The Fly (1958)

(On Cable TV, March 2019) I suspect that most people who approach the original 1958 version of The Fly will do so with a good working knowledge of the 1986 Cronenberg remake, which will probably set a very different set of expectations. Clearly, the 1950s film won’t be as gut-churningly gory as the 1980s one, but it does have its own sense of eeriness and dark comedy. All of this is helped along with Vincent Price in colour, sweet-talking his way through a mad-scientist role. The experience is so different that it certainly has its attraction. Even from the start (which features a mild-mannered murder mystery as we try to figure out why a wife says she has killed her husband with a hydraulic press, despite a complete absence of evidence to the matter), it takes us somewhere different. (As a bonus, this version is “set” in Montréal.)  While The Fly can be silly at times (I’m thinking of the much-criticized audio comedy of the final spiderweb, for instance), it’s still a horror film, and it still carries a punch such as the revelation of the fly head (despite the unconvincing makeup). It even gets tense and disturbing at times. That’s pretty much the best-case scenario for looking at a film with a famous remake: Perhaps not quite as striking, but distinctive and effective in its own way.