Subtitles:

English (SDH), German, Spanish, German (for commentary), none

Extras:

• Commentary with actor David Hedsion and Historian David Del Valle

• Fly Trap - Catching a Classic (11:30)

Wealthy Helene Delambre (Patricia Owens) is discovered late at night in the factory owned by her husband Andre (David Hedison). Helene stands beside a huge metal press, which has crushed the head and arm of her husband. Held for murder, the near-catatonic Helene refuses to tell anyone--not even Andre's brother Francois (Vincent Price)--why she did it. Francois cannot help but notice that Helene reacts in mortal terror when a tiny flies zips through the room. Nor can he disregard the statement made by Helene's son Philippe (Charles Herbert) that the fly has a curious white head and leg. When Francois pretends that he's captured the fly, Helene relaxes enough to tell her story. It seems that Andre, a scientist, had been working on a matter transmitter, which he claimed could disintegrate matter, then reintegrate it elsewhere. After a few experiments, Andre tried the transmitter himself. Just as he stepped into the disintegration chamber, a fly also flew into the chamber. We aren't immediately shown the results of this, save for the fact that Andre afterward insists upon keeping his head and arm covered. Alone with her husband, Helene abruptly removes the covering, revealing that Andre now bears the head of a fly! His atoms have become mixed up with the fly, and now he is unable to reverse the procedure. Deciding that his transmitter will be a bogy rather than a blessing to mankind, Andre smashes the apparatus and burns his notes. He then instructs Helene, via body language, to crush his fly-like head and arm in the press. Neither Francois nor inspector Charas (Herbert Marshall) believe the story...until, while staring intently at a spider's web in the garden, they see a tiny entrapped fly with Andre's head and arm, tinnily screaming "Help me! Help me!" as the slavering spider approaches (If you're wondering why Vincent Price and Herbert Marshall do not look one another in the eye during this scene, it is because they couldn't deliver their dialogue without dissolving into laughter). Infinitely subtler than the admittedly excellent 1986 remake, the 1958 The Fly is one of the definitive big-budget horror films of its decade. Best bit: the prismatic "fly's eye view" of the screaming Patricia Owens. The Fly was adapted from George Langelaan's short story by James (Shogun) Clavell.

Most of it takes place in and around the sunniest of homes, that of a highly likable young Montreal scientist, Mr. Hedison, his wife, Miss Owens, and their youngsters, Charles Herbert. One of the most appealing things about the picture is the pretty pleasantry and chilling contrast of the everyday setting, nicely framed in color and Cinema-Scope. Most appealing of all, however, is the compassion blended in with the suspense when something terrible happens in Mr. Hedison's basement laboratory.

This altruistic chap some-how has evolved a method of electronically disintegrating objects, then materializing them at a distance. Foolishly, he experiments with himself, a housefly intrudes, and—flash!—the man and the tiny creature have proportionately exchanged heads.

We learn this slowly, bit by bit, in the hysterically scribbled messages he feeds his terrified wife. The idea is to find the fly, still flitting about the premises, put the two of them back together in the original enclosure and turn on the juice again.