The Fly

Overview

The Fly started as a short story. George Langelaan's tale appeared in Playboy in June 1957, and Fox turned it into a color CinemaScope film the next summer, in 1958. That film became a hit and was followed by two cheaper sequels, Return of the Fly in 1959 and Curse of the Fly in 1965. The series then went quiet for two decades, until David Cronenberg's 1986 remake reworked the premise into something darker and more personal. A sequel to the remake followed in 1989, and in 2008 the story reached the opera stage.

The series is small, but it is a clear example of how a single idea can be retold for different eras. The 1958 film belongs to the atomic-age science-fiction cycle, where scientific ambition goes wrong and the lesson is plain. The 1986 film keeps the setup, a scientist whose teleportation experiment goes badly wrong, and uses it for a story about love, illness and the body. It is covered in its own entry as The Fly (1986), and it is the version most people mean today.

The series also shows how the same studio can treat a property in very different ways. Fox backed the 1958 film as a prestige picture, with color, a wide screen and a well-known supporting cast. It let the sequels be made on much smaller budgets. In 1986 it first passed on the remake script and then distributed the finished film, which went on to win an Academy Award.

Release order

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How the series evolved

George Langelaan and the 1957 short story

George Langelaan, born in Paris in 1908, worked for British intelligence in the Second World War. He served in the Special Operations Executive, parachuted into occupied France in 1941, was captured, and escaped from a camp the following year. After the war he wrote memoirs, novels and short stories, and several of his stories were adapted for film and television. His war memoir The Masks of War appeared in 1959.

His best-known work is The Fly, published in Playboy in June 1957 and later collected in Out of Time (1964). It won the magazine's Best Fiction Award for that year. The tale begins with a phone call in the night and a police inquiry, and much of its backstory comes in a written account. Its subjects are scientific ambition, murder and madness. The story was anthologized quickly, appearing in a 1958 science-fiction collection from Dell, and in The Second Pan Book of Horror Stories in 1960, which helped establish it as a classic of the form.

The 1958 film: making The Fly

Producer and director Kurt Neumann found the story in Playboy. James Clavell, later known as a novelist, wrote his first filmed screenplay for it. The film was to be made by Robert L. Lippert's low-budget unit, but Fox released it as a studio picture, with Lippert not credited as producer. Reported budgets vary from about $325,000 to $495,000, and the shoot took 18 days. David Hedison, billed as Al Hedison, played the scientist André, with Patricia Owens as his wife and Vincent Price and Herbert Marshall in key supporting roles.

Its look was ambitious for the time: color, CinemaScope, cinematography by Karl Struss, effects by L. B. Abbott and makeup by Ben Nye. It opened on July 16, 1958, on a double bill with Space Master X-7, and earned about $3 million in the United States, making it one of Fox's biggest hits of the year. The film was nominated for a Hugo Award, and it is remembered for one line, a tiny cry for help that the American Film Institute nominated for its list of movie quotes. Neumann died a few weeks after the premiere.

Return of the Fly and Curse of the Fly

Return of the Fly was released on July 22, 1959. With Neumann gone, Lippert hired Edward Bernds, who also wrote the script, and the film was shot in black and white in a matter of weeks, reusing standing sets from the first film. Vincent Price was the only original cast member to return in the same role. Estimates of the budget run between $225,000 and $275,000, and Price's fee was reportedly $25,000 of that. Critics have been mixed: Leonard Maltin called it an adequate sequel.

Curse of the Fly was a British production directed by Don Sharp and released by Fox. It opened in the United Kingdom on May 7, 1965, and in the United States in January 1966. Its reported budget was only $90,000. It moves the family story to rural Quebec and London. A historian of British independent horror described it as a box-office disappointment, and the contemporary press found the script overwrought, though its opening was praised.

Making the 1986 film

The remake came out of the early 1980s, when co-producer Kip Ohman and screenwriter Charles Edward Pogue developed the idea. Fox backed away after reading the script, and producer Stuart Cornfeld found financing through Mel Brooks's company, Brooksfilms, with Fox still distributing. Director Robert Bierman left after a family tragedy, and David Cronenberg agreed to take over if he could rewrite the script. Writers Guild arbitration gave both Pogue and Cronenberg a screenplay credit.

