The Fly (1958)

Does anyone out there hate flies? Well, let’s talk about a series of films that revolve around flies. It “flew” in 1958, “The Fly” did – and guys, hang on to your seats. This Twentieth Century-Fox fantasy-thriller, which the company is advertising as the actual end in horror, landed at more than 100 neighborhood homes.

Howard Thompson mentioned in his review, “It does indeed contain, briefly, two of the most sickening sights one casual swatter-wielder ever beheld on the screen.” At one part, the hooded protagonist reveals his head exactly like a giant-size fly. Thompson goes on to say, “And the climax, when this balcony-sitter nearly shot through the roof, is a fat close-up of a fly, with a tiny, screaming human's head, trapped by a spider on its web.” To any random customer expecting a nice slumber, watch out! Short as these two scenes are, there’s no avoiding them.

Otherwise, believe it or not, “The Fly” is actually one of the better, more controlled items of the “shock” genre. As produced and directed by the late Kurt Neumann, with a serious little cast leaded by Al Hedison, Patricia Owens and Vincent Price, this is a quiet, organized and even humble movie, building up almost excruciating tension by simple suggestion.

Most of it takes place in and around the brightest of homes, that of a highly likable young Montreal scientist (Hedison), his wife (Owens), and their son (Charles Herbert). One of the most appealing things about the movie is the beautiful humor and chilling contrast of the everyday setting, nicely framed in color and Cinema-Scope. However, the most appealing of everything is the compassion mixed in with the suspense when something terrible happens in Hedison’s basement laboratory.

Thompson mentioned that, “This altruistic chap some-how has evolved a method of electronically disintegrating objects, then materializing them at a distance.” Unwisely, he experiments with himself, a housefly interrupts, and – boom! – His and the fly have proportionately exchanged heads.

We learn this slowly, piece by piece, in the frantically untidy messages he writes his scared wife. The idea is to find the fly, still flying about the location, put the two of them back together in the transportation device and turn it on again.

If this story, adapted by James Clavell from an original by George Langelaan, sounds like a highly amusing cry, it doesn’t play that way. Not with, the shaking, hooded man grabbing at a blackboard for “Please help – find fly – LOVE YOU.”

The look of Owens, Herbert and Kathleen Freeman, the cook, stalking the little flies upstairs is enough to freeze anyone in their seats. Even the “murder” flashback that lengths the entire film finally clicks into place logically as a pity murder.

This is quite a little film. Even with the laboratory silliness, it holds an interesting philosophy about a person messing with the unknown, Herbert Marshall, as a police inspector, speaks softly like a fly’s buzz. All the others, including Vincent Price as a family friend, are fine.

Thompson ended his review by saying, “By deftly easing some nice people in and out of a situation as pathetic as it is horrible, Mr. Neumann has wrought the most originally suggestive hair-raiser since "The Thing."”

My final verdict is that you should check it out. Not only does it have a scare value, it has a really emotional feel that makes you want the main character to succeed in getting the fly back. Especially with one of the best lines that is also creepy, “Help Me! Help Me!” If you haven’t seen this film yet, definitely check it out. I’m sure you will like it.

If you can believe this, this film actually had two sequels. I will look at the first one tomorrow in my “Fly-a-thon” for “Halloween Month.”