"Four Flies on Grey Velvet is a movie that had disappeared from the screen for a long time." "Until 1990 you could see it completely normally on TV." "Around the end of 1990 it was broadcast for the last time." "It was supposed to be released on VHS around Christmas of 1990." "CIC Video planned to release it." "It was already January, February of 1991, the months just went by but that VHS tape didn't show up." "Apart from that, it wasn't shown on TV anymore." "That's how the "case" or the mystery of Four Flies on Grey Velvet originated because you didn't get to see it anywhere anymore." "After a couple years went by people began to ask themselves what ever happened to the film." "It was Dario's only lost movie." "Hence people tried to find out what happened and why it could not be found." "Well, I think somehow there was a purpose behind all that." "The film was produced by Paramount." "Hence it's Paramount's fault that it didn't get released on DVD or VHS." "I was told the intention was to make it become a rarity in order to sell it as profitable as possible one day." "But no matter where I am in the world, people always ask me about that movie." "The mystery was solved, I think, around the year 2000." "Well, what does "solved" mean?" "The film showed up again." "But the case itself got a little more complicated." "I will repeat here what I was told by Claudio and Dario Argento." "The thing is that the production company SEDA Spettacoli, which produced the film - ...SEDA stands for "Salvatore e Dario Argento", so it was their own production company..." "This production company produced the film for Paramount in 1971." "Or rather with Paramount's French production company  "Marianne Productions", which was located in Paris." "Consequently, Paramount had gained the movie's distribution rights." "The contracts were made, as usual, by Dario's father Salvatore." "He took care of it." "I've even seen them." "They were real thick American contracts." "They had 200 pages and were written in English." "After that the film went into distribution and everybody was happy since it was a success." "Both Dario and his father Salvatore then regarded the movie as sold." "It wasn't really sold, though, only distributed but they regarded it as sold." "Dario and also Salvatore tended to other movies." "Many films were produced back then so they quickly went on to the next picture." "Subsequently, SEDA fell into financial hardships and had to be shut down." "Or rather a Roman court closed SEDA down." "It turned out later - namely after 1990, when also Dario began to ask himself what had happened to the movie." "Everybody asked themselves where the film had ended up and why it wasn't released." "So he asked himself the same thing." "At a certain point, the old SEDA contracts came back to the surface." "These contracts did state that Paramount was the owner of the movie but their property rights were restricted to US territory." "Plus, they owned the 50% of the property rights for some other countries." "The rest of the rights belonged to the SEDA." "The SEDA didn't exist anymore since it was liquidated." "So the search for the bankruptcy trustee began who had overseen the insolvency proceedings." "These examinations, however, cost a lot of time." "By this time it was already the beginning of the new millennium." "It turned out that the film wasn't part of the insolvency since it was regarded as sold." "Thus nobody had concerned himself with it." "Italian law determines that if something doesn't go bankrupt and the insolvency proceedings are completed, the thing goes back into the ownership of the former company owner or the heirs." "In this case that would be Claudio and Dario, Salvatore's children, the heirs." "But it was necessary to secure the full rights since 50% was owned by the Americans." "The contract, however, wasn't done directly with Paramount." "The contract covering the distribution was done with CIC Video." "But CIC hadn't existed for many years then and had been replaced by UIP (United International Pictures)." "Which is a consortium of several American companies." "So CIC had joined that company." "Claudio and Dario then began to communicate their claims to UIP which were redirected to CIC's liquidators." "Then the liquidators didn't answer back for a long time, presumably for several years." "They didn't even think it's necessary to answer." "So the two Argentos turned to Paramount in the USA." "Paramount didn't bother at all to answer their inquiries." "That made everything a little complicated." "The contract that entitled you to distribute was apparently actually still valid." "However, the film wasn't distributed by CIC anymore." "Moreover, they hadn't sent out the statements of accounts of the last couple years." "Thus Argento thought he had the right to annul the contract." "The whole thing took place in London, however." "Like I said, this issue is a little complicated." "Some time someone claimed he would sell the negatives." "This lead to fairly tough arguments which even involved lawyers since the Argento brothers believed that no one had the right to sell the movie." "In fact, the contracts with Paramount and CIC respectively were still fully valid." "Now, I don't know every little legal detail of this matter but I do know that Claudio told me during one of our last few meetings:" ""I'm fed up with this whole thing!" "They can all kiss my ass!"" "That's what he told me." "He thought that it would lead to nothing as too many years had already passed." "Italian law would take care of the rest." "You would have to initiate proceedings in London first." "Then probably move it to the US, and with the results of the respective proceeding or the waivers, try to continue the whole thing in Italy." "The strange thing is that there must be someone who's a stranger to these problems and is merrily selling the movie." "But I don't know why and how that happened." "It's not uncommon in the film business, however, that not the rights owner but the one who owns the negatives can assert his rights." "I can't tell if that's the case here but this is more or less the story behind all that." "The last time I asked Claudio for information about this about six months ago, he just said:" ""It's enough." "I'm sick of this story."" "I started to write the screenplay for this movie after I had first met Dario." "I think I met Dario in March of 1970." "It was a month after the release of The Bird with the Crystal Plumage." "He was basically already writing the screenplay for The Cat o' Nine Tails." "We stayed in contact and called each other again and again during the working process on The Cat o' Nine Tails." "When he was editing The Cat o' Nine Tails, he said to me:" ""Let's work together on a new project."" "He was very confident regarding the reaction to The Cat o' Nine Tails and was already thinking about the third chapter." "He had already thought up a title, and said:" ""The film will be called Four Flies on Grey Velvet."" "He added: "But don't tell anyone." "You better not tell anyone!"" "Because back then sometimes titles were stolen, it was basically a tradition." "I was reading the newspaper about experiments that were done in Germany." "I was very interested in that." "The fact that nothing got lost interested me the most." "A man dies but what he saw remains." "Well, it persists." "This subject was fascinating to me." "He proposed I should write the screenplay." "We then began writing basically blindly since we had no initial idea for the story." "Dario said: "We have to build something around the title." "It had to be a giallo, of course, but it may not feature supernatural elements." "Since I didn't know the giallo genre that well back then he borrowed me several books, and told me:" ""Read them and see if you can take any inspirations from them which we could work into a screenplay."" "I found several things in these books that I liked particularly well." "I proposed him several sequences that ended up in similar shape in the movie." "For instance, the sequence of a crime." "A typical example for that was this:" "Dario gave me "The Black Alibi" by Cornell Woolrich to read, and said:" ""This book contains wonderful crimes." "Take a look at it and see if we could use one thing or another."" "I chose the crime at the cemetery which I liked a lot." "I adapted it to fit into a giallo, a giallo in the style of Dario." "I proposed the sequence without knowing who the killer should be or what would happen." "There was merely a victim that ran away and a killer who murdered it." "Dario liked my adaptation a lot." "He took the scene and said:" ""That's fine." "Now let's build something around it."" "And thus we discussed several options." "At a certain point he proposed an opening sequence." "He wanted a musician as the protagonist." "I think that's also the reason why he chose me since at that time I worked at the weekly magazine "Ciao 2001"." "It was a weekly music magazine." "I knew about the Rolling Stones and things like that." "He wanted to start the movie off with the story of a musician." "He wanted to build a lot of rock music into it." "The band we chose was Deep Purple." "He pitched me this idea about a musician who one night goes to a theater and takes part in a séance." "There's a lady who suddenly says:" ""There's a murderer in the audience."" "And