Fly Double Feature

U.S.A. / 1958, 1959 Directors: Kurt Neumann / Edward Bernds Starring Vincent Price, Al (David) Hedison Patricia Owens, Brett Halsey David Frankham, John Sutton Color, B&W / Not Rated THE FLY: 94 Min. RETURN OF THE FLY: 78 Min. Format: DVD Double Feature Disc / R1 - NTSC 20th Century-Fox Home Entertainment

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New for 2007 — The FLY Collection

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Guest Review by Rod Barnett

In 1958 Vincent Price became a horror film star primarily because of The Fly. Although in the same year he appeared in William Castle's House On Haunted Hill, it was The Fly's critical and box office success that truly catapulted him into the public's eye as a horror movie actor. Strange that 45 years after its release the film is still considered a minor classic of the genre and almost any movie reference guide sings its praises. The film is a little slowly paced, it has rather dated special effects and even the actors in the movie had a hard time keeping a straight face when filming the climactic moment. Of course, for the modern audience another odd thing about The Fly is that Price is neither the monster nor a villain in the story. Hell, most of his screen time is taken up with him doing nothing more than worrying about his brother or his sister in law. How did such an atypical monster movie become so well known and well remembered? I believe it is quiet qualities like literate dialog, solid acting and a horrifying central idea that make The Fly a great old film. That and the somewhat staged, mannered way in which the film (and its sequel) is shot, makes it both a product of the '50s and a fascinating snapshot of an attempt to make a science fiction/horror flick something more than just ray guns and things from another world. The Fly isn't much more than a step above earlier giant bug movies, but it's a significant step. Even though I've seen this movie 15 times or more, The Fly's charms always grab me so that whenever I watch it, I'm caught up in the tale all over again. One day I'll finally track down the short story the movie's based on; I'm sure it will only rekindle my love of the film.     The movie begins with wealthy industrialist Francois Delambre (Price) being called late at night by his brother's wife Helene (Patricia Owens). She's frantic, explaining that she has just killed her husband Andre (Licence To Kill's David Hedison). Francois doesn't believe her but decides he should go to her and calm her down when he receives a second phone call. This call is from the night watchman of the Delambre family's foundry. The man explains that he's found a man's body crushed in a metal press and he thinks he saw Mrs. Delambre running away from the corpse. Worried now, Francois calls Inspector Charas (Herbert Marshall) and rushes to his brother's home. When the Inspector arrives Helene calmly explains that she killed her husband but refuses to give any reason for her actions. It is days later when she finally breaks down and relates the tragic events around Andre's death. Several months before Andre had a breakthrough in his attempts to create a teleportation machine. After some minor setbacks and the accidental disintegration of the family cat he finally perfected the device and was ready to demonstrate it for Francois. But before he could do so, he used himself as a test subject with tragic results. A common housefly was trapped in the machine with Andre and their forms were physically merged. Horrified at the results and slowly losing his ability to reason, he destroys his work and insists Helene must help him destroy his misshapen body.     After the huge success of The Fly the studio immediately rushed a sequel into production. Signing Price to star and reducing the budget by filming in black and white, Return Of The Fly was released in 1959. Often criticized as a very poor follow up, the sequel is actually not a bad little movie. It certainly hasn't got the originality of the first, or its interesting flashback structure, but as a '50s creature feature it has plenty of charms to recommend it. The movie picks up the story 15 years after the end of the first film. Helene Delambre has died. At her funeral a reporter asking questions about the mysterious events around Andre's death accosts her son Phillipe (Brett Halsey) and his uncle Francois (Price). Inspector Beachum — who we are told helped Charas on the Delambre case all those years ago — warns off the reporter. Phillipe confronts his uncle and demands to be told the truth of his father's death. When the whole tragic tale is laid before him Phillipe reveals his intention to continue the work on the disintegrator/integrator machine. Francois is horrified and refuses to financially back the work as too dangerous. Undaunted, Phillipe pushes forward with the help of electronics expert Alan Hinds (David Frankham), hired away from Delambre Industries. Alan seems a godsend to the effort to recreate the original machine until we learn that he's a criminal on the run from the British police, wanted for theft and murder. Hinds strikes a deal with a local fence to sell the plans for the teleporter to the highest bidder. But on the night he is ready to steal the necessary papers, Phillipe stumbles across his plot and attempts to stop him. Phillipe is knocked unconscious and Hinds decides that the best way to get rid of him is to put him in the machine and disintegrate him. Knowing of Phillipe's fear of flies (brought on by the knowledge of his father's accident) he sadistically places a housefly in the chamber with the helpless man. Hinds escapes with the plans and shoots Francois in the process. When Phillipe is reintegrated he and the fly have switched body parts in the same manner as his father.     Return Of The Fly holds up very well as a good B-movie until Phillipe comes out of the machine. While many have criticized the first film for its poor fly headpiece, this film compounds that perceived error by making the headpiece huge and very unwieldy. I have to strain to keep from laughing at poor Brett Halsey (or whoever they stuck that thing onto) stumbling through the woods in day for night shots whacking that oversized fly helmet on low tree limbs. There's even one shot in which I swear the fellow is holding the contraption onto his shoulders as he leans too far to one side. But I have to admit that as bad as I find these moments, I still like the film. For the most part it's a good follow up to the superior original with some good ideas and a nasty streak courteous of the vicious Mr. Hinds. And while the second film is better paced than The Fly, it still commits the sad error of not utilizing Price enough. He gets some good scenes in the last 20 minutes, as he fights to help his nephew even with a bullet wound, but Price should have been more central to the story.

20th Century Fox has done a great job bring these films to DVD. The movies come on one double-sided disc, with a film to each side. Each look and sound fantastic. Both are letterboxed at 2.35:1 and have newly created stereo surround tracks with The Fly even getting a separate 4.0 surround track as well. They both also have a French mono soundtrack (appropriate for stories taking place in Canada) and English and Spanish subtitles. Trailers for both movies are included along with promos for David Cronenberg's 1986 remake and its sequel The Fly 2, Fantastic Voyage and Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea. This brings me to my only complaint with the DVD — there are no extras. These films cry out for a documentary to put them in perspective. Of course, there is a great little documentary about these movies and the '80s remakes called The Fly Papers that aired on AMC about 2 years ago. Too bad it isn't on the disc. Maybe the rumored special edition of Cronenberg's The Fly will have some nice stuff covering all five of the movies. I'm crossing my fingers! If it not for the lack of extras I'd give this DVD the highest rating I could — but as a bare bones disc it still rates very high. 1/27/03

UPDATE The disc reviewed here went OOP in 2005. On Sept. 11, 2007 Fox is slated to release The Fly Collection, which contains these two films plus Curse Of The Fly (1965) and a slate of bonus features.

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