THE FLY (1958)

This film is a little slowly paced, it has rather dated special effects and even the actors in the movie had a hard time keeping a straight face when filming its most famous moment. Of course, for a modern audience another odd thing about THE FLY is that Vincent Price is neither the monster nor a villain in the story. Hell, most of his screen time is taken up with him doing nothing more than worrying about his brother or his sister in law. How did such an atypical monster movie become so well known and well remembered? I believe it is quiet qualities like literate dialog, solid acting and a horrifying central idea that make THE FLY a great old science fiction film. Those elements and the somewhat staged, mannered way in which the film (and its sequel) is shot, makes it both a product of the '50s and a fascinating snapshot of an attempt to make a science fiction/horror flick something more than just ray guns and things from another world. THE FLY isn't much more than a step above earlier giant bug movies, but it's a significant step. Even though I've seen this movie 20 times or more, the film's charms always grab me so that whenever I watch it, I'm caught up in the tale all over again.