in fact, there is a murderer who commits his crimes and naturally the medium is his first victim." "Dario wanted this to be the opening of the film." "Based on that, crime scenes were supposed to follow that we both thought up." "However, problems came up even though it would have been a nice opening sequence." "Dario absolutely wanted that it's not a real medium." "He said that it may not be a real medium since he wanted no fantastical elements in the story." "He wanted only absolutely realistic things at that time." "We couldn't get it to work, however." "We worked on it for two or three months but we didn't succeed in finding a logical explanation why the medium who neither knows the killer nor knows anything else about him finds him in the audience." "It's impossible." "She either has supernatural powers or you can't make it work." "The latter was the case." "But it's a nice beginning which Dario picked up again later and used in Deep Red." "In that film she's a real medium, however." "Thus the whole thing works." "But if the medium is supposed to not possess any supernatural powers you won't succeed in presenting a plausible solution." "On the way to Deep Red there was this intermediate stop which turned out to be Four Flies on Grey Velvet." "I was very much fascinated by the irrational by the incredible, by the incomprehensible, by dreams." "I began to feel a great attraction to these things." "So that was the final step before Deep Red." "We worked together on the structure of the story and got some small inspirations from books we particularly liked." "But we also revisited citations from other films and built them in." "For example, Dario and I watched Stolen Kisses by Truffaut back then." "We very much liked the scene with the tube mail in which the two lovers sent each other messages and you can see them travelling through the pipe." "Dario wanted to repeat this scene with the telephone cables where the waitress makes a phone call, and the call travels right up to the killer." "It's essentially a repetition of Truffaut's sequence." "It was an homage to the director whom we like very much." "It's a similar case with many things in Four Flies on Grey Velvet." "Four Flies on Grey Velvet drew many inspirations from Chandler." "Raymond Chandler must have been Dario's favorite author at the time." "He made me read "The Long Goodbye" and "The Little Sister"." "I still remember how he once spent almost half an hour to recount the beginning of "The Little Sister", Chandler's wonderful novel." "And he really went with it, like an actor, while he was retelling me this." "He told me about a detective who's sitting at a desk and looks as if he is sleeping, with his feet on the table." "In reality, however, one eye is slightly open and observes a fly that's buzzing around him." "She flies from one spot to another while he doesn't react at all." "The scene is described in the book for three or four pages until the fly suddenly lands next to him, and he - whack - ...strikes like lighting and squashes it." "He told me that scene so well that I was swept off my feet." "I ran it through my head, went home and reworked it." "Subsequently I proposed the scene with the drummer." "Since we had the scene with the drummer playing with the band at the beginning I told him: "Let's do the same thing with the drummer and the fly and show him squashing it with the cymbals." "Dario said: "Great idea, but let's use a midge instead of a fly." "That's how this scene was born." "The film's also inspired by Fredric Brown." "Dario had told me that for The Bird with the Crystal Plumage he took inspiration from Fredric Brown's "The Screaming Mimi"." "That's a very beautiful novel, and the film really is inspired by it." "The Bird with the Crystal Plumage is a nice and clever reworking of the novel's key idea." "Dario told me this about it:" ""Yes, I took a lot from the novel, but one thing I liked a lot I couldn't build into The Bird with the Crystal Plumage." "I just couldn't find a way." I then asked him: "What was it?"" "He said: "Well, the character of Godfrey." I said: "What do you mean?"" "He said: "There's this tramp he calls 'God'."" "And indeed, after he gave me the book and I read "The Screaming Mimi" I read the story of the tramp who's called "God" by his friends." "More precisely, the protagonist calls him "God"." "So I thought since we need to built in a character who intervenes at the end it could be a tramp and friend of the protagonist." "So the character from "The Screaming Mimi" that couldn't be built into The Bird with the Crystal Plumage appears in Four Flies on Grey Velvet." "That counts to the many citations and homages as well." "There are also several personal citations by myself in the movie since I'm a huge fan of science-fiction." "At that time I knew Robert Sheckley pretty well, the author of the story that was the template for The 10th Victim." "He was a great US novelist who was very ironic and entertaining." "I was in steady contact with him, since I had requested several stories." "I had copyedited the book "La decima vittima" which contains his stories and was published by Bompiani." "So we were in correspondence." "Some time later he wrote a new novel with the title "Mindswap"." "I read it with great pleasure when it came out in Italy and discovered a character named Luigi in it." "That was obviously an Italian." "Sheckley had a little fun pulling my leg in an ironic fashion by using my name for it." "I took revenge for that:" "In the novel there's the character of the private detective who totally screws up 99 investigations in a row, and says:" ""The law of probability is on my side." "Your case is my 100th assignment." "Thanks to the degree of probability alone I will find the murderer for sure."" "That's exactly the character I built into the movie." "Dario liked it very much and Jean-Pierre Marielle portrayed him perfectly." "I made it this time." "There's another science-fiction thing in the film that came from me." "In Dario's first films there has always been a feature of the killer." "In The Cat o' Nine Tails, for example, it was the eye." "Every time the murderer appears, you can see the killer's eye." "That was, by the way, an homage to Robert Siodmak's The Spiral Staircase where that idea with the eye shows up as well." "Dario needed a similar solution for Four Flies on Grey Velvet." "But it was supposed to be something different." "I then remembered a science-fiction story I liked particularly well when I was a little boy." "It was called "When You're Smiling" by Theodore Sturgeon." "It was a very beautiful story." "That nice title has always fascinated me." "So I proposed to Dario:" ""As the feature of the killer we could use his happy smile every time he kills his victim."" "Dario liked that as well." "We added it to the screenplay and he actually shot the scenes." "That means he did a close-up shot of Mimsy Farmer's smile." "When we had to edit the movie, Dario stumbled upon a problem:" "You could see that it was the smile of a woman." "Even when it was in a shadow you could see that it was a typical female set of teeth." "After a while he said:" ""No, we can't use it." "Otherwise you will know that it's a woman." "And the only woman still alive after the first part of the film is the life partner of the protagonist, Mimsy Farmer." "Hence, the whole thing would be revealed too early."" "So this idea died, even though it would have been nice but it just didn't work from a visual point of view." "In a literary respect yes, but not in a visual one." "Mario Foglietti joined in much later." "He was a very good journalist." "He also had a job at RAI television." "And I think he was a member of a censorship board." "Him and Dario already knew each other but they met again only during the censorship commission of The Cat o' Nine Tails." "Mario approached Dario at this occasion - as it often happens- and said to him:" ""I have a subject here, why don't you read it?"" "At that moment we had already finished three quarters of the subject." "Whereas the subject of Four Flies on Grey Velvet was more of a treatment." "We directly wrote a treatment, there never was a real subject." "We began with the treatment and worked on that." "The treatment was a pre-screenplay." "It was about 60 pages long, formatted in the US style." "Since a screenplay consists of about 80, 90 pages all that was still missing was the dialogue." "A larger part of the dialogue." "So Mario showed Dario his subject which was a thriller." "Dario, however, didn't like the story." "Dario liked the fact that in this thriller, the wife was the killer." "It turns out at the end that the wife is the killer." "He actually told me: "Now I know who the killer is: the wife."" "He told me that Foglietti had shown him his subject." "The story wouldn't match but this idea did, and that's how that happened." "But Mario didn't really work together with us." "That was that." "We only took the idea." "Now we knew who the killer would be and continued our work, but only Dario and me." "Dario showed me The Cat o' Nine Tails." "At that point we had already been writing the script for some time." "It was important to him that I would watch his finished picture." "So he showed it to me, and I really liked it." "I didn't like the ending, however." "At the end of The Cat o' Nine