Return of the Fly (US 1959)

D: Edward Bernds. S: George Langelaan, Edward Bernds. P: Bernard Glasser. Cast: Vincent Price, Brett Halsey, David Frankham, John Sutton, Dan Seymour. UK dist (DVD): 20th Century-Fox.

You remember The Fly (1958), of course: that cautionary tale of scientific hubris, in which David-then-Al Hedison was the first of la famille Delambre to sprout a giant silly monster head after carelessly emailing himself in concert with a fly. Maladroitness obviously runs in the family, ‘cause just a couple of years later we have another of the Canadian genius clan doing exactly the same thing (this time in much cheaper black-and-white). Top-billed Vincent Price delivers an uncharacteristically listless performance, though to be scrupulously fair he has little to do beyond tut disapprovingly at headstrong Delambre fils Brett Halsey’s attempts to recreate his papa’s telepod trials. And recreate them he does: literally aping the events in the first Fly point by agonising point, even down to using an ashtray for his first transmission.

This is wearisome stuff. And it doesn’t get much better. The writers clearly have zero affinity for the material, struggling visibly to find ANYTHING for their limited cast of characters to do. Finally they throw up their hands in defeat and simply have Halsey chucked into one of his telepods with yet another pesky bluebottle – this time a deliberate act of malice by his duplicitous British lab assistant (David Frankham), wanted for murder by Scotland Yard – with entirely predictable results. The fly/human hybrid lumbers out of the lab with the cops in hot pursuit, loosing off a fusillade of gunfire at his retreating form without even knowing who he is; the fly-headed fugitive wanders about a bit, hitching lifts where he can, until sloping back to the lab to be reunited with his human/fly counterpart. Everyone lives happily ever after, except (a) the duplicitous British lab assistant, (b) his Scotland Yard pursuer (John Sutton,fused with a guinea-pig in one of many unintentionally comic “shock” moments) and (c) the poor sods watching this limp excuse for a sequel. By comparison, the belated final sequel Curse of the Fly (1965) is a work of timeless brilliance. Speaking of which…

Curse of the Fly (UK 1965)

D: Don Sharp. S: Harry Spalding. P: Robert L. Lippert, Jack Parsons. Cast: Brian Donlevy, George Baker, Carole Gray, Burt Kwouk, Yvette Rees. UK dist (DVD): 20th-Century Fox.

A dreamlike slow-motion title sequence, with a dolly-bird in sensible big-bra-and-pants combination fleeing a nuthouse, kicks off the third and final chapter in the Delambre saga in unusual style: an odd blend of Georges Franju, Robert Aldrich and Harrison Marks. The pert escapee (Carole Gray) is rescued en cavale by Martin Delambre (George Baker, valiantly attempting a Canadian twang); the pair quickly fall in love and are married, in spite of the troublesome fact that hubby’s first wife is still alive – AS A DEFORMED MONSTER, victim of the Delambres’ crazy teleportation experiments! Martin has problems of his own, succumbing now and again to a peculiar wasting disease which gives his flesh the appearance of cauliflower cheese. (The script tells us this is advanced ageing, but I question the writer’s medical credentials.) Daddy Delambre (Brian Donlevy) is also in a bad way, having suffered severe radiation burns during his last teleport-jaunt to London. Meanwhile, the police are investigating the disappearance of the Delambres’ lab assistants – who are also DEFORMED MONSTERS, locked in the stables alongside Martin’s first wife! Blimey – who said Canada was boring?

Critical acumen be damned: I liked it more than the original. Directed with rather more efficiency than flair by Aussie Don Sharp (Kiss of the Vampire), the film is handsomely lensed in monochrome ‘scope – though the visuals have to work flat-out to disguise the overall cheapness of this British-made finale. (The sets are very sparse indeed – definitely functional, rather than inspiringly minimalist.) This episode, more so than the first, seems to anticipate the “body horror” of David Cronenberg (later, of course, to mount his own version of the tale in 1986) – especially in the genuinely nasty sequence where the Delambres teleport two subjects at once, resulting in a quivering, shapeless blob of agonised protoplasm which must be messily despatched with an axe. Good stuff, eh? The script (by producer Robert L.Lippert’s usual hack, Harry Spalding, also responsible for the previous year’s end-of-the-world gem The Earth Dies Screaming) is rather less good, on the whole, supplying by-and-large rote situations and dialogue for the cast to brave; still, it has its moments. Definitely worth a look, though perhaps more for aficionados of British science fiction than fans of The Fly.