Casting took time. Brooks wanted Pierce Brosnan, but Cronenberg turned him down, and several other actors passed or were considered. Cronenberg proposed Jeff Goldblum, who was willing to wear heavy makeup, and Geena Davis, Goldblum's girlfriend, was cast against some producers' resistance. Filming began in Toronto in December 1985. The budget is usually put between $9 million and $15 million. The film opened on August 15, 1986, and earned about $60.6 million worldwide.

Effects, themes and awards of the 1986 film

The film's reputation rests on its makeup. Chris Walas and Stephan Dupuis won the Academy Award for Best Makeup at the 1987 ceremony. The transformation unfolds in a series of stages, and the effects crew used foam-latex suits, distorting contact lenses and puppets for the final creature. Howard Shore's score was performed by the London Philharmonic. The film also won Saturn Awards for Best Horror Film, Best Makeup and Best Actor, the last for Goldblum, and a Special Jury Prize at the Avoriaz fantasy festival. It was nominated for a Hugo and for two BAFTAs.

Cronenberg described the story as one about aging and death, and was surprised when some critics read it as an allegory for AIDS. Critics read it more broadly as a love story told through a failing body. Many hoped Goldblum would be nominated for an Oscar, and Roger Ebert said he deserved it. Metacritic gives the film 81 out of 100, and its Rotten Tomatoes score is above 80 percent. A line from the advertising, telling viewers to be very afraid, became a catchphrase. The film is part of the story of David Cronenberg's career and of the wider tradition of body horror.

The Fly II and the sequel problem

The Fly II (1989) was Walas's first film as director. Mick Garris wrote early drafts, Ken and Jim Wheat rewrote them, and Frank Darabont contributed further rewrites. Eric Stoltz and Daphne Zuniga starred, with John Getz returning from the 1986 film. Geena Davis did not return. The film opened on February 10, 1989, with a reported budget of $12.5 million and a worldwide gross of about $38.9 million, well below the first film's earnings.

Reviews were largely negative, with Rotten Tomatoes listing 24 percent and Metacritic 36 out of 100, though audiences gave it a B-plus grade on CinemaScore. Leonard Maltin called it mostly dull. The sequel is useful as a measure of what made the remake special: the effects are there, but the intimate drama is missing. It does not change how the earlier film is read.

The opera

The Fly was commissioned by the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris and by Los Angeles Opera, whose director at the time was Edgar Baitzel. Howard Shore composed it, David Henry Hwang wrote the libretto, and David Cronenberg directed, with Dante Ferretti designing the sets. Plácido Domingo conducted the premiere at the Châtelet on July 2, 2008. Los Angeles Opera performed it from September 7, 2008.

The two-act opera, about two hours long, is loosely based on the 1986 film rather than on Langelaan's story, and its music is not drawn from the film score. Daniel Okulitch sang the scientist in Paris, with Ruxandra Donose and David Curry in the other leads.

How to watch the series

The simplest route is to watch the two main films side by side. The 1958 version rewards viewers who like old-fashioned science fiction with a straight face, and the 1986 film is the best entry point for anyone who wants the full impact of the story. Watching them in release order shows how a story about a danger outside the body became a story about one inside it.

From there, the library's body horror page places the series in context, and Alien shows another landmark of the same period in which a body is not safe from invasion. The creature feature page covers the older tradition that the 1958 film grew out of. The sequels can be left for last, and they are not needed to understand either of the main films.

Verified details

• The story comes from a short story by George Langelaan, published in Playboy in June 1957.
• The 1958 film was directed by Kurt Neumann, who died a few weeks after its premiere.
• James Clavell, later a novelist, wrote the 1958 screenplay, his first to be filmed.
• The 1958 film opened on July 16, 1958, as a double feature with Space Master X-7.
• Vincent Price appears in both the 1958 film and Return of the Fly.
• Curse of the Fly was released in the United Kingdom in 1965 and in the United States in 1966.
• Chris Walas and Stephan Dupuis won the Academy Award for Best Makeup for the 1986 film, and Walas directed The Fly II.
• Cronenberg's 1986 film was shot in Toronto, starting in December 1985.
• The Fly II was released on February 10, 1989, with a reported budget of $12.5 million.
• The opera version had its premiere in Paris on July 2, 2008, with Plácido Domingo conducting.

Sources and further reading

• The Fly (1958 film), Wikipedia
• The Fly (1986 film), Wikipedia
• Return of the Fly, Wikipedia
• Curse of the Fly, Wikipedia
• The Fly II, Wikipedia
• The Fly (opera), Wikipedia
• George Langelaan, Wikipedia