Tails, after the killer dies in the elevator shaft there was this classic scene that was in almost all the films at the time:" "You can see the protagonist, the male lead character, lying in bed and Catherine Spaak brings him a glass of milk." "But the glass of milk is staged in a way that you think it's poisoned milk as it was the case earlier in the movie." "It's a perfectly normal glass of milk, though." "He drinks it, they kiss and the movie ends with their kiss." "I remember how I told Dario:" ""I really like the movie." "I have nothing to complain about except for the ending." "I mean, what kind of ending is that?" "You're trying to create a new genre a new kind of cinema and then you have an ordinary Hollywood ending with the two protagonist kissing?" "Why don't you let it end with the elevator scene where the guy falls down and dies." "The End."" "Dario was impressed by my remark, and some days later he called and said:" ""You were right." "I cut out the ending."" "The film ends with the killer after he fell." "The audience will remember the violence of this scene and of the whole movie whereas the final impact would have fizzled out with the other ending." "The ending of Four Flies on Grey Velvet was, if you will, also created by myself." "The film was supposed to end with the killer escaping and then suffers this accident in which he dies." "The end." "I then had the idea to do it completely different." "So I rewrote this dance of death accordingly." "I actually presented Dario my ideas in screenplay-format." "I proposed this extraordinary dance of death to him." "That meant to design the killer's death as very long and intensive to an extent that you almost feel bad for the killer." "He basically becomes the victim and people actually feel sorry for his gruesome death." "Dario liked this very much, too." "He went basically wild, and said:" ""I want it the way it's written in the script."" "Of course, normal film cameras couldn't shoot it like that back then." "Thus began the search for a suitable camera in various universities." "It was a little exhausting but it resulted in a great ending." "I had the idea for this ending ever since that final accident scene was in discussion." "Dario wanted to end it with the accident." "Just at that time I received a message about a friend from Milan with whom I had worked on Il tunnel sotto il mondo - my first movie." "I was living in Rome and heard that he was driving in his car with his fiancée when they got hit by a truck and died in the accident." "This made me feel extremely low, and I felt very bad because of it." "It was like I had lived their gruesome death very, very slowly from the outside." "So I got the idea that I could work this into a movie." "And we did that with Four Flies on Grey Velvet." "There were several important decisions regarding the casting." "First of all concerning the music." "Since it was a film by Paramount the idea came up to use a big rock band." "Dario wanted real rock music." "We went to a Deep Purple concert together in the Brancaccio Theater." "He was excited by them and asked Bixio, who took care of the music back then if it was possible to get an English band à la Deep Purple." "Bixio said he would let him know." "Then he called and said that Deep Purple would be available." "And so Deep Purple were the first to join the movie." "They were supposed to do the soundtrack, rock music, naturally." "We were all very excited about this." "Concerning the actors, at least regarding the lead actors this was coordinated with Paramount and especially with Marianne Productions." "Since Paramount entrusted the co-production to Marianne Productions a certain number of actors had to be French." "For this reason, Dario went several times to Marianne Productions in Paris." "There they proposed him various French actors of which he chose a couple." "The two protagonists, though, had to be Americans since Paramount planned to distribute the film in the USA." "They made an agreement that Michael York should be the male protagonist." "He was a rather renowned actor at that time." "He was supposed to be the lead." "He agreed and everything was settled." "However, there was a "technical" problem with Michael York." "Michael York was shooting Zeppelin at that time, I think." "The beginning of our shoot was scheduled for the first or second week of July." "Four Flies on Grey Velvet was supposed to be released on December the 15th or 18th." "Right in time for Christmas." "So it was a very important thing for Dario, as it was for Paramount and CIC." "But Zeppelin, which York was shooting had huge problems with the special effects." "The Americans told us that it would be about three weeks late." "Consequently we had to decide if we should postpone the movie or exchange the actor." "Naturally, we didn't want the latter." "In that case, however, the Christmas release would have gone down the drain." "We then left the decision to Paramount." "They should tell us what to do:" "To wait or to release at Christmas." "And Paramount said:" ""Exchange the actor."" "Dario then remembered that a few days before he had seen a comedy I think it was called Lovers and Other Strangers." "A few young US actors were in it, Michael Brandon among them." "Dario like him very much, and said:" ""I'm interested in this actor."" "So we got in touch with the USA again and Paramount quickly found him." "They said: "That's him, here are the photos." "He's available." "Do you want him?"" "And we answered: "Yes!" We took him right on the spot." "He immediately rushed to Italy so that the shoot could begin as planned, and the film could be released at Christmas." "Well, we had..." "There are none..." "I never quarreled with anyone." "It was important for me to get along with people." "Apart from that you have to consider, well, except for Brandon that I've shot 16 films with Terence Hill, and we never argued." "That's a rarity since we're the only movie duo that never had a fight." "All famous Italian, Neapolitan, French or American film duos had a terrible fight some day." "Not us." "Never." "Maybe it's because he's always been an actor and I wasn't." "Brandon was very pleasant and we got along well." "Mimsy Farmer was already living in Italy since she was working in Italy and had also married there." "So she was basically an Italian." "I really had a good relationship with the actors." "Of all films I did, this might have been the fondest relationship I ever had with a cast." "The female lead:" "I had seen an US film that came out here at that time:" "More." "Mimsy Farmer plays a fantastic role in it." "Dario watched the film as well and thought she was great." "He said: "We are looking for an US actress." "How about her?"" "We asked the Americans if they could get her." "The Americans answered:" ""Well, she's in Rome." "Get her yourselves."" "We said: "What, she's in Rome?" "We'll search her right away."" "Dario found her pretty quickly since she had moved to Italy back then." "She was the wife of Vincenzo Cerami, an author and screenwriter." "It was easy to find her." "It was the great chance in her career to play a leading role." "Dario hired her immediately because he like her so much in More." "Apart from that she was adorable and really good." "Argento is in my opinion one of the greatest directors especially concerning horror films and the like." "He gave me a role which was essentially the protagonist of the film since my name was "God"." "It was the short form of Godfrey." "The character himself was not the protagonist but the story completely depended on him." "I portrayed the character so well that the overall result was very good." "I very rarely was a real actor in my life." "Once - ...you did ask me that question about Argento..." "I really had to act with him, since this wasn't my own personality." "And another time was in Ermanno Olmi's Singing Behind Screens." "I totally entrusted myself to Ermanno Olmi, this other directing genius." "I let him direct me and did what he wanted from me." "Without being Bud Spencer." "These were the only two movies, as I said before." "In Ermanno Olmi's film I played the main character while with Argento I was only the protagonist within the realms of the story." "The role itself wasn't." "He had a lot of fun." "We got to know each other when we made one or two films together when I sill wrote western screenplays in which he was the protagonist." "So we already knew each other from former projects." "We knew each other and were friends." "He appreciated me as a writer." "Then I became a director, and he said:" ""If you ever have a role for me I'd love to take it." That's how this came to be." "Dario came up with Bud Spencer." "He wrote the screenplays for two films with Bud Spencer when he was still a writer." "They met on the set and like each other." "They must have seen each other some more times, though because since Dario was establishing himself as a director, Bud Spencer said:" ""I would like to work with you some time."" "Dario remembered that, and since there was the role of Godfrey which was all in all just a supporting role and hence not very time consuming Dario said to his father: "Let's ask Bud Spencer if he's available." "He would be perfect for the part."" "Bud Spencer had just finished My Name is Trinity and was currently shooting Trinity Is STILL My