlier cast
considerations for the main role Roberto Tobias were Terence Stamp, Michael
York and even some members of The Beatles – with Ringo Starr very close to getting the part.
Stamp and York could have been good but even though Brandon wasn’t an actor,
there is something curiously compelling about his amateur about his
performance. However, it just lets the compelling story and amazing visuals
down a bit, making the third and final chapter of the Animal Trilogy something
of a let-down compared to the other two masterpieces. I still love it though
and it remains an obvious inspiration for many a horror/thriller made since.
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