Monster Movie of the Week: The Fly (1958)

The Fly
Director: Kurt Neumann
Genre: Horror


THE MOVIE

Based on the short story of the same name, the original version of The Fly is a decidedly different experience than its more famous remake. The 1958 movie features classic horror icon Vincent Price, and the story unfolds as a murder mystery, instead of the body horror/love story of the 1986 David Cronenberg movie. The movie is set in Montreal, (making both this and the remake Canadian-set) and there is a lot of Quebecois flavor throughout, which is a little confusing at first.

When a local scientist is found brutally murdered in an industrial press, his wife becomes the sole suspect. She refuses to reveal what she knows, instead she is obsessed with locating a strange white-headed fly that has been seen around her home. Her brother-in-law and the local police investigator are tasked with finding out what happened, which is finally revealed in a lengthy flashback. The scientist had invented a teleportation device, which he decided to try on himself but when a common housefly flew into the chamber, he and the fly ended up swapping heads and arms. In order to reverse the condition, he must locate the aberrant fly and go through the teleporter one more time.

Framing the movie as a kind of detective story was a nice touch, which allows the audience to peel back the mystery of The Fly a little bit at a time, as opposed to the more direct approach taken by Cronenberg, which allowed us a more intimate look at the characters. I imagine for someone watching the movie, not knowing anything about the story, The Fly would be a wild, weird ride. Also, the presence of the smaller fly/hybrid is a horrific little subplot that is not found in the remake. One has to wonder, to what extent can the poor creature reason. We don't see it until the movie's most famous shot at the end, in which the tiny screaming human-faced creature is devoured by a spider.

THE CREATURE/EFFECTS

This version of the creature does not feature the full genetic transformation that was featured in the 1986 movie, instead we see a man with a giant fly head and an insect arm. The head is actually pretty effective and realistic, covered in black hair and with a quivering proboscis and multifaceted eyes. The total effect is fairly revolting.



This scientist has neatly traded heads and limbs with the fly and doesn't really undergo any kind of transformation, except perhaps a mental one. We see him late in the movie, losing the ability to write and think, shades of Jeff Goldblum's performance two decades later. The actor playing the scientist, David Hedison, does some very nice work physicalizing the creature, with erratic jerky body language.



MOST MEMORABLE MOMENT

I really like the scenes late in the movie when Dr. Delambre really starts to really loose it. He begins having difficulty hanging on to his humanity. In these scenes lay the seeds for tragic horror of the remake.


SEQUELS

Return of the Fly 1959, and Curse of the Fly 1965

HOME VIDEO AVAILABILITY

DVD and currently streaming on Netflix.

TRAILER






Patrick Garone
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