Name!" "." "He was a superstar at the time and probably the best paid actor in Italy next to Terence Hill." "So his father said:" ""Only as a friendly turn." "Talk to him." "We can't make him an offer, though." "The budget of the film doesn't allow for the hiring of Bud Spencer."" "Dario replied:" ""I want to talk to him."" "He called him, and I know that they met and talked and that Bud Spencer accepted Dario's offer." "He was intrigued by the project and made clear:" ""Don't worry about my pay because I want to do the film, and we'll find an agreement."" "They came to the agreement that Bud Spencer's name won't be used for advertising." "So the people could see Bud Spencer, watch him as an actor but they weren't allowed to use him as bait for the film." "And he wasn't used as bait for the film." "His name is merely listed in the cast on the movie's poster." "But in return, Bud Spencer was in the film that was a hit at the time." "There was a problem with Bud Spencer concerning the shooting schedule." "He was shooting Trinity Is STILL My Name!" "and was very busy." "The two movies overlapped." "He was shooting Trinity Is STILL My Name!" "in August but he was supposed to shoot the scenes in the villa in the EUR quarter as well." "He was shooting very time consuming scenes at that time, though." "It was the giant brawl at the end of Trinity Is STILL My Name!" "." "So a special shooting schedule was made which forced us to shoot at night." "It wouldn't have been necessary but we were shooting at night to allow Bud Spencer to shoot Trinity Is STILL My Name!" "by day." "When he was done there around 7 p.m., he got into the car, drove to our set and began to work with Dario until about 2 a.m." "We couldn't shoot much longer because in the morning he had to go to the other shoot and needed some sleep in between." "Luckily, it was only a few scenes." "I think there were only six." "It wasn't much, but we solved the problem that way." "So with this strange day /night thing he was shooting two films at once." "You will know him, he lives next door." "He lies in his hammock all the time." "We call him "professor" because he knows good manners:" "He gives ladies a hand kiss, doesn't fart in public..." "And I know 1,280 verses from the bible by heart." "Here, that's an actor." "Theater actors are in my opinion the only ones you can really call actors." "Those who shoot movies without having ever been a theater actor have probably visited an acting school - and those do exist - ...but they will never reach this gigantic ability of a flawless performance." "When the curtain rises, an actor mustn't make a mistake because there's the audience listening to him." "And in that moment even the slightest mistake wouldn't be excused, right?" "At the movies, the 40th take would finally be okay." "Or the 20th take:" ""That's good, do it again." "Improve this, improve that..."" "You can eliminate a mistake." "So for me, the truest actor is always the one who acts or acted in theater..." "There are people with great acting skills in movies but due to the fact that you can repeat certain things it's easier to become an actor or to feel like one, I think." "You could learn something from Oreste Lionello every day." "But I also had a coach." "It's not that I became an actor over night." "My coach was Eli Wallach who was also one of the greatest US theater actors." "He woke me up at 6 a.m., and said:" ""Let us do some steps."" "And then he said: "A cowboy doesn't walk like you do." "You have to walk like this." "Remember not to move the hands." "Remember that they see your face on a 26 x 30 foot screen." "You mustn't move." "So be real still." "The audience will know if you're happy or sad."" "So he gave me these advises." "And I said: "Excuse me, Eli, you're giving me these hints." "Why are you doing this?"" "He replied: "I don't do it for you, I'm doing it for me." "Because if you act really bad we're nothing but two pathetic mutts."" "That's what he told me and from then on I learned incredibly much." "And on Italian stages, Oreste Lionello is one of the individuals who can teach you a lot." "The actor has to immerse himself into the project of a movie." "He's not shooting another movie at the moment, only this one." "And the movie, provided the director has the right vision is the film he wants to do, understand?" "The actor has to immerse himself into the project, be it a "right" or a "wrong" one." "It might as well be a wrong project but when you're in it you have to go with it." "Otherwise he would be like an orchestra where everyone plays what he pleases." "And that's impossible." "An orchestra needs a conductor and the respective "project"." "The piece might not be well received because it was badly interpreted or simply not well-liked, but you do need this unity." " It's a dangerous thing." "I think..." " Yes, yes, I know what you're thinking." "If this affected guy sees a mouse under his chair, he'll scream right away." " Am I wrong?" " Yes, that's what I think." "Aw, you heterosexuals..." "I felt that at a time when nobody was talking about homosexuality I wanted people to talk about it." "It's much talked about these days thus it's not as spectacular anymore." "But thematizing homosexuality in a giallo at that time in a genre film, that is, was considered as incorrect." "Hence, I had to argue with the distributor Each and every time, since he said:" ""But why?" "Why is that necessary?"" "In Deep Red, for example, there was an important scene following the one where the protagonist smokes some joints." "So he's a little besides himself, and when he leaves the house he sees everything that happens in a in delirious atmosphere." "The distributor, however, didn't accept this at all claiming that it would be censored anyway." "So I had to cut the scene out, it's not in the movie anymore." "The attitude towards sexuality in general has surely changed as well." "There are movies, especially my first ones, with a certain happy sexuality." "But when I shot Opera, the nature of sexuality wasn't happy anymore." "It took on a more dramatic shape since AIDS and other problems came up." "It had a more dramatic and less festive appearance." "So there was definitely a change over the course of the years." "Just like society itself has changed." "I have at least three appearances in Four Flies on Grey Velvet." "At the beginning, I'm the man with the mask who takes pictures from above." "This scene was originally entrusted, as usual, to the theater photographer." "They said: "You are the theater photographer, so put on a mask and take pictures." "So you're also the photographing actor."" "We're talking about Roberto Carnevali, a very nice and helpful person." "He agreed to do it but Dario didn't like the way he moved, what he did." "Well, the poor guy was a theater photographer and not an actor." "Apart from that he didn't know the film and wasn't sure what he should do." "Dario then told him: "No, it doesn't work." "Luigi, you go up there and do it."" "So he sent me out to do it, and that's what I did." "I only remember that the thing was like hell." "Because first off, I was completely muffled up." "I was also wearing that mask which made it difficult to breathe." "And next to me there were two beasts in the shape of huge old spotlights that generated an incredible heat." "We were in a theater in Spoleto, and it was the beginning of August." "Inside the theater it was hot as hell, and these spots were standing next to me." "I remember that the sweat was oozing and I could hardly wait until the scene was done, but it did take a long time since Dario needed a lot of footage." "Apart from that I was in another scene of the film." "Not at the very front, however." "I'm behind the protagonists." "In the subway, that is, when we see Jean-Pierre Marielle." "The make-up artist, me and others played the other passengers." "When you watch the film again and don't pay attention to the two actors you can see me in the background, even if it's hard to recognize me since I was still a young guy back then of 23 or 24 years." "I looked totally different, with long hair and all." "But it was me." "Then I show up once more at the end of the movie in the scene in which the protagonist switched off the light in the villa picks up the pistol and waits for the killer to arrive." "While he is waiting the wind is blowing outside and you can see the limping man who lives across the street as well as the neighbor." "Then you see pedestrian with a coat who crosses the street." "The pedestrian with the coat, that's me." "I'm crossing the street in that scene." "I show up some more times like - this time again in the background - ...in the scene in which the private detective Arrosio and the protagonist walk out of a café in a nice arcade in Turin." "They're chatting about the case, and he tells him about all the cases he couldn't crack, etc." "Behind him there is the film's make-up artist Laurenti a very nice and competent man." "He was the brother of the director Mariano Laurenti." "And the guy talking to the make-up artist is me." "You can see us in that scene because we're standing behind the protagonists all the time." "Dario shot this scene with a dolly." "In order to use the camera on the dolly, he had to put rails on the ground so the dolly could move." "If nobody would have been behind the actors