(1958)
4
Mark Deming
While time has added a patina of camp to The Fly, it still holds up surprisingly well. Vincent Price, often willing to ham it up in a lesser story, plays this film quite straight, to the benefit of the story, and director Kurt Neumann's pacing is thankfully subtle, beginning on a note of anxiety and maintaining an eerie unease throughout. If David Hedison and Patricia Owens don't come off as much more than the standard-issue Dedicated Scientist Meddling In What Man Should Leave Alone and his Loving But Concerned Wife, at least they walk through the clichés with conviction. Visually, The Fly is several cuts above typical 1950s sci-fi fare; Karl Struss's CinemaScope camerawork uses color and the widescreen frame with style and understated intelligence, and the effects makeup for the Human Fly (as well as the fly-sized human) still merits a startled jump. While David Cronenberg's 1986 remake certainly beats the original for visceral impact, the original The Fly still feels like one of the best fright films of its era, and its impact and influence are still being felt today.
cast-crew for The Fly on AllMovie
The Fly (1958)
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