‘The Fly’ is kind of like the Sedan or Porsche of the ‘Creature Feature’ genre. A film thats effortlessly smooth in its execution and doesnt pull punches in its plot twists. I had grown up with the Cronenberg remake for years, with only ‘The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror’ giving me any kind of a glimpse as to what the original version had to offer. But! a couple of years ago, I finally picked this one up on google movies, loved it. and when Scream Factory was having a boxset clearence sale a year or so ago, I lept at the chance to nab this on physical media. and im very glad I did!
The film is largely shown via flashback, but we open in the present day as Francois Delambre (Vincent Price) is called urgently in the night to his printing company. A cleaner has spotted an intruder on site using the hydraulic presses, and it appears theres been a murder. Francois rushes to the scene and is utterly beside himself to discover the intruder is non other than his sister in law…and that the body discovered mashed into the press, is non other than his brother Andre.
The police corden off the scene, and his sister in law Helene is taken back home in a state of shock and advised to bedrest. But something is off with her, shes incredibly jittery whenever flies buzz into the room, she’ll leap out of bed and inspect them, scream in terror if the house staff try to kill them, and wont tell anyone any details of what happened leading up to her and her husband being found at the press facility.
Francois tries to get to the bottom of things, but isnt having much luck, until Andres son Phillipe tells him about a strange fly he caught that had a white head. Francois speaks with Helene and eventually convinces her that hes captured this fly, something Helene is relieved for as it’ll help explain everything…after some pursuation, Francois manages to convince her to tell him what happened.
At which point, we flashback for pretty much the rest of the movie. as we see Helene and Andre living a happy life together, Andre is working on an experimental transferrence machine. something that can move an object from one pod to another with near enough 1:1 accuracy…with the only downside being it appears to mirror the object on transfer.
After an accident in which the family pet is transferred, Andre becomes obsessed with the idea that these pods could be for much more than just moving objects from one space to another. This could open up a whole new world in which people could be transported halfway around the planet in an instance. And so he throws himself into his work, desperately trying to figure out the mathematical possibilities of transmitting a person…with terrifying consiquences.
This is one of those movies that I kind of forget about from time to time, but every time I revisit it, I cant quite believe how smoothly it goes down. The script is a little on the slow burn side, and the creature feature element doesnt really become truely prominent until the third act, but its the characters really that help keep this thing floating along. and between Vincent Prices ‘Francois’, Patricia Owens ‘Helene’ and David Hedisons ‘Andre’ we find several likeable, complex characters with nicely interwoven relationships that the film explores with a decent amount of depth.
While the pacing is a little slowburn at times, the act structuring is superb, the transitions between the acts are almost faultless and the ending of this film is probably one of the most bizarre and shocking twists to come out of the ‘creature feature’ age. The dialogue is charming, the tone for the time would have been outright horror, but as this films aged its definitely taken a more campier tinge to it that I feel really helps seal the deal for me.
The direction is razor sharp, with some really decent lighting setups, solid camera work and some beyond decent experimentation with special effects. Do I think this is a distinct work? I cant say that Kurt Neumann made something here that only he could have made. But what I can say is there are definitely distinct moments here, that wouldnt have been some peoples immediate ‘go to’.
The cine is decent too with rich and lavish colour usage throughout, clean crisp sequences that use a good range of shot types and b-roll. and the edit, again while maybe just a bit slower than i’d have personally liked, is still a sturdy work that gives the audience what it came to see. I really liked it on that front.
In a nice change of pace, Price here is playing a good guy as Francois, and I always enjoyed it when he did take on ‘good guy’ roles, as he seemed to play them with a kind of wide eyed innocense and shock that runs a nice contrast to his usual more villainous roles. But credit also has to go to Patritia Owens as Helene, who manages the, not at ALL easy task, of playing a character that is percieved to be crazy, but is actually telling the truth. Its common in a lot of fiction for that type of character to exist. But they’re usually being played as clearly insane anyway, they just so HAPPEN to be telling the truth. Owens here comes across as earnest, but anxious. Like she knows people will think shes mad, but that she knows whats ACTUALLY happened. It gives her performance a rounded quality that you dont often see, letalone in this era of monster movies.
The rest of the cast dont dissapoint either, with Herbert Marshall as Inspector Charas briging a stoney solumness to the film, as someone whos seen murderers lie before, and cant quite take what he’s seen here. along side the other cast members who bring a decent physicality to the role.
I really do have a soft spot for ‘The Fly’ I dont know how seriously audiences took it back in the day, but to modern viewers, this is a campy horror film with some goofy effects, and genuinely shocking plot twists that stay in your mind LONG after the credits have rolled. Definitely a good introduction picture for someone looking to get into ‘Creature Feature’ cinema. Its charming, accessable, very well made for the time and I had a blast checking it out.
TYTD Reviews 