the rails would be visible and that would have been absurd, of course." "Normal extras wouldn't have understood that they have to hide the rails they probably would have moved away and you would see the rails." "So Dario called me and the make-up artist, and said:" ""Place yourselves there and hide the rails so nobody can see them." "You know how it's done."" "So we walked, in fact, behind the main characters." "We didn't pay attention to them, however, but talked to each other and tried all the time to hide the rails." "And you really can't see them." "I had a very good relationship with Salvatore Argento because he was a very nice man." "He was very human and extremely sincere." "He was a very important person, since Dario was still very young and therefore needed some backing." "Especially regarding the production since Dario used to be a journalist and never really concerned himself with it." "Salvatore had a very vital role." "First of all, since he was his father, he had an influence on Dario that was beyond the one of a producer." "They had tough arguments since Dario, as the director, always wanted the maximum." "Salvatore as the producer said:" ""Good, the maximum of everything as long as it's in the budget." "Otherwise you will harm yourself."" "But this relationship, including the tough fights - ...they locked themselves into a room and all you could hear was screams - ...always sorted itself out since they were father and son." "They always went home together." "So it was a very particular relationship which helped Dario a lot, I think." "Salvatore was also an experienced person since he had been working in the movie business for years." "He has worked with De Laurentiis and as an independent producer." "He was a representative of the "official" Italian cinema." "That's why he was a great help for Dario." "He was a leader, a partner and a father." "It's hard to find a similarly close relationship." "All the other producers I had to work with didn't work with their son but with a random director." "That was a different form of relationship." "From that perspective, the two of them had a wonderful one." "Dario worked with Goffredo Lombardo, with whom he had a good relationship." "His father too." "He basically called him "godfather"." "But something was always in the way of their relationship because Lombardo didn't like that kind of movies." "I can say that with certainty." "On The Bird with the Crystal Plumage Lombardo was the only one who had trust in Dario as a director." "After the first half of the shoot, however, they wanted to replace him with Ferdinando Baldi." "Only the severe resistance from father Salvatore and Dario himself prevented that Dario had to leave the movie prematurely." "Lombardo gave in and let Dario finish the film." "But when he saw the film he didn't like it." "There were more discussions which wore off since the film was well received by distributors and others." "On The Cat o' Nine Tails the whole thing repeated itself." "When I hung out with Dario, I think it was the summer of 1970 no, it was before summer, around May there already were discussions with Lombardo concerning the screenplay." "When I visited him one time, I found Dario totally upset." "He was about to write a letter to Lombardo because Lombardo criticized the movie in front of his father Salvatore who then passed it on to Dario." "And instead of confronting him directly Dario switched to an exchange of letters." "That illustrated that the relationship was already strained back then." "Then everything died down and the shooting took place." "When Dario then presented the finished film to Lombardo Lombardo didn't like it at all." "He said he had to rework it completely." "This was a serious thing since the movie was supposed to be released soon, in mid-January." "The advertising campaign was already moving." "There were big posters all over Rome." "So they had already invested into that." "And Dario refused to re-cut the movie." "A pretty intense trial of strength followed." "This took a while so that the movie missed its release date." "The film didn't open at the end of January after the Christmas movies since this issue wasn't settled." "Dario totally refused to do the changes demanded by Lombardo." "The release was postponed, and in the end, Lombardo gave in." "He gave in because Dario refused to change the film and it therefore lay idle." "In the end, Lombardo, as the distributor and financier of the movie, said:" ""Oh well, let's release it."" "It was postponed and finally opened in March, I believe." "That's the reason why the film was released as late as March." "It was all due to this fight with Dario and a really strained relationship." "Then the film opened and was a huge hit." "It was extremely successful and had a great box office." "Hence Dario was right." "Subsequently, the relationship was excellent since Lombardo had a huge interest to also produce Dario's third film." "And Dario, in turn, was now calling the shots." "His father said:" ""No, you'll now finish the script - ...we were almost done back then - and we'll auction it off." "Whoever bids the most will get this screenplay."" "The relationship ended right there since they didn't even present it to Lombardo because Dario was really hopping mad at him because of The Cat o' Nine Tails." "Well, I wrote the screenplay with Dario." "Dario was very pleased with my work." "He in fact told his father that he should pay me a bonus." "I should get a premium, and they were very generous." "I was very surprised at how much they gave me for my work." "I never thought that could happen." "It was almost my annual salary as a journalist." "A sum that blew my imagination." "From our conversations Dario knew very well that I had already done Il tunnel sotto il mondo and wanted to be a director, and so on." "So he told me:" ""We've finished the screenplay." "Join me during the shoot." "You could be my assistant."" "I immediately accepted his offer since it was a huge chance for me." "To see how an important film came together, because that's what it was, without a doubt." "And by working on the set I got to know the secrets of cinema." "So that's what I did." "They had an assistant director and a "normal" assistant." "But as an assistant I had a special position." "Since I had written the scenes, Dario approached me, and said:" ""Tell me, Luigi, what do you think about this?"" "It was a different relationship than the usual director/assistant one." "The assistant usually works primarily with the assistant director, not with the director." "But in our case it was a very close relationship since we had created the characters." "So he asked me as it might have been about something that I had thought up and he wanted to hear my opinion." "He then made the decision according to his own vision." "But there was this special relationship." "It became even closer later on because there was a kind of embarrassing situation with Dario's assistant director." "He was a very good assistant director, Roberto Pariante." "Roberto is, or more precisely was, since he unfortunately died a few years ago a great and professional man." "He had been working full time as an assistant director for a long time." "Now, at a certain point, his relationship with Dario grew bad." "Because apparently someone had promised him if he would do a good job on the previous movie he might get the chance for his debut as a director or something like that." "But it never really came together and Roberto went nuts a couple times." "Then there was a fierce fight on the set, at first between him and Dario and then between him and Dario's father." "After that, Roberto was still present on set but not part of the film anymore." "So Dario turned to me for everything." "This must have shattered Roberto's mind even more." "I felt sorry since I became friends with Roberto." "He was a very nice man." "So Roberto retracted a little as an assistant director and I was the assistant director for large parts without knowing exactly what I was supposed to do." "But since everybody knew that I was a newcomer on the set I got support from all sides, most of all from Dario." "Or from production manager Angelo Jacono and Pino Mangogna, the unit manager." "They all knew that I wasn't an expert and so they compensated the things I didn't get right or were too much for me." "That's how it happened that I did so many things on this movie I originally wasn't supposed to do." "There were several things I basically did as the second unit." "As a somewhat improvised second unit." "One thing or another with the cat, like when it tried to meow." "We tried to make her meow for three hours." "Dario wanted the cat to lift her paw into the camera like this." "It seems easy to upset a cat." "If you don't want to, she gets upset." "But if you want her to, you just can't do it." "In this case, I tried for two or three hours, with the camera guy Franco Di Giacomo to get the cat to act until finally, with a lot of effort we had a little success." "Apart from that, I did a few other little things." "For example, there was the scene with the subway we shot in Milan." "Dario had shot the whole scene." "When he was later editing in Rome he realized that he was missing the passing by of the subway in a few spots." "So he was essentially missing a few documentary-esque shots