RETURN OF THE FLY (1959)

DIRECTED & WRITTEN by Edward Bernds based on the short story "The Fly" by George Langelaan.

STARRING  - Vincent Price as Francois Delambre,  Brett Halsey as Phillipe Delambre,  David Frankham as Ronald Holmes/Alan Hinds,  Danielle DeMetz as Cecile Bonnard,  John Sutton as Inspector Beecham,  Dan Seymour as Max Barthold,  Janine Grandez as Madame Bonnard.

PLOT - It is many years after the events of the original film and Helene Delambre is now dead. She died lonely and broken hearted, driven insane by the terrible things she had witnessed. Her son Phillipe, now an adult, inherits her house and business. His uncle, Francois, vows to help him.

However, what Francois has not bargained upon is Phillipe's sense of ambition. Phillipe is evey bit as brilliant a scientist as his father was and he announces that he intends to continue his father's work into teleportation. Francois warns him of the dangers but Phillipe continues with his experiments regardless.

Phillipe is aided by his friend Alan Hinds, however, what Phillipe doesn't know is that Hinds is in reality a man named Ronald Holmes. Holmes is an industrial saboteur, wanted for murder back in his native England. Holmes intends to steal the secrets of Phillipe's teleportation process and sell them on the black market.

One night, whilst working late, Holmes is apprehended by a police detective who has followed him from England. Holmes murders the detective and puts his body in the teleportation device to hide the evidence. In the process the corpse becomes merged with a rat, ending up with it's hands and feet.  This gives Holmes an idea...

Phillipe discovers what Holmes is up to. Holmes pulls a gun on Phillipe and forces him into the teleporter, He also throws a captured fly into the teleporter with Phillipe and very soon history has repeated itself. Phillipe now has the head, arm and leg of a fly. Like his father before him Phillipe is now a monsterous human/fly hybrid. A human/fly hybrid that is about to go on a muderous rampage of vengence...

TAGLINE  - OUT OF THE WORLD OF ATOMIC MUTATION IT RISES - WITH THE DREAD CURSE OF THE FATHER UPON IT !

PERFORMANCES  - Vincent Price reprises his role as Francois Delambre from the original movie. He's given a lot more to do this time round, essentially becoming the film's "hero" as he seeks to reverse the terrible transformation that his nephew has undergone. Francois is supposed to be about twenty years older than he was in the original but Price doesn't look any different (they could have at least dyed his hair white or something), however Price does play the character as older. Francois seems a lot more world weary and careworn than he was in the original. He's clearly a man that is haunted by the terrible things he has seen. Price, as ever, gives a great performance and more or less carries the film.

Brett Halsey plays the driven and determined Phillipe. He's just as passionate about his work as his father Andre was in the original. Unlike Andre though Phillipe is more arrogant and headstrong. He's far from being a "mad scientist" but he does have a more pragmatic streak, especially when he railroads Francois into helping him against his will. Halsey plays the role convincingly but where he falls short is when he is transformed into the fly creature. David Hedison in the original movie gave a brilliant performance as the tortured fly man, Halsey, unfortunately, is not given that chance, hampered as he is by the fly costume that he is forced to wear. The Fly mask is oversized and Halsey is clearly struggling to see where he's going half the time, there are many moments in the movie where he bumps into the scenery or looks like he's trying to stop his mask from falling off. It's unintentionally funny but it does severely restrict Halsey in portraying the sense of sympathy that made the original fly creature such a compelling character and performance.

We get a great villain in the form of Holmes/Hinds played by David Frankham. He's suave and sinister and utterly ruthless and having a human villain is a great addition to the story. The man really is an utter bastard. It's always human beings who turn out to be the biggest monsters of all...

SFX - I really like the design of the fly mutant in this movie. In it's own way its become just as iconic as the original fly. However, why they decided to make it's head so big, I have absolutely no idea. As I said earlier, the costume completely hampers Brett Halsey's performance, he blindly staggers about like the town drunk, holding his "head" in place so it doesn't fall off. He's further hampered by the fact that one foot is covered in a prosthetic fly claw, causing him to run around with a club foot. It all looks really clumsy and amateurish. Still, you can't deny that a giant headed fly wearing a suit doesn't look cool in some weird abstract way...

He's definitely the best dressed insectoid man monster I've ever seen.

As with the original movie we also get to see a housefly with a human head,  although this time it doesn't appear to have any human limbs. It all looks a bit silly really and it's definitely a step down from the first film...

They just super imposed Halsey's head onto stock footage of a housefly.

Another dodgy effect is the dead detective with the rat's hands and feet...

It's just a man wearing gloves and socks. Whilst the idea is horrific, the execution of it is really shonky. More successful is the rat with human hands. Especially when Holmes stamps the animal to death and you see the tiny human hands scrabbling about. Theres just something really unsettling about it...

Its by far the best effect in the film.

SEX & VIOLENCE  - The human fly doles out swift deadly vengence upon Holmes and his accomplice by breaking thier necks with his bare hands/fly claws ( I didn't know flies even had claws...). At one point Francois describes Phillipe as having "the murderous brain of a fly", yet again, I didn't realise that the common or garden housefly was particularly renowned for it's killer instincts but there you go...

RATING  - Return Of The Fly is nowhere near the classic that the original movie was, it all feels a lot cheaper and like it was rushed into production to cash in on the success of the first movie. Where the original was a legitimate and intelligent science fiction movie, it's sequal is much more in the realms of the cheesy B-movie. It's a monster on the loose story and has all the trappings that you would expect with that type of movie - screaming terrified women, evil villains, clumsy looking monsters and a happy ending.

Despite it's shortcomings Return Of The Fly is a hell of a lot of fun. Don't go into it expecting a serious movie but if you're looking for a slice of high camp monster movie madness then you can't really go far wrong with this. 3 and a half sharp dressed mutants out of 5. Check it out.

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