The Fly â58
The 1950s was definitely the era of the âbigâ monster horror movies, due in many ways to the rapid advancements in makeup FX technology and fueled mainly by cold war paranoia which subsequently saw many of these creatures having been created through the means of atomic radiation accidents. Of course, a nice slice of cheese to go along with these proceedings was never thought to have hurt anybody, but out of all these types of films from the era, this 1958 entry seemed to make it a point of toning down those ridiculous elements in order to make its story come across as a sad and tragic tale more than anything. Unfortunately, the story elements would become SO scaled down that the end result could almost be described as stagy, enough so that it could have possibly been presented as a play. Later remade to much creepier and gorier standards in 1986 by David Cronenberg (of which that is the far better film), the original eschews the 50s trend of atomic deformity and Communist paranoia in favor of a cautionary tale of one scientist who appears to have perfected the invention of the century only to make one small mistake and pay for it with horrific consequences. The film stars David (Al) Hedison (a no name at the time whose most significant later career achievement was co starring as CIA sidekick Felix Leiter in a couple of James Bond movies) as Andre Delambre, an apparently brilliant scientist whose family has already made millions in various business ventures, thus allowing him the luxury of spending countless hours in his home laboratory where he eventually comes up with (you guessed it) a teleportation device that disassembles the atoms of any object living or dead within and then reassembles it in the adjoining pod. Hedison obviously dreams of these devices as being the next step in the technological evolution of mankind, but first he must get the formula right so that living things can go through the process which leads to him impulsively (and stupidly) using the family cat as his first guinea pig, immediately killing the poor animal and also killing any empathy that the viewer may have had for him despite much philosophizing on his part over the value of all forms of life. Eventually, he decides to stick himself in there and put his money where his mouth is, only for a fly to buzz into the device at the same time (unlike with Goldblum, this entire fateful process is kept offscreen) and force him to spend the remainder of the film with a dark towel over his head until the famous reveal (an admittedly impressive makeup effect for the time). Unfortunately, the biggest drawback here is in the storytelling approach itself, opening the film with Hedison already being dead and his wife (Patricia Owens) calmly telling the authorities that she had killed him herself while refusing to give an explanation as to why since she is firmly convinced that nobody will believe her. We go nearly 30 minutes into the film before we actually get to Hedison himself in the flashback portion (a pace killing tactic that the film never fully recovers from), but at least it allows us to be introduced to the biggest legitimate star in the whole movie in one Vincent Price (playing a rare good guy part in a career where he usually played villains and played them quite well) as Hedisonâs kindly brother who had absolutely no idea what his sibling had been up to and is even more baffled by his sister in lawâs casual admission to having killed him. Price ponders the facts of the case, chews a bit of scenery as per his wont and then finally figures out a tactic that will enable his brotherâs wife to tell him the truth, thus kicking off the extended flashback portion of the film. At least Price is a good enough actor to carry his scenes even though he is all but absent from the lengthy middle part of the film detailing his brotherâs story and sad fate. The movie semi successfully takes on the notion that going too far down the road of advanced technology too soon (especially in the hands of one man) is something that can lead to total disaster as at one point towards the end Price likens his late brother to being an âexplorerâ, but that is exactly where the Goldblum version metaphorically took things to the next level, correctly stating that the teleportation pods would really (and unintentionally) act as a gene splicer which would enable Goldblum to carry the abilities of the fly even as he proceeds on a frightening âjourneyâ where all of his human traits would eventually become non existent. Ironically on that note, Hedison himself had even suggested to the filmmakers that his so called fly makeup should actually be a hybrid of both human and insect so as to be more faithful to the concept of what had really happened to him, an idea that most of those involved with the film could barely comprehend nor figure out how to make a reality, choosing instead to just put a flyâs head mask on its lead actor and then have him bang around all while struggling to have a conversation with his own wife. The transformation also sees Hedison start losing his ability to think clearly as he sends his wife on a rather futile mission to find the actual buzzing fly who had stolen his head as the more time goes by, the more he knows that there is no going back for him, with assisted suicide seeming to be the only answer. Of course, the most famous part of this movie is the ending, one that has been emulated in countless other films but which here changes the filmâs somber tone into being one of high campiness on the most ridiculous levels, with Price himself having admitted to have blown numerous takes due to his inability to keep a straight face due to the scenario which he was being presented to act with, but it still wound up being parodied and homaged so often that it at least allowed this film to maintain a high profile over the years (Goldblumâs version did no such homage to the originalâs ending and thusly came off so much better as being one of the bleakest horror movies of the 80s). But in the end, the lopsided story structure, limited use of locations and the ridiculously dumb yet legendary ending all but put an end to the notion that this is some kind of an untouchable classic but rather a cheesy cult film that tried its damnedest to maintain a somber tone and yet instead became popular for all of the wrong reasons, a dilemma that Cronenberg and Goldblum would later rectify to near perfection many years laterâŚ
5/10