THE FLY

US, 1958, 94 minutes, Colour.
Al Hedison, Patricia Owens, Vincent Price, Herbert Marshall, Kathleen Freeman.
Directed by Kurt Neumann.

The Fly was a successful attempt at blending horror and science fiction in the late 50s. It had a more spectacular budget and was filmed in Cinemascope and colour and featured Vincent Price. The science fiction films of the time were generally small-budgeted and in black and white. Science fiction had not acquired quite the respectability it has today. This film could be linked with The Incredible Shrinking Man, Tarantula and other attempts at playing with the reducing of man's size and the magnification of animals. This film is quite well done - horrifying in its implications, straightforward in its presentation of man tampering with science. It was so successful that two sequels were made: the Return of The Fly and The Curse of The Fly.

1. Was this a good horror film? Why? Were audience reactions anticipated in calling the film after flies?

2. Was it a good science-fiction film? How plausible was the story? In its basics? In its development? Did this make it more credible and engrossing?

3. The atmosphere of colour and widescreen and Montreal background? Did this add to or detract from the film?

4. How important was the structure of the film? The atmosphere of a murder mystery at first? The flashbacks of the horror and science-fiction? And then the finale with the knowledge of what had gone before? Did this involve audiences?

5. What did the film have to say about science and its developments? How contemporary was the film in its scientific presentation? Did this add to the credibility and plausibility?

6. What did the film have to say about the risks of science? About the obsessions scientists get? Seeing themselves as God? Seeing themselves as explorers into the unknown? Their self-esteem as pioneers of great changes? Do the risks involved justify such exploration?

7. Was the hero a sympathetic character? Was his character well developed? Did you agree with his exploration and experimentation? Should he have experimented with a cat? How eerie was this experiment with the cat's cries and its disappearance? How plausible was his experiment with himself and the mistake of the fly? How did it lead into the horror aspects of the film? Was his appearance horrifying? Was the mixture of appearance of horror and the pathos of his inability to speak and his growing lack of control credible? His concern for his wife and the desperate need for the experiment to be repeated?

8. How did the film add to its atmosphere with presentation of the wife and the boy? Her anguish and desperate wanting to help? The boy's wanting to know what was happening?

9. How was this summed up in the desperate search for the fly? How involving of the audience was this? How much did we want them to find the fly? Do you think there would have been a reversal back to normality had the fly been found?

10. How horrifying was the idea of executing the husband? Were there any alternatives? Could the wife have done anything else? How heroic was the self-sacrifice of the scientists?

11. How urgent then were our feelings when the wife was finally arrested? Did the police have any alternative? Her story was so incredible.

12. What were your reactions when you saw the fly trapped in the spider's web? The brother not noticing the fly? Were you glad when they finally found it?

13. How effective was the trick photography of the fly and the man trapped in the web? The crying pleas as the spider enveloped the fly? Did the police have any option but to crush the fly and the spider? Was he as guilty of murder as the wife? What point was being made here? Was there any alternative but to let the wife go?

14. What predominated in the film, the horror, the science fiction, the human interest? How well-developed was the human interest in the film? The relationship between husband and wife, the role of the little boy, the factory, the brother, the maid who helped search for the fly etc.? Was this merely conventional or did it contribute to the interest of the film?

15. Critics consider that The Fly is a good horror science-fiction film. What were the main ingredients of its success?