for the reversal cuts." "Of course then the discussions with his father started since they had to send a crew there, even if it was a smaller one." "No actors, but a cinematographer a camera assistant, an assistant director, etc." "So there were discussions due to the costs involved." "It couldn't be done and Dario was annoyed because of that." "But since I frequently went to Milan back then to visit my parents - I originally come from Milan - ...I told him: "Listen, I will go to Milan in two weeks to visit my parents." "If you want, a friend of mine is a camera man - ...Piergiorgio Pozzi, by the way, was the cinematographer of Il tunnel sotto il mondo." "I could ask him." "He owns a film camera." "If you give me some film stock we could go and see if we can capture some footage of the subway."" "Dario said: "That's a great idea." "I will talk to my father."" "His father said:" ""Yes, if you can do it..."" "So I called Piergiorgio Pozzi who was immediately on board." "They gave me the stock and when I visited my parents I met with Piergiorgio one afternoon." "He had his camera with him, we went into a subway train without having a permission and filmed everything we needed." "We even met a conductor who asked us when he saw the camera:" ""Well, what's this for?"" "You didn't see that many cameras around back in the days." "He even invited us to the cockpit and we got some great shots from there." "In Rome I gave the film stock to Dario, he had it developed and liked it." "He chose what he needed like these passing bys." "Everyone was happy:" "He was happy because he got them his father was happy because it didn't affect the budget and I because I could make myself useful." "I'm basically responsible for the scene with the subway." "I hoped to go to Milan, back home, so to speak with a movie in my pocket." "I left Milan in order to work in cinema." "And I wanted to return as a filmmaker to show my parents that I really am in the movie business." "When it came to choosing a location for this scene, I proposed the subway because at the time there only was a subway in Milan." "If you wanted to shoot the scene inside the subway, you had to go to Milan." "And that's what happened." "Dario liked the idea of that location since it was almost futuristic back then since it was the only subway." "We shot this scene and I got a happy feeling:" "It was a return to my home." "Even though we shot the subway scenes in Milan for only two days." "We only shot a little there." "We did the exteriors in Turin because Dario loves that city and he wanted to shoot there." "So he shot all exteriors in Turin." "On the way back to Rome we stopped in Milan for two days shot the subway scenes and then returned to Rome." "Yes, that was in Tunisia." "We shot the bigger part of the exteriors and a few interiors in Turin." "We also started there, I think it was in July." "After we were finished in Turin - I think we were there for two weeks - ...we went on our way back and stopped in Milan." "Then we went back to Rome when it was already August of 1971." "We shot the villa in which the lead character lives this musician played by Michael Brandon." "That villa actually exists and is located in the EUR quarter." "It's about 50 meters away from the famous "mushroom"." "Right next door is also the "Palazzo dello Sport"." "I don't remember the name of the street." "There was this villa and that's where we shot the majority of the scenes that take place inside the house of the protagonist." "We worked there until the beginning of September." "The majority of the film was shot there." "On this little square across the villa there's the "Via Fritz Lang"." "The sign was placed there by us, of course." "The location of the crash at the end, when the car crashes into the truck is that little square right next to the villa." "And at the end of the little square is the "mushroom"." "You can easily recognize it when you're there." "It's easy to find because the "mushroom" was very close by." "So there are several things in the film that came from me." "I remember when I drove to Milan - we did drive to Turin and were all there a couple of days before we started shooting..." "Anyway, I first went to Milan to visit my parents." "My sister was there as well, and she had a car." "Since I wanted to be mobile in Turin - my sister was only 19 at that time I said to my parents:" ""Just give me my sister's car so I can drive to Turin with it and get around there."" "She had a brand-new Fiat 500 back then or 600, and was mighty proud of it." "My parents said: "Alright, take the car, she might as well take the bus."" "So I drove to Turin by car." "At a certain point in the film, in Turin, we needed a car for the private detective." "Dario said: "We need a small, somewhat ridiculous car, something like that."" "And he added: "Luigi, a car like yours would fit perfectly."" "I replied: "If you want it, I'd be glad to provide it."" "The only problem was that the car in the film should look a little battered." "And mine was brand-new." "I still said: "It's alright, no problem." "Just do it."" "And he said: "Yes, no worries, we'll fix it for you afterwards."" "So they really dented it to make it look right for the movie." "But at the end of the shoot they returned it perfect shape." "When I returned to Milan, I gave it back to my sister." "The car looked like new." "When the film was released, I took my sister to the premiere in Milan." "She said: "What did you do to it?" It was totally battered. "My poor car!"" "I replied: "What do you want?" "I returned it in perfect shape."" "The tub scene was rather problematic." "Well, the usual problems you have, especially in those years." "The actresses read the screenplay, they saw there was a nude scene they agreed to do it and signed." "When it came to shoot the nude scenes they said: "Oh no." "No way."" "At first they try to cop out." "But since they were obligated to do it due to their signature on the contract they say: "Nobody may be on the set, everyone has to leave."" "Things like that." "There was Francine Racette, for example, that Canadian actress who got married Donald Sutherland later in life." "She said: "No, everyone has to leave." "Nobody can stay."" "When an actress says something like that the whole crew leaves, of course." "But they stand on the stairs then, etc since they're all driven by their itch to watch." "And that was also the case here." "The bathroom was fake." "Since it was a nude scene which was shot in the De Paolis Studios." "The bathroom, including the bathtub, was rebuilt there." "Since it wasn't a real bathroom the water came in buckets that were filled up at the fountains and was therefore ice cold." "The actress tested it first, and then said:" ""No, I won't shoot like that."" "That was understandable, and so the water had to be heated up." "In the kitchen of the café in the studios, giant pots with water were heated and then the water was filled into buckets." "But the water cooled down fast." "Hence there was a steady coming and going to bring warm water so that the scene could be shot." "Unfortunately it wasn't a real bathroom, so there was no boiler or stuff like that." "The scene takes place inside the villa in the EUR quarter." "But the staircase is fake." "The staircase was built in the studio." "They basically erected a stair-like construction." "There was a platform wagon with wheels and rails below it." "The actress lay on the platform wagon and the camera filmed her only up to here." "So the actress was lying on the platform wagon." "Then she was basically dragged by the technicians and slowly at that, up to the end of the rails." "The scene was shot with an accelerated speed to generate the effect of a higher speed." "So it was all staged and not real." "That's like small rituals, so those are important moments." "Like in dreams or really weird nightmares that you have while you're sleeping." "The telling of these stories is important for me because they are a kind of myth." "It's like the depiction of a festive mass." "Similar to the rituals of the Aztec ethnic groups of South America." "The thing with the flying bullet was shot with a real bullet." "It was written into the screenplay and Dario absolutely wanted to bring it to the big screen." "We found a camera technician by the name of Fiorentini, I think who had modified a camera so that it could shoot 250 frames per second." "We did the shot but it was too fast." "You couldn't see it with 250 frames." "He then proposed another camera he had that could do 500 or 700 frames per second, I think." "It had the disadvantage, however, that it was a 16mm and not a 35mm camera." "But it was the only professional camera in Rome that could shoot at that kind of speed." "So the scene was shot with that camera and the picture was twice as slow." "That means the picture was even more slowed down." "With that speed you could see the bullet." "It wasn't perfect." "It wasn't perfectly sharp, but you could see it." "So the picture was twice as slow, and the negative was blown up to 35mm." "Franchino Di Giacomo was a wonderful man." "An absolutely fine man and really good." "A very well-mannered person." "I can only say the best things about him." "Most of all, he was competent." "He was a likeable, friendly and an always helpful man." "With him was Beppe Lanci who also became