The Fly (1958) Color
Ultra-campy sci-fi doesn't get any better than this. Primitive special effects, groan-inducing makeup, and dialogue to die for. This highly influential sci-fi classic has one of the most spine-tingling endings in horror film history.
STORY & SCREENSHOTS: In Montreal, Quebec, scientist Andre Delambre is found dead with his head and arm crushed in a hydraulic press. His wife Helene 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. Andre's brother, Francois, lies and says he caught the white-headed fly.
Thinking he knows the truth, Helene asks Francois to bring the policeman in charge of the case, Inspector Charas, so that she can explain the circumstances of Andre's death to them both. In flashback, Andre, Helene, and their son Philippe are a happy family. Andre 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. Still, he then proceeds 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, Helene, worried because Andre has not come up from the basement lab for a couple of days, goes down to find Andre with a black cloth draped over his head and a strange deformity on his left hand.
Communicating only with typed notes and knocking, Andre tells Helene 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 his miniature head and left arm. Andre needs Helene 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. Andre's will begins to fade as the fly's instincts take over his brain. Time is running out, and while Andre can still think like a human, he smashes the equipment, burns his notes, and leads Helene 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. Andre'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 Helene insane and guilty of murder. As they are about to haul her away, Philippe tells Francois he has seen the fly trapped in a web in the back garden. Francois convinces the inspector to come and see for himself.
The two men see the fly, with both Andre's head and arm, trapped on the web as Philippe told them. It screams, "Help me! Help me!" as a large brown 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, Francois and Charas decide to declare Andre's death a suicide so that Helene is not convicted of murder. In the end, Helene, Francois, and Philippe resume their daily lives. Sometime later, Philippe and Helene are playing croquet in the yard. Francois arrives to take his nephew to the zoo.
In reply to his nephew's query about his father's death, Francois 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 Helene escorting her son and Francois out of the yard.
The Fly - FILM INFO
Cast / Characters
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David Hedison as Andre Delambre
Patricia Owens as Helene Delambre
Vincent Price as Francois Delambre
Herbert Marshall as Insp. Charas
Kathleen Freeman as Emma
Betty Lou Gerson as Nurse Andersone
Charles Herbert as Philippe Delambre
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Eugene Borden as Dr. Ejoute
Harry Carter as Orderly
Arthur Dulac as French Waiter
Bess Flowers as Lady at the Ballet
Torben Meyer as Gaston
Franz Roehn as Police Doctor
Charles Tannen as Doctor
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The film was a commercial success, one of Fox's biggest hits of 1958, grossing $3,000,000 at the domestic box office against a budget of less than $500,000. It earned $1.7 million in theatrical rentals.
This became the biggest box office hit for director Kurt Neumann, but he never knew it. He died a month after the premiere, and only a week before it went into general release. The Fly was nominated for the American Film Institute's 100 Years...100 Thrills, and 100 Movie Quotes.
The film has been well received by critics and with audiences. It holds a 93% "Fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and has been nominated for a Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation. The Fly has also received four out of five stars on Allmovie.
It is actually David Hedison, not a stuntman, inside the Fly makeup. The teleportation that causes Andre and the fly to switch atoms is never seen. The lab set cost only $28,000 and included some surplus Army equipment. Part of the laboratory set was Emerac, the computer from Fox's production Desk Set.
In the scene where the fly with Andre Delambre's head and arm is caught in the spider's web, a small animatronic figure with a moving head and arm was used in the spiderweb as a reference for actors Vincent Price and Herbert Marshall.
The film had two sequels, Return of the Fly in 1959 and Curse of the Fly in 1965. There was also a remake of the same name in 1986 directed by David Cronenberg, which itself had a sequel, 1989's The Fly II.
Michael Rennie was offered the title role but declined it because his head would be covered thru most of the picture. Patricia Owens has a real fear of insects. Director Kurt Neumann used this by not allowing her to see the makeup until the "unmasking' scene.
Price later remembered that filming the scene required multiple takes, because each time he and Marshall looked at the animatronic figure, with its human head and insect body, they would burst out laughing.
Differences
The Fly was originally a story by George Langelaan that appeared in the June 1957 issue of Playboy magazine. James Clavell's first script was faithful to George Langelaan's original story, but Fox executives demanded a happier ending. There are notable differences in the film from the short story.
- Helene tells Francois and Charas about the circumstances leading to Andre's death rather than explaining it to Francois through a manuscript.
- When Andre goes through the transmitter at Helene's suggestion to reverse the transformation, he does not gain the atoms of the family cat.
- Helene commits suicide in the short story, but lives in the film.
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