The Fly (1958)
|  Over the years, The Fly has become a camp classic among old movie enthusiasts. Although written and filmed as a straightforward sci-fi parable about the dangers of tampering with nature, it is so ludicrous, so positively over the top that it simply cannot be taken seriously.The film opens with a mystery. A night watchman at an industrial plant catches a glimpse of an attractive woman running from a hydraulic steel press that she has apparently used to crush the head of a man (the sight of bright red blood running down the side of the press in full CinemaScope glory must have shocked a few unexpecting viewers in 1958). The woman, Helene (Patricia Owens), later confesses that she did turn on the press and crush the man's head, and that the man was her husband, Andre (Al Hedison). She admits that she killed him, but she will not use the term “murder.” After refusing repeatedly to explain to a police investigator (Herbert Marshall) why she killed her husband, Helene is finally convinced by her brother-in-law, François (Vincent Price), to spill the beans. By this time, almost 30 minutes of the film has passed, so a great deal of expectation has been built up once Helene begins to spin her story. And what a story it is. It turns out that Andre was a brilliant scientist who had secretly invented a machine that can disintegrate matter, carry it through a wire, and then reintegrate it somewhere else. (It is obvious that the film was made closely after the widespread phenomenon of the television because Andre explains the disintegrator/reintegrator machine in terms of a TV signal. After all, if a TV camera can send electrons across wires that become sound and picture on a TV set, why couldn't it be done with solid objects?) While testing the machine on himself, a housefly joined him for the ride and their atoms were switched up, leaving Andre with an oversized, globular fly's head and one hairy fly arm, while somewhere out there is a fly with Andre's miniature head and arm. The rest of the movie chronicles Helene's attempt to catch the fly with Andre's head, in the desperate hope that they might re-enter the teleportation machine and switch their atoms back. Meanwhile, having a fly's head begins to get to Andre, as he slowly goes insane. Of course, it's never really explained why he would have the fly's head but not its brain, although apparently part of its brain got mixed in there because he finds it harder and harder to think straight and control the fly arm. In the details, the script is incredibly sloppy, but it pushes forward with an irresistible energy that steamrolls past the inconsistencies and gaps in logic. No matter how you slice it, The Fly is a supremely bizarre movie, even by '50s B-movie standards. With the exception of Andre's hokey science lab, which consists mostly of giant machines with oven timers and a lot of neon tubes that glow blue and green, the movie has a slick polish that makes it look more expensive than it probably was. The acting is all up to par, even though some of the melodramatic scenes between Andre (his fly head hidden behind an Elephant Man-like black hood) and Helene are a bit overdone. The debonair presence of the eminently watchable screen veteran Vincent Price gives the movie an added flair, as well. Director Kurt Neumann, who died shortly after the film was completed, was something of a B-movie auteur, having already helmed more than 60 mostly low-budget films, including four Tarzan flicks. Despite his vast experience in movies, Neumann is not much more than a functional director with little imagination. The movie features at least a dozen teleportation sequences, yet he stages each one exactly the same, right down to the repetitious camera angels. Yet, the movie still works, but not quite as it was intended, though. The screenplay by James Clavell, best known as a writer of epic historical novels like Shogun, was based on a short story by George Langelaan that was originally published in Playboy magazine. Clavell's expansion of the story is teaming with grand moments, from the Phantom of the Opera-inspired scene when Helene finally unveils Andre's horrible fly head, to the infamous climax that features a spider bearing down on the fly with Andre's tiny head squeaking, “Help me, help me!” The Fly may not be a particularly good movie, but it is undoubtedly entertaining and makes it hard to peel away your eyes.
Copyright ©2007 James Kendrick Thoughts? E-mail James Kendrick All images copyright © 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The Fly is available as part of “The Fly Collection” four-disc DVD box set, which also includes Return of the Fly (1959) and The Curse of the Fly (1965).Overall Rating: 
(3)