a brilliant cinematographer." "He's a real expert in his field." "I then had the pleasure to also work with Franchino Di Giacomo on The Killer Must Kill Again." "Franco married the daughter of Riccardo Pallottini." "She was the script supervisor." "They met and they married." "So his father-in-law was Riccardo Pallottini - ...which is something I'd wish to nobody." "Riccardo Pallottini was a good man and a really good cinematographer but he had an absolutely impossible character." "While he was working on my movie, The Killer Must Kill Again he received an offer in the third week for a movie with a longer shooting time." "Mine would have been finished the next week, so Pallottini called his son-in-law and said: "Listen, take over for me on Cozzi's film, I'm doing another one."" "That was common back then." "There were seamless changeovers from one film to another." "So he sent me this replacement." "When he arrived, I realized that it was Franco Di Giacomo and was very happy to see him." "While Pallottini revealed his terrible character on the set - ...I had fights with him all the time - I got a long great with Franco." "It was a pleasure to finish the film with him." "I was always interested in photography." "My mother was a photographer." "So I grew up with a person who took pictures." "What was Dario Argento like on set?" "Well, he was characterized by an intellectual hysteria." "He was carried by what he was creating, similar to a painter or a sculptor." "And he was creating this something on celluloid." "He was a man of incredible temper, easily irritable." "And he was another one of the important building stones in this great row of Italian directors." "This was one stage to get to the goal." "It certainly was an important stage since in those years I made use of the technological progress." "It was almost an obsession for me." "I was ready at that point to also try out new technologies." "And that's what I did on this film." "The scene with the accident was vastly more complex because we had to find a suitable camera to do it." "The professional ones didn't work since they didn't get even close to the speed that Dario wanted to shoot the scene with." "The production manager lacono and Mangogna then came across the university of Naples across the university's scientific lab to be precise." "They had a movie camera that could even produce 30,000 frames a second." "It was a special camera for scientific photography." "They agreed that the responsible professor of this special department for high-speed-photography would come to Rome, to do the shots." "Which he did." "He was supposed to do the shots for these scenes with his special camera." "But innumerous problems came up, and it was pretty difficult." "It's probably the most spectacular, most beautiful and magic scene in the film." "But it was also the most complicated one in terms of getting it right." "To do it, we really had to work in the sweat of our brows." "If you take a closer look at it, you can see a couple of flaws." "I still remember that we had two cars in the beginning that were supposed to get destroyed." "The trunk was not a common, robust car trunk." "It was a lead-like trunk with a light metal alloy so it could be crushed much more easily." "The car didn't move at all." "It was the truck that drove in reverse and crashed into the car." "The car stood still, as if it was nailed down." "This scene was shot, by the way, in August around 1 p.m." "On the monitor it looked as if it was night because the camera's light absorption was so high that a scene that was shot at 1 p.m. in August looked like it was night time on the monitor." "The speed of the film required an incredible amount of light." "There even were four spots standing nearby to support the sunlight." "So it was absolutely incredible." "But when we shot the first two takes of this scene and destroyed the prepared cars at our disposal the camera was running and caused a tape jam in the cartridge." "That means, the film got tangled up and totally broke." "Salvatore Argento was in despair since the cars cost quite a lot." "Due to the preparation of the trunks that were now destroyed." "The scene wasn't in the can, though, since the film stock was completely torn." "Dario was freaking out, and we had to shoot it again." "Then a loud verbal duel between father and son started." "But as usual, father and son alias producer and director came to a tradeoff:" ""The scene will be re-shot." But before it was shot again Franchino Di Giacomo and myself got the assignment to find out why the film stock got tangled up two times." "So we experimented with it a little during our lunch break while the shooting continued as planned." "We tried to understand why the camera wasn't working because it had worked perfectly back in Naples." "I remember how we smashed bottles with a hammer to see what the result would look like." "We did that two or three times and the result was very good." "We didn't understand why it didn't work before." "Then Franco Di Giacomo finally had an intuition." "The intuition why the camera wasn't working:" "In Naples they had always used black  white stock." "And black  white stock has a different thickness than color stock." "We're talking about fractions of a millimeter, but with such a complex mechanism which utilizes the gliding and not the usual pushing operation of a camera this is crucial." "So he said:" ""Instead of normal film stock we'll use a narrower one so it can expand and doesn't slam against the walls of the casing and tears." "When we tried it, it worked, and so we solved that mystery." "Thus we could shoot the scene in that manner and produced the shots we needed." "That were sometimes 1,000 and sometimes 3,000 frames per second." "It was incredible." "The cartridge was already empty after one second." "But the crash had already happened and was entirely banned on film." "One problem, which came up during the projection, was that the camera had no holes to fixate an image in a frame as it is the case with a normal film camera." "Since it worked with a gliding operation, the border line could shift." "Which means that it wasn't on the bottom but at three quarters of the frame." "And that happened in several shots." "When we went to the editor with Dario I still remember how he said:" ""We can't use these shots, you can see the border line."" "I remember how I then said to Dario:" ""Okay, you can see the border line, but who cares?" "We can't do it again, we can't repeat the effect and it's such a nice shot, so just leave it in." "I'd like to see the guy who stands up in the theater, and says: 'There's the border line!" "'" "Just do one or two test screenings." "If that happens, we'll exchange it."" "Provided there was a replacement - which wasn't the case here." "We did the test screenings and nobody complained." "The people were mesmerized by the effect." "An old theory concerning special effects states:" ""If the effect is bigger than the defect then leave the effect in."" "And that was a typical example since none of the viewers asked themselves:" ""Why is the border line visible?" The scene works despite of this." "Then we reshot a few details of that scene in the De Paolis studios." "We couldn't crash any cars since there weren't any at our disposal anymore." "We killed windshields instead." "That means we put Mimsy Farmer into the car frame and just leaned the windshield against it." "Then we smashed it with a hammer." "The ensuing spectacle of fragments is what we edited into the movie because we wanted so spice up the scene." "Since we had crashed the two cars without getting usable footage the material we had for the scene was somewhat sparse." "In my opinion, however, it turned out really good." "It was scored memorably with a beautiful score by Morricone." "I don't remember if we had to shoot this before or after:" "The car crashes into the truck." "Then you see all these fragments that fly into all directions." "Then the car explodes and the film ends with that explosion." "We also shot this scene on the same little square below the "mushroom" in the EUR quarter in Rome." "We shot this scene in another car that was prepared with explosives, with black powder, and so on." "That was something the special effects team took care of." "Unfortunately, a bad accident happened there." "While the scene was prepared - it had a long prep time..." "The electrician had already placed his gear and the spots." "That was done quickly." "However, the special effects technicians then had to place the powder for the explosion inside the car." "While one of the technicians was placing the explosive charges inside the car an explosion happened for unknown reasons." "The remote ignition probably went off." "Maybe there was a problem with the remote." "The technician who was inside the car was seriously injured." "He was carried away and the scene was reshot much later." "It was, unfortunately, a terrible accident that upset all of us." "I still remember how I was standing next to the camera chatting and waiting for them to finish up, and then there was this explosion." "It shocked us all." "Rambaldi participated in the film due to word of mouth." "I became friends with Rambaldi and respected him a lot." "And we had this idea with that machine." "I visited Rambaldi often to check out his workshop and