FOUR FLIES ON GREY VELVET
Director: Dario Argento
Original / Alternate Titles: 4 mosche di velluto grigio, The Four Velvet Flies
Rating: UR
Running Time: 104 Minutes
Description: Why isn’t this movie commercially available? It makes no sense to me, when you can get much lesser Argento fare like “Phantom of the Opera” or “The Card Player,” why the final film of Argento’s famed animal trilogy (along with The Bird with the Crystal Plumage and The Cat o’ Nine Tails) would be unavailable. More so than the fact that this completes one of Argento’s trilogies, 4FoGV is also a great Argento film from early in his career, and it has a component rarely seen in his canon – comedy!
4FoGV opens with a band in their recording space, rocking out. After the session is over, Roberto (Michael Brandon) leaves the space, and notices that he is being followed… again. He confronts his stalker, who claims to not know what Roberto is talking about. The stalker pulls a switchblade, which ends up in his own gut after a scuffle. Roberto is horrified by what has happened, but is quickly more horrified by the fact that there is a man in a creepy mask photographing the whole event. The next day, the murdered man’s ID shows up at Roberto’s house, and the cat and mouse play begins.
I know that there is the occasional quip or funny situation in Argento’s films, and I do not mean to imply that the man has no funny bone, but 4FoGV is a weird hybrid of Giallo and comedy, unlike any I have seen. There is Roberto’s attack on the mailman (he thinks it’s another stalker), and the mailman’s subsequent preparedness for battle. Also, there is a very funny, very gay private detective, Gianni (Jean-Pierre Marielle), who likes to point out his sexuality, and would be considered “flaming” today. Not to mention Roberto’s friend, God (short for Godfrey), who’s name being called incites a quick “Hallelujah” from the score! 4FoGV is the closest to a Giallo-comedy hybrid I have ever seen.
Unfortunately, as mentioned before, 4FoGV is not commercially available. Therefore, the version I saw was cropped incorrectly (there’s obviously a bit missing on the side of the screen), very dark and murky, and the sound was bad. Even with these shortcomings, I highly enjoyed 4FoGV, and would highly recommend it to fans of the Giallo genre, and especially to fans of Argento himself. The film has many elements that come up later in Argento’s films – the surrealistic feel (especially when an entire park full of people just disappear!), the stylish camera work, the suspense – but may be more striking for what is not present – the gore is minimal, there is nearly no sex / nudity, and the comedy that is rampant in this film I have never seen in any subsequent Argento flicks.
Paramount, why won’t you either give up the rights to this flick, or give it a good release? Maybe you can help, here’s a petition to have the film properly released: http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?4flies&1
3.5 out of 5 Friends Named “God” (if this were a better quality copy, I do not doubt I would have rated it at least 4 out of 5)
Not Commercially Available
DVD Available for Trade
TORSO
Director: Sergio Martino
Original / Alternate Titles: I Corpi presentano tracce di violenza carnale, Carnal Violence
Rating: R
Running Time: 92 minutes
Description: The first time I saw Torso, I was less than impressed. This was back when, as a video store manager that often closed the store, I was first discovering the Giallo (and watching them by myself VERY late at night). I’m not quite sure what it was about this flick; it just rubbed me wrong.
I recently re-watched Torso, and I can’t figure out what it was I didn’t like the first time! Torso is a classic Giallo, with nearly all the elements covered – the flick opens with a boobie-filled three-some which identifies the killer’s penchant for eyes (eyes and sight unseen being a big part of many Gialli), there are red herrings a plenty, lots of good stalking killer-POV, Americans in Italy, red-paint blood and gore, prostitutes, drugs, the list goes on and on! Torso even features an element that I have felt is lacking from many Gialli – suspense.
The story starts out with an American student studying in Italy (foreigners in a foreign land is a very common theme in the Giallo genre), who decides with some friends to head up to a villa away from school, as some madman (as they always are in Gialli) has taken to killing young women. This is a bad idea, as the killer also heads for the hills, and works on emptying the villa!
The story is very basic Gialli territory – black gloved killer stalks and kills women. But where Torso shines is the huge amount of twists and turns (supposedly even the female actresses weren’t told who the “real killer” was during filming), good uses of the red herring (did the killer use a black scarf with red details to strangle the girls, or was it a red scarf with black details?), lots of chances to decide who the killer is (and be wrong), and the addition of the aforementioned suspense angle.
Many Gialli have a character being stalked, and yes that can be made suspenseful, especially through the use of killer-POV. Torso takes the suspense t a different level, as our heroine Jane (Susy Kendall) sits in a closet with a badly-damaged ankle, watching a murder occur just outside and trying to hold her breath. Or the many shots Sergio Martino has of doorknobs, slowly being forced open. Or the topper for this flick: Jane has to watch the masked (which is not often found in the Giallo genre, most killers faces are just not shown) killer dismember her friends as she tries to not make a sound.
Torso is a great shining example of the Giallo done very well. There are enough twists and turns to derail a train, the requisite boobies and blood, a scary stalking killer with a freaky knife, red herrings upon red herrings, the themes of both “foreigner in a foreign land” and “sight unseen” being played out, and a really hard to swallow motive for the killings (as they usually are in Gialli). I need to go get me some more Sergio Martino Gialli and see if they stand up to Torso.
4 out of 5 Black on Red Scarves
DVD Available from Anchor Bay
