The Fly (1958)

Vincent Price plays a wealthy industrialist who’s just received a rather peculiar phone call from his sister-in-law, in which she claims rather coolly that she has just murdered her husband. Arriving at the factory that both he and his scientist brother own, Vincent is shocked to see his brothers crushed body lying underneath an industrial press. Feeling sympathetic towards his sister-in-law, both Price and the police listen to her incredible story of her husband inventing a machine able to transport solid matter from one area to another. And if this wasn’t incredible enough friends, hold on to your hats for this zinger…apparently Mr. Scientist tried to teleport himself in his own invention, never noticing a certain little fly that was in there with him! Now, thanks to the mysteries of science/atoms/neutrons/protons and the like, there’s a scientist with a fly’s head and arm on his body, and a housefly with a rather human looking noggin flying around eating dog poop and the like. Egads. It’s now up to the little lady to track down the fly so her husband can correct the problem before his Fly genes completely take over, or something to that effect.

I first saw this one when I was probably about eight or so, and the only scene that stuck out in my mind all these years was the infamous ending of the fly with the human head trapped in a web and being a second or two from becoming spider food. Which, I might add, is still fairly creepy and surreal, even after all these years. As for the rest of the film, I was sorta surprised to see how little of the actual “Fly” we get to see. The entire movie (or at least 80% of it) is told in flashback from the Fly/scientist’s wife’s point of view as she tells her story to both an unbelieving Price and the police. This results in a lot of talking with both the missus and her hubby saying “oh darling” this and that about a million times, while they all have French names and speak completely perfect Leave-It-To-Beaver type English. Go figure. The scene of The Fly’s final unveiling is still pretty cool to witness, and I’ll admit I did feel sorta sorry for the guy. I mean, here he is turning into a human Fly and his only hope is his bumbling June Cleaver type wife who repeatedly botches capturing the needed fly-with-human-head, while professing to her husband, “don’t worry darling, I’ll catch it tomorrow”. If I were in his position, me thinks the little missus might find a rather furry fly paw enclosed around her scrawny little neck.

All misgivings aside, “The Fly” is still an effective piece of fifties science fiction. Despite being rather talky and melodramatic at times, it never becomes boring at any point. The story remains interesting throughout even though we all know what happens, and I still feel sorry for fly at the end that gets ate by the spider. I can still hear his little voice, “help me…help me”. Sniff.