I thought I’d watch a couple of the movies I’d saved for later on Hulu from Turner Classic Movies, but they weren’t there anymore. Bummer. But there were some others, so why not watch the 1958 version of The Fly? I’ve never seen either version before, so this could be a treat, and I could check in on the better-known David Cronenberg version at some point in the future.
Besides, I learned that lead actor David Hedison died this past July. I didn’t realize that, but I also learned Hedison took the role in part because, unlike many other actors approached, he didn’t mind playing a part where he kept his face hidden by a cloth for a good chunk of the movie.
The structure for this one is actually pretty clever. Set in Montreal (in order to keep the French names from the original short story apparently), we open with a night watchman finding a human corpse, crushed to death in a metal press. Not long after, wealthy businessman Francois Delambre (Vincent Price) gets two calls. One is from his sister-in-law Helene (Patricia Owens), and the other is from the night watchman. The dead man is his brother Andre (Hedison, billed under his original name Al). It looks like Helene killed him, and she wants help from Francois. He, in turn, calls the police.
Now, Price is the most recognizable actor in the movie to a modern audience, but beyond this opening third or so of the movie, he’s not in it much. Helene, see, is looking for a house fly of some kind, a large one with a white head. Her son Philippe is also looking for one, but he doesn’t seem to know why. Helene doesn’t seem to be the type who could have murdered her husband. What gives? The circumstances of the death suggest it couldn’t have been a suicide.
Eventually, with a few white lies from Francois, we get into the meat of the movie, an extended flashback showing Andre became obsessed with a disintegrator and reintegrator as a means to transmit physical objects over long distances. It doesn’t quite work, first sending a mirror image of an astray where the writing underneath is suddenly backwards. Andre also, for some reason, opts to transmit the family cat to the next room, but the cat never appears for some unknown reason, leading to a creepy, disembodied meowing coming from thin air.
You know, Francois went out of his way to say Andre and Helene didn’t believe in animal experimentation. Did he have to use the family pet the first time he opted to break that rule?
Andre, of course, eventually tests the machine on himself, but a rogue fly got stuck inside the chamber, resulting in Andre suddenly having one hand and his head replaced by a fly’s head. Much of the movie’s later scares come from when Helene sees first the hand and later her husband’s new head.
Of course, Andre died at his own request, crushed in a way so no one would see what happened to him. The only thing saving Helene from a trip to a mental ward is Francois and the lead detective finding a fly with Andre’s head and harm screaming a tiny “Help me! Help me!” as a spider looms in for the kill.
Described by the TCM host as a B-movie idea on an A-movie budget, this was a compact 90 minutes of effective sci-fi horror. Maybe it won’t be as effective as Cronenberg’s body horror version, but Hedison apparently recommended the transformation be gradual instead of instant, a suggestion that wasn’t followed here but may have been for Cronenberg’s take. While I wouldn’t call it scary, the movie does have some very effective moments. Beyond the sad cat mewing from thin air, the first time the transformed Andre’s new head is seen, we get a POV shot of Helene screaming as if into a compound eye. Andre only really realizes he needs to die when the fly portions of his body start to take control. He has to literally wrestle his arm under control from time to time. The color is good, and Price in his scenes adds a good bit of gravitas. There aren’t any slouches in terms of acting for this era and this type of movie, and it’s mostly a fun sci-fi romp with a lesson about how it is important to always look for truth, but to likewise remember that’s very dangerous.
That’s not a bad moral for any story, actually. It probably would fit the recent Dark Waters perfectly.
Grade: B+
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