Film Review
One of the weirder science-fiction films to be made in the 1950s,
The Fly has a blackly comedic
off-the-wall charm that has helped to maintain its popularity and made
it something of a cult classic. Indeed, the film stands up
today far better than most sci-fi films of its era, partly because it
doesn't try to be too ambitious with its special effects, but mainly
because it does not neglect the human aspects of the story and avoids
the usual clichés involving mad scientists and rampaging
monsters. It is surprising, given its confined B-movie
plot, that the film was made in vibrant CinemaScope, but this
adds to its modernity, the garishly strong colours lending it an
unsettling dreamlike quality.
The Fly is not perfect and
there are one or two niggling flaws. Clearly no one with any
knowledge of basic science came within three hundred miles of the
screenplay; Vincent Price is pretty well wasted in what is effectively
a bland supporting role; and the plot could have benefited from some
pruning to remove some tedious and needless exposition. The film
could have been much darker than it is and some would argue that it
hardly qualifies as a horror film at all. There are one or two
shock moments, but these are of the tongue-in-cheek
yuk variety, rather than things
that will have you leaping behind the sofa and wetting your bed for
weeks afterwards.
The Fly
is more black comedy than traditional horror, and its main asset is
that it doesn't take itself too seriously. In any event, it is a
much better film than the two sequels it inspired -
Return of the Fly (1959) and
Curse of the Fly (1965) - and it is
somewhat more satisfying than the flashier 1986 remake by David
Cronenberg, which starred Jeff Goldblum.
Whilst it doesn't develop the idea as well as it might,
The Fly does offer a salutary
warning about the dangers that mankind faces from the rapid pace of
scientific progress. At the time the film was made, one major
concern was the impact that science and technology (in particular,
man's increasing dependency on machines) would have on the human
race. As machines became more sophisticated and widely used,
might man not ultimately lose his humanity? The protagonist in
The Fly is someone whose insane
thirst for scientific knowledge leads him precisely to that end, albeit
in the most fantastically grisly way imaginable. Fifty years on,
the film continues to strike a chord, and is perhaps even more relevant
today, now that man has the ability not only to destroy the world by
ripping atoms apart but also to tamper with the very building blocks of
life itself. A man with a fly's head? That could be just
the beginning...
© James Travers 2009
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.
Film Synopsis
One evening, François Delambre receives a telephone call from
his sister-in-law, Hélène, who confesses to having just
killed her husband, André. This is immediately confirmed
by a night watchman, who has just discovered André's dead body
at his factory, his head squashed to pulp by a hydraulic press.
At first, Hélène refuses to talk about the killing, and
her erratic behaviour convinces Inspector Charas that she is
deranged. Finally, François manages to gain
Hélène's confidence, but he is hardly prepared for the
story she has to tell. A month ago, André was developing a
piece of scientific apparatus that could transmit solid objects across
short distances in space. His initial experiments a success, he
began experimenting with live animals, and found that this too
worked. But when he subjected himself to the same matter
transmission process, disaster struck. A housefly managed to get
into the equipment at the crucial moment and André emerged with
the head of the fly. His only hope was to repeat the process in
reverse, but for this Hélène must find the fly that has
acquired his head...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.