The Fly – Ultimate Collector’s Edition

Scifind.co.uk rating - 4 - out of 5.

Reviewed By: John Ainsworth

Starring: Vincent Price, Jeff Goldblum, Geena Davis, Eric Stoltz, George Baker,

Year 1958, 1959, 1965, 1986, 1989

Format 7 Discs

Release Date 29^th May 2006

Distributor 20^th Century Fox

RRP £69.99

The Movies

20^th Century Fox have come up trumps with a superb box-set which really lives up to the branding of ‘ultimate collection’. The complete cinematic history of The Fly is presented here over seven discs. All five movies are here including the seldom seen and never before released on DVD, The Curse of the Fly from 1965.

Vincent Price heads the cast of the original The Fly from 1958. But it is David Hedison who is the doomed scientist whose teleportation experiments lead to his fatal commingling with a stray bluebottle, and thus establishing the basic template for the following four movies. The 1958 film, based on the story by George Langelaan, is a classic. Much credit must go to director Kurt Neumann who clearly encourages his cast to play for real what otherwise might have been just another Fifties monster-mash. The final, downbeat moments of the movie, though absurd, are tragic and disturbing.

The first of the sequels – this time in black and white and imaginatively called Return of the Fly – came only a year after the first movie’s release and once again starred Vincent Price. Unfortunately, with Neumann replaced by Edward Bernds as director, this retread of the same story fails to elevate itself above the more outrageous elements of the plot and is often unintentionally hilarious. Nevertheless, it’s still great fun to watch.

Don Sharp, director of many a British movie, took on 1965’s The Curse of the Fly. Without Price this time, Curse isn’t really a sequel but more a re-telling of the original story. Despite its attempts to disguise it’s British origins (English star George Baker adopts an American accent), this is clearly a British movie. However, this works to the film’s advantage by giving the theme a whole new ambience with some good, subtle performances in the early parts of the film. Carole Gray is particularly good as the girl who has escaped from a mental hospital only to have the misfortune of getting hitched up with a family of mad scientists.

David Cronenberg’s 1986 re-imagining of The Fly is clearly intended as the centrepiece of this collection, and rightly so. Despite being horribly dated by the Eighties wardrobe and the back-combed hair, this is a great movie which is more of a character piece than might be expected. Despite the make-up and creature animatronics, there is an almost theatrical feel to the film which has a tiny cast of three main players and one large and impressive set. Of course, it’s Jeff Goldblum who holds it altogether with an excellent performance as the hapless inventor. His slow metamorphosis in to the Fly is portrayed with some well observed but subtle body language (with assistance from the make-up department).

With the success of Cronenberg’s movie, a sequel was inevitable. That came along in 1989 in the guise of The Fly II starring Eric Stoltz as Goldblum’s son (Geena Davies having been conveniently pregnant by Goldblum at the close of the first film). Stoltz is good but as with Return of the Fly in 1959, it’s a diluted version of the themes of the previous movie with some extra plot elements grafted on. However, unlike Return of the Fly, The Fly II is a more accomplished work in its own right with some excellent, and quite gruesome effects work.

Accompanied by two discs worth of extras (see below) and packaged in a nice tele-pod box, this collector’s set really can’t be faulted. Even the lesser films in the collection are worth watching, though you’ll definitely by all-Flyed-out by the time you’ve viewed them all.

Extras

There’s plenty here to give you a buzz… They include: a commentary from David Cronenberg on The Fly, several documentaries, extended and deleted scenes, publicity material, test footage and George Langelaan’s original story as presented in Playboy magazine. Not surprisingly virtually all of the extras relate to the 1980s movies. Extras on the earlier movies, particularly the original, would have been nice but I’m just being greedy. Fox are to be commended for the huge wealth of extra material that they’ve made available here.

John Ainsworth