Land of Whimsy

DVD review: Four Flies on Grey Velvet

While the very fact that we finally have an authorised copy of the film with reasonably good image quality is a cause for celebration, Four Flies on Grey Velvet’s official DVD debut is, alas, far from the unmitigated triumph for which many of us were hoping. On the one hand, it’s probably a minor miracle that the film is available and looks as good as it does. The missing footage and audio problems, however, are significant enough for me to suggest that Mya should strongly consider a recall to correct, at the very least, the sound pitch. This disc gets a relatively tepid recommendation from me: it is, on balance, the best release of the film to date, but it is my firm hope that either Mya or another company revisits this title in the future and does it proper justice.

Pigs take to the skies and Satan ice skates to work as Dario Argento’s long-lost third film, Four Flies on Grey Velvet, finally gets an authorised DVD release, courtesy of Mya Communication.

Review at DVD Times.

Posted: Saturday, March 28, 2009 at 2:01 PM | Comments: 3
Categories: Cinema | DVD | Dario Argento | Reviews

Comments

1.

Good job, Michael! Very fine and thorough review balancing the pros and cons nicely and justly. Mya dropped the ball here and there's no getting around it. But when that is said and done, well, hey, it's just plain comforting to finally read an enlightened analysis of the film itself, its contents and its place in the Argento-canon.

Posted by: Profondo Rostock, March 30, 2009 6:49 PM

2.

Thank you very much. :)

Posted by: Michael Mackenzie, April 1, 2009 12:30 AM

3.

Having finally seen the Mya disc, it's a real shame that they screwed the audio up as bad as they did. It looks fantastic, and even with the missing reel changes and color timing oddities I'd take it over the Retrofilm Grindhouse Edition any day of the week. Still, a friend of mine said the Mya soundtrack was "like asking a rat to f*** him in the ear for 2 hours". I can't say he was exaggerating.

I was a bit surprised to see that the English credits were stolen verbatim from the Retrofilm bootleg. Even if it's a legit release, I doubt anyone would get them into trouble (would Retrofilm even dare try?), but it makes me more nervous about Mya. No website, blatantly denying obvious problems, not crediting the known local distributors... the whole thing just doesn't seem right to me. But hey, what do I know?

I just hope the inevitable Blu-ray fixes the English audio, and maybe even steals the rest of the missing footage from Retrofilm while they're at it.

Posted by: Kentai, April 2, 2009 8:15 AM

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DVD review: Four Flies on Grey Velvet

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