The Fly (1958) on Netflix
In Montreal, Hélène Delambre is asked by her brother-in-law François why she killed her husband André. She will not say, and she is obsessed with flies.
- Netflix4.2/5
- IMDb7.1/1028,322 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes95%
Trailer
Plot summary
The police in Montreal have a confession and no motive. Hélène Delambre says she killed her husband André but will not explain why, and she speaks of little except flies. Her brother-in-law François, summoned late at night, tells her he has caught a white-headed fly, and she asks that Inspector Charas be brought to hear her account. The story then returns to happier days, when André lived in Montreal with Hélène and their son Philippe. André has been developing a disintegrator-integrator, a device that transports matter, testing it first on small objects and then on living creatures, among them the family cat Dandelo and a guinea pig. He then builds a pair of chambers large enough for a man.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Fly (1958)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Lippert tried Michael Rennie and Rick Jason for the part of scientist André Delambre before settling on the then mostly-unknown David Hedison, for whom The Fly was only his second film role, after The Enemy Below.
- David Hedison's "Fly" costume featured a fly's head weighing 20 lb, and he said trying to act in it was like trying to play the piano with boxing gloves on.
- Vincent Price recalled that the cast laughed so hard at the tiny on-set voice of the fly crying "Help me! Help me!" that one philosophical scene took about 20 takes to get through.
- James Clavell was hired to adapt George Langelaan's story on the strength of a sci-fi script he had written at RKO that was never produced; The Fly became Clavell's first filmed screenplay.
- The film's financial success had the side effect of turning co-star Vincent Price, whose earlier filmography held only scattered forays into genre film, into a major horror star.
- The success of The Fly encouraged Lippert to hire James Clavell to make his directorial debut with Five Gates to Hell in 1959.
