The Fly (1958 film)

The Fly is a 1958 American science fiction horror film directed and produced by Kurt Neumann and distributed by 20th Century Fox. The screenplay by James Clavell is based on the 1957 short story of the same name by George Langelaan. The film stars David Hedison (in his first leading role), Patricia Owens, Vincent Price, and Herbert Marshall.

The film tells the story of a scientist who is transformed into a grotesque human–fly hybrid after a common house fly enters unseen into a molecular transporter with which he is experimenting, resulting in his atoms being combined with those of the insect. The film was released in CinemaScope by Fox, with color by Deluxe. It was released on July 16, 1958 as a double feature with Space Master X-7 (1958).

The first installment in The Fly film series, the film was followed by two sequels, Return of the Fly (1959) and Curse of the Fly (1965). A remake directed by David Cronenberg was released in 1986, itself followed by a 1989 sequel The Fly II.

Plot

In Montreal, scientist André Delambre is found dead with his head and arm crushed in a hydraulic press. His wife Hélène confesses to the crime but refuses to provide a motive, and begins acting strangely. In particular, she is obsessed with flies, including a supposedly white-headed fly. André's brother, François, lies and says he caught the white-headed fly. Thinking he knows the truth, Hélène asks François to bring the police inspector in charge of the case, Charas, so that she can explain the circumstances of André's death to them both.

In flashback, André, Hélène, and their son Philippe are a happy family. André has been working on a matter-transporter device called the disintegrator-integrator. He initially tests it only on small, inanimate objects, such as a newspaper, before proceeding to living creatures, including the family's pet cat (which fails to reintegrate, but can be heard meowing somewhere) and a guinea pig. After he is satisfied that these tests are succeeding, he builds a man-sized pair of chambers.

One day, Hélène, worried because André has not come up from the basement lab for a couple of days, goes down to find André with a black cloth draped over his head and a strange deformity on his left hand. Communicating only with typed notes and knocking (once for "Yes", twice for "No"), André tells Hélène that he tried to transport himself, but that a fly was caught in the chamber with him, which resulted in the mixing of their atoms. Now, he has the head and left arm of a fly, though he retains his human mind. Conversely, the fly has a miniature version of his head and left arm.

André needs Hélène to capture the fly so that he can reverse the process. After she, her son, and their housemaid exhaustively search for it, she finds it, but it slips out of a crack in the window. André's will begins to fade as the fly's instincts take over his brain. Time is running out, and while André can still think like a human, he smashes the equipment, burns his notes, and leads Hélène to the factory. When they arrive, he sets the hydraulic press, puts his head and arm under, and motions for Hélène to push the button. André's arm falls free as the press descends, and trying not to look, she raises the press, replaces the arm, and activates the machine a second time.

Upon hearing this confession, Inspector Charas deems Hélène insane and guilty of murder. As they are about to haul her away, Philippe tells François he has seen the fly trapped in a web in the back garden. François convinces the inspector to come and see for himself. The two men see the fly, with both André's head and arm, trapped on the web as Philippe told them. It screams, "Help me! Help me!" as a large spider advances on it. Just as the spider is about to devour the creature, Charas crushes them both with a rock. Knowing that nobody would believe the truth, François and Charas decide to declare André's death a suicide so that Hélène is not convicted of murder.

In the end, Hélène, François, and Philippe resume their daily lives. Sometime later, Philippe and Hélène are playing croquet in the yard. François arrives to take his nephew to the zoo. In reply to his nephew's query about his father's death, François tells Philippe, "He was searching for the truth. He almost found a great truth, but for one instant, he was careless. The search for the truth is the most important work in the whole world and the most dangerous." The film closes with Hélène escorting her son and François out of the yard.

Cast

Production

Development

thumb|[[Drive-in theater|Drive-in advertisement from 1958]]

Producer-director Kurt Neumann discovered the short story by George Langelaan in Playboy magazine. He showed it to Robert L. Lippert, head of 20th Century Fox's subsidiary B-movie studio, Regal Films. The film was to be made by Lippert's outfit, but was released as an "official" Fox film, not under the less-prestigious Regal banner.

Lippert hired James Clavell to adapt Langelaan's story on the strength of a previous sci-fi spec script at RKO, which had never been produced.

The adaptation remained largely faithful to Langelaan's short story, apart from moving its setting from France to Canada, and crafting a happier ending by eliminating a suicide. Hedison was never happy with the makeup, but makeup artist Ben Nye remained very positive about his work, writing years later that despite doing many subsequent science-fiction films, "I never did anything as sophisticated or original as The Fly". and others as high as $495,000; The shoot lasted 18 days in total.

Release

Theatrical

The Fly was released in July 1958 by 20th Century Fox. Producer-director Kurt Neumann died only a few weeks after its premiere, never realizing he had made the biggest hit of his career.

Reception

Box office

The film was a commercial success, grossing $3 million at the domestic box office against a budget of less than $500,000

The financial success of the film had the side effect of boosting co-star Vincent Price (whose previous filmography featured only scattered forays into genre film) into a major horror star. Price himself was positive about the film, saying, decades later, "I thought THE FLY was a wonderful film – entertaining and great fun".

Upon its initial release, The Fly received mixed reviews. Critic Ivan Butler called it "the most ludicrous, and certainly one of the most revolting science-horror films ever perpetrated", and Carlos Clarens offered some praise for the effects, but concluded that the film "collapses under the weight of many... questions".

The New York Times critic Howard Thompson was more positive, writing: "It does indeed contain, briefly, two of the most sickening sights one casual swatter-wielder ever beheld on the screen... Otherwise, believe it or not, The Fly happens to be one of the better, more restrained entries of the 'shock' school... Even with the laboratory absurdities, it holds an interesting philosophy about man's tampering with the unknown". Variety was also fairly positive, stating: "One strong factor of the picture is its unusual believability. It is told, by Clavell and Neumann, as a mystery suspense story, so that it has a compelling interest aside from its macabre effects". Harrison's Reports declared it "A first rate science-fiction-horror melodrama", adding: "the action grips one's attention from the opening to the closing scenes, and is filled with suspenseful, spine-chilling situations that will keep movie-goers on the edge of their seats". Philip K. Scheuer of the Los Angeles Times called the film "frightening, which is naturally its primary purpose. It is also more skillful in concept and execution than the average science-fiction effort".

Modern reviews have been more uniformly positive. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 95% of 43 critics' reviews of the film are positive; the site's "critics consensus" reads: "Deliciously funny to some and eerily prescient to others, The Fly walks a fine line between schlocky fun and unnerving nature parable". Cinefantastique's Steve Biodrowski declared that "the film, though hardly a masterpiece, stands in many ways above the level of B-movie science fiction common in the 1950s". Critic Steven H. Scheuer praised it as a "superior science-fiction thriller with a literate script for a change, plus good production effects and capable performances".

Notes

References

Higham, Charles. 1970. Hollywood Cameraman: Sources of Light. Indiana University Press, Bloomington, Indiana and London.
Warren, Bill. Keep Watching the Skies, American Science Fiction Movies of the 50s, Vol. II: 1958–1962. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 1986. .

External links