The Fly [Blu-ray]

Director: Kurt Neumann Kurt Neumann

Overview

Wealthy Helene Delambre (Patricia Owens) is discovered late at night in the factory owned by her husband Andre (David Hedison). Helene stands beside a huge metal press, which has crushed the head and arm of her husband. Held for murder, the near-catatonic Helene refuses to tell anyone--not even Andre's brother Francois (Vincent Price)--why she did it. Francois cannot help but notice that Helene reacts in mortal terror when a tiny flies zips through the room. Nor can he disregard the statement made by Helene's son Philippe (Charles Herbert) that the fly has a curious white head and leg. When Francois pretends that he's captured the fly, Helene relaxes enough to tell her story. It seems that Andre, a scientist, had been working on a matter transmitter, which he claimed could disintegrate matter, then reintegrate it elsewhere. After a few experiments, Andre tried the transmitter himself. Just as he stepped into the disintegration chamber, a fly also flew into the chamber. We aren't immediately shown the results of this, save for the fact that Andre afterward insists upon keeping his head and arm covered. Alone with her husband, Helene abruptly removes the covering, revealing that Andre now bears the head of a fly! His atoms have become mixed up with the fly, and now he is unable to reverse the procedure. Deciding that his transmitter will be a bogy rather than a blessing to mankind, Andre smashes the apparatus and burns his notes. He then instructs Helene, via body language, to crush his fly-like head and arm in the press. Neither Francois nor inspector Charas (Herbert Marshall) believe the story...until, while staring intently at a spider's web in the garden, they see a tiny entrapped fly with Andre's head and arm, tinnily screaming "Help me! Help me!" as the slavering spider approaches (If you're wondering why Vincent Price and Herbert Marshall do not look one another in the eye during this scene, it is because they couldn't deliver their dialogue without dissolving into laughter). Infinitely subtler than the admittedly excellent 1986 remake, the 1958 The Fly is one of the definitive big-budget horror films of its decade. Best bit: the prismatic "fly's eye view" of the screaming Patricia Owens. The Fly was adapted from George Langelaan's short story by James (Shogun) Clavell.

Product Details

Release Date:	09/10/2013
UPC:	0024543873228
Original Release:	1958
Rating:	NR
Source:	20Th Century Fox
Region Code:	A
Sound:	[Dolby Digital Mono]
Language:	English
Time:	1:34:00
Sales rank:	11,746

Special Features

Commentary with Actor David Hedison and film historian David Del Valle; Biography: Vincent Price; Fly Trap: Catching a classic; Fox Movietone News

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Al Hedison	Andre Delambre,Andre
Patricia Owens	Helene Delambre
Vincent Price	Francois Delambre
Herbert Marshall	Insp. Charas
Kathleen Freeman	Emma
Betty Lou Gerson	Nurse Andersone
Charles Herbert	Philippe
Eugene Borden	Dr. Ejoute
Torben Meyer	Gaston
Harry Carter	Orderly
Charles Tannen	Doctor
Franz Roehn	Police Doctor
Arthur Dulac	French Waiter

Technical Credits

James Clavell

Kurt Neumann	Director,Producer
James Clavell	Screenwriter
L.B. Abbott	Special Effects

Editorial Reviews

Less a traditional monster movie than a mad-scientist story of monstrous psychological terror, The Fly remains a timeless fright film, featuring the venerable Vincent Price during his horror pinnacle, the same year he creeped out audiences in The House on Haunted Hill. Patricia Owens stars as Helene, a distraught woman who claims to be responsible for the death of her husband, brilliant scientist Andre Delambre (David Hedison). Price plays Francois, Andre's brother, who is profoundly skeptical of Helene's murder confession (he says she "wouldn't harm anything...not even a fly"). But then Helene describes how a glitch occurred during her husband's matter-transmitting experiment -- a housefly got into the transmitter's chamber -- and the horror reveals itself in flashback as Andre's head and arm metamorphose into those of a fly. And for every fly body part transmitted to a human, a human appendage must be transmitted in return, leading to the film's infamous climax, certainly one of the most shocking moments of its day: a doomed fly in the toils of a spider's web -- screaming. Price reprised the character of Francois in 1959's The Return of the Fly, a fine film as sequels go but not as definitive as its predecessor. Director David Cronenberg remade The Fly to great effect with Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis in 1986.

Barnes & Noble - R.J. Wafer

While time has added a patina of camp to The Fly, it still holds up surprisingly well. Vincent Price, often willing to ham it up in a lesser story, plays this film quite straight, to the benefit of the story, and director Kurt Neumann's pacing is thankfully subtle, beginning on a note of anxiety and maintaining an eerie unease throughout. If David Hedison and Patricia Owens don't come off as much more than the standard-issue Dedicated Scientist Meddling In What Man Should Leave Alone and his Loving But Concerned Wife, at least they walk through the clichés with conviction. Visually, The Fly is several cuts above typical 1950s sci-fi fare; Karl Struss's CinemaScope camerawork uses color and the widescreen frame with style and understated intelligence, and the effects makeup for the Human Fly (as well as the fly-sized human) still merits a startled jump. While David Cronenberg's 1986 remake certainly beats the original for visceral impact, the original The Fly still feels like one of the best fright films of its era, and its impact and influence are still being felt today.

All Movie Guide - Mark Deming