Teleporting You Back in Time
en Helene Delambre (Patricia Owens) is seen fleeing from where her husband Andre (David Hedison) is found dead, crushed in a mechanical press she recounts to both her brother-in-law, Francois (Vincent Price), and also Inspector Charas (Herbert Marshall) as to what has been going on leading up his death. It seems that Andre had been experimenting with teleportation and whilst had worked out how to teleport inanimate objects was struggling with living things. But having become convinced he had solved the issues Andre decided to teleport himself, unaware that a fly has entered the device leading to disastrous results.
Watching the 1958 version of "The Fly" now after watching either the 1986 version or the later sequel, "The Fly II", quite frankly causes it to lose something. And that comes from of course you know what is coming which considering a big slice of the 1958 version of "The Fly" relies on the mystery of what lead up to Andre's death, it is a problem. But the good news is that whilst this version of "The Fly" loses something when watched now it is still an entertaining movie.
There is a simple reason why for me this version of "The Fly" still works and it comes down to the team behind the movie who gave us the look of Andre's basement laboratory which combined an industrial look with the flashing lights of computers and bright lights for the effects almost giving it a futuristic look with the nice use of fluorescent lighting. Of course it is all just bells and whistles but compared to other 1950s sci-fi movies these bells and whistles still look good.
What also looks good are the cast with both David Hedison and Patricia Owens having a certain attraction. In fairness they play their parts well although Hedison never quite has the right look for mad inventor who works all night and so on. Plus of course there is Vincent Price and truth be told Price delivers a typical performance of being the sophisticated gentleman but in truth it is a nothing part.
What this all boils down to is that this 1958 version of "The Fly" is still entertaining but of course it loses something having watched the later versions because so much of this version is built on the mystery of why Andre was killed, crushed to death.