my reports about his machines and devices always were fun for me." "When we talked about doing this scene, I said to Salvatore and Dario:" ""Rambaldi could build the machine." "He builds such great and extraordinary things."" "The hadn't considered this at all." "They knew Rambaldi's quality, but said:" ""Yes, but we were told he's expensive." "That he's not affordable."" "I said: "Well, he works in a subterranean garage on the Circonvallazione Clodia and is surrounded by playing kids." "He doesn't seem like a rich guy to me who makes absurd demands."" "But they replied:" ""But that's what we were told."" "I said:" ""Listen, may I ask him at least?"" "They replied:" ""Yes, sure, ask him."" "When I visited Rambaldi again, I said to him:" ""Listen, there's this project I'm working on with Dario Argento." "They need some machine for a certain purpose." "Is it true that you make exaggerated demands?"" "He replied: "What kind of demands?" "It would be a dream to work for Argento." "It would be a great pleasure and I'm sure we'll find an agreement."" "So I went to Salvatore, and said:" ""Well, Rambaldi told me that."" "And they said: "Then call him, invite him over, and we'll listen to him."" "Rambaldi went to them and made normal demands." "After he went home, he got the assignment to take care of that thing." "Later they thanked me, and said:" ""Yes, it was bullshit." "He asked for very little."" "Everyone was happy, and I said:" ""People only talk bullshit."" "Because in those years it often happened in the movie business that people tried to get jobs for their friends." "One way to do it was to badmouth a person in front of a producer:" ""But he wants way too much", and that scared the producer off immediately." "In this case we were lucky that I knew Rambaldi and made their coming together easier." "Dario was very happy since Rambaldi's work was really great and everything worked on the first take." "Because back then it was normal that the special effects never worked on the first take." "It might work some days later after a lot of shouting and cursing." "Rambaldi, however, was very precise, very reliable, and everything always worked." "He built the dead cat, for instance." "Dario asked him if he wanted to do the dead cat, and he did it." "He gave it to me afterwards." "I still remember that I had Rambaldi's dead cat in my apartment for years." "It was the cat that was found in the plastic bag in the movie." "And everyone who came over freaked because it looked really nice and realistic." "He built the machine in the film which "reads" eyes, so to speak." "There is this ray which we didn't know how to accomplish in the beginning." "He then took a simple iron wire and connected it to the electrical grid." "Due to the electricity the wire begins to glow." "It wasn't a ray but a wire - which can't be seen, however." "He repeated the procedure as often as Dario wanted." "Perception is a subject I devoted myself to a lot." "Just like the subject of memory." "That memories might sometimes be deceiving and not real." "Sometimes you remember something that was influenced by your knowledge." "Consequently, you remember something that isn't real at all but you just want to remember." "Franco Fraticelli is a very competent man, and very important for Dario's filmmaking since he gave him an appropriate rhythm, and all." "Fraticelli is a great editor." "An intelligent editor who knows how to build up a movie." "But at that time - the movie was supposed to open on Christmas - ...the great editors like Baragli, Fraticelli, Montanari worked on at least three movies simultaneously." "That means, they cut a movie in the morning, the afternoon, and often even in the evening." "All high-class movies were supposed to open at Christmas." "So the editors were fully immersed in work." "Fraticelli worked with Dario in the morning, if I remember correctly." "Dario was afraid to miss the release date:" ""My God, I'm behind schedule, the movie won't be ready in time..."" "So Dario wanted Fraticelli to work the whole day with him." "But it didn't happen:" "Fraticelli said: "No, I can't."" "I think he was working on a film by Lizzani." "So he had other important projects that had to be ready for Christmas." "Then it came to an argument:" "Fraticelli couldn't cop out of the other projects." "Dario, however, wanted Fraticelli to work with him alone for 15 or 20 days." "Fraticelli said, however, No, either like this or not at all."" "So Dario said:" ""Alright, then not at all."" "It was almost a battle that Dario started." "He talked with his father about it, and they decided to let him go." "But then there were other problems." "All the other Italian editors allied with Fraticelli." "Dario offered the movie to every one of them, but they said: "No, Fraticelli's doing the film." "You have to go back to Fraticelli."" "Subsequently, it became a matter of principle." "Dario said:" ""No, even if I have to go to China." "The film will have an editor, and it won't be Fraticelli."" "He explained the problem to the Parisian production company Marianne Productions - ...that no Italian editor wanted the job." "So he asked: "Do you have someone?" And they proposed the editor of Z the film by Costa-Gavras, that had just received the Oscar for "Best Editing"." "Dario said:" ""Good golly!" "Bring him on!"" "So they sent her to Italy." "But as early as the next film, Dario made peace with Fraticelli since Fraticelli was very important for Dario's filmmaking." "Only few people mention this." "But it was always the case with Dario's films that as long as Fraticelli did the editing they had a different "look" than the one they had in the subsequent period." "Fraticelli was an editor who put his stamp on a movie." "An editor who made clear to the director:" ""Listen, this scene is unnecessary." "Look, this scene doesn't match here, it should appear at another spot."" "So he also worked on the structure of a film if it was necessary." "The problem with Deep Purple was due to the editing." "Until then the film had American actors British musicians and a French editor." "It ran the risk of having no nationality." "That meant a huge financial loss for a box office hit." "A lot of money the state paid the producers from the taxes of the movie tickets." "So the distributor thought - the co-production and Salvatore Argento - ...it's a risk that can't be taken." "So one of these elements had to be eliminated." "The editor was indispensable." "The musicians hadn't participated yet." "Deep Purple had recorded a song prior to the shooting so that we could shoot the scenes with the drummer to it." "But they hadn't done the soundtrack yet." "So it was decided to sacrifice Deep Purple - it wasn't their fault." "To much sorrow." "Since the musician absolutely had to be Italian, Dario said:" ""Alright, then I will go with Morricone again."" "Since the movie is about a rock musician, he rather wanted a rock band." "Morricone is really good, but he's no rock musician." "I respect his personality and he respects mine." "So there were no personal differences." "I had a vision of which music would be suitable for the movie." "Due to the subject and the characters." "The main character was a musician in a rock band." "I had a concept of what would fit into the movie." "He, however, had a different vision, and when we listened to the music there was a little argument." "This resulted in us not working together for 10 or 12 years." "The relationship with Morricone was very good particularly because he's great in his job." "But it went downhill in the moment when rock songs were supposed to be recorded." "Morricone's rock musicians weren't rock musicians à la Deep Purple." "Those were the usual instrumentalists from Rome who were very good but used to completely different musical styles." "Dario had the score's main theme recorded by Deep Purple." "And the difference between the two styles was huge." "So Dario said to Morricone:" ""No, they have to distort their guitars!"" "They have to sound like this." He said something along those lines." "Morricone took it personally and was offended." "The two of them went at it hammer and tongs in the recording room." "They avoided each other for many years." "I experienced this film up close and personal." "It was my debut on the big screen." "I was lucky enough to debut with a big film:" "With Paramount and a movie that was number one in the charts." "And with most popular director at the time." "I wish it to everybody to debut like that." "That alone is a high point in a career." "Oftentimes this happens at the end of a career, to top it all, so to speak and I had it already at the beginning, so it was a wonderful experience." "I was present during the whole process." "From the moment on when Dario told me:" ""I have this title, but I don't know what we could do with it."" "Up to the moment when the final version was finished." "Dario always wanted me by his side, even in editing and music recordings." "So I was by his side until the movie was completely finished." "It was a wonderful experience since he is an outstanding director." "Besides, he was still young back then, and full of incredible enthusiasm." "He had a great drive:" ""Let's do this and that."" "That's why it was an unforgettable experience in my mind." "Are we finished?" "Excuse me, could we start over, please?"