FOUR FLIES ON GREY VELVET - *****

Directed by Dario Argento. Starring Michael Brandon, Mimsy Farmer, Jean-Pierre Marielle, Bud Spencer, Francine Racette. Genre: Giallo. Italy 1972 99 minutes. Certificate: 15.

Release Date : 30th January 2012. DVD RRP : £15.99. Blu-Ray RRP: £24.99.

In a fine time for handsome reissues of Dario Argento’s back catalogue, Shameless have blessed us with a 40th anniversary release of Argento’s third movie as director, its first ever official UK home video release.

It opens, much like THE BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE, with a violent yet misleading confrontation in a public arts building. Handsome drummer Michael Brandon - sporting groovy 70’s hair, flattering vest tops and flares - confronts a black-clad stalker in an old theatre and inadvertently stabs him to death…while someone in a creepily grinning puppet mask observes from afar. Brandon flees the scene but the guilt eats away at him, not helped by a series of ominous phone calls and written correspondence taunting him for his part in the man’s death. He’s also haunted by strange nightmares of a sunlit execution in Saudi Arabia prompted by the generally ghoulish discussions between his hipster friends (they also speculate about the “Queer” subtext of the FRANKENSTEIN story). Wife Mimsy Farmer gets understandably uneasy when their maid is killed and their apartment discreetly invaded, but at least her comely cousin (Francine Racette) is around to provide titillation.

Argento’s movies have at times been hindered by poor storytelling or fatally bland leading men, but FOUR FLIES, with its cleverly constructed mystery, ingenious foreshadowing and charismatic imported American actor, has no such flaws. On a technical level, it is as impressive as any of Argento’s beloved pre-SUSPIRIA thrillers. Well showcased in Shameless’ beautiful HD print are Argento’s exquisite widescreen framing and his use of the camera as it glides through rooms, assumes the p.o.v. of the killer, hides inside guitars or audaciously tracks a phone line from caller to caller. The remarkable murder set pieces (particularly the extended pursuit of maid Marisa Fabri in the local park) make highly effective use of both silence and Ennio Morricone’s beautiful score.

The print is a revelation (completists will be satisfied by the restoration of short but significant long-lost footage) but the most pleasant surprise is how funny the movie is – and we’re not talking the uncomfortable, unintended kind of funny seen in GIALLO or MOTHER OF TEARS. The array of eccentric supporting characters are typical of early Argento : Oreste Lionello’s hammock-dwelling “Professor”, Gildo Di Marco’s bungling postman (“This time I’m armed!”), the wonderful Bud Spencer as a wise-guy nick-named “God” with a parrot named “Jerk-Off”. Best of all is Jean-Pierre Marielle as an uber-camp limp-wristed private investigator (“Oooh, you heterosexuals!”) with a comedy car that pre-empts DEEP RED and a proud record of 84 failed cases out of 84. The bittersweet end to Marielle’s character arc is one of the film’s surprises, while a very funny interlude at a “Funeral Arts” exhibition (with discounts to anyone unfortunate enough to die during the event!) typifies Argento’s mischievous sense of dark humour.

As a suspense-thriller sealing its director’s genre expertise in the wake of BIRD and CAT O’NINE TAILS, the movie is as skilfully crafted as anything Argento ever did. One outstanding sequence sealing the fate of the gorgeous Racette is a variation on Martin Balsam’s staircase-plummet in PSYCHO, complete with an all-time-great shot of a falling knife. All the disparate narrative elements come together more deftly than many a giallo for a climactic psycho-monologue capped by a superlative slo-mo car crash that should now be seen by enough people to officially rank as one of its director’s greatest moments.

Steven West.

GORE IN THE STORE
REVIEWS BY FANS FOR FANS
5 STAR FAB - 1 STAR RUBBISH