The Fly
Short description
The Fly centres on Seth Brundle, a scientist who has developed a machine that can take matter apart and reassemble it somewhere else. After successful tests on objects and animals, he tries the process on himself, unaware that a housefly has entered the chamber with him. The teleportation appears to work, but the two organisms have been merged, and Brundle begins a slow physical and mental transformation that affects him and those close to him, including journalist Veronica Quaife, who has been documenting his work.
David Cronenberg directed and co-wrote the screenplay with Charles Edward Pogue, working from a story that reworks the 1950s film of the same name. It was the eighth of the twenty-two features Cronenberg has directed, following The Dead Zone and preceding Dead Ringers, and it was produced by Mel Brooks and Stuart Cornfeld. Jeff Goldblum plays Brundle, with Geena Davis as Veronica, John Getz as Stathis Borans, Joy Boushel as Tawny, Leslie Carlson as Dr. Cheevers and George Chuvalo as Marky. Made for about 15 million dollars, it took roughly 61 million worldwide.
The film holds a strong critical standing, with a critics' rating of 8.6/10 from 79 reviews, and audiences are not far behind: 7.6/10 on IMDb from around 223,000 votes and 7.4/10 on TMDB from over 5,000 votes. That convergence suggests a horror and science-fiction film whose impact has held up rather than resting on nostalgia. It runs 96 minutes and was released in August 1986 as a co-production between the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States.
What's left behind the scenes
- Brandlfly’s stomach acid was made from honey, eggs, and milk.
- Tim Burton was originally slated to direct the film, and Michael Keaton was considered for the role of Brandl.
- Mel Brooks was one of the film’s producers, but he did not want his name to appear in the credits of such a gruesome film.
- The infamous scene with the monkey and the cat was cut after a screening in Toronto. In this scene, Brundle tests a system of three telepods on a monkey from a previous experiment and a stray cat. The creature resulting from the teleportation attacks Brundle, who throws it into a corner and finishes it off with a metal pipe. Brundle is in an intermediate stage of transformation, not shown in other scenes. The scene continues with the scientist climbing onto the roof via the wall and ceiling, and observing the night city. Suddenly, he feels a sharp pain just below his left chest, falls from the roof onto a small awning, and witnesses an additional fly's claw emerging from his chest. Brundle bites off the new limb.
- One of the deleted scenes is a dream featuring a butterfly-child. The film had an alternate ending. Pregnant Veronica lies in bed with Stathis. She wakes up from a nightmare. Stathis comforts her, and Veronica falls back asleep, dreaming of a butterfly-child hatching from a cocoon. There were several variations of this scene.
- Director Robert Bierman began working on the film because David Cronenberg had been hired to work on the action film “Total Recall” (1990). But Bierman dropped out of the project after the tragic death of a family member. The director felt he could not work on such a dark film. Therefore, Cronenberg amicably terminated his contract with producer Dino De Laurentiis and took on “The Fly.”
- Jeff Goldblum, during the scenes where he transformed into a fly, spent five hours in makeup before filming. The makeup artists from “Chris Walas, Inc.” studied numerous illustrated books on various diseases before the start of filming.
- At the beginning of the film, when Veronica decides to turn on a tape recorder and record Seth's words without his permission, the tape runs out mid-sentence as Seth says, “Not ready yet.” Then we see a cassette inserted into the player, and the tape begins to rewind and play from the beginning, with the same dialogue where the tape previously ended.
- The original screenplay was written by Charles Edward Pogue, but when David Cronenberg was hired as director, he substantially rewrote the script, altering the characters' personalities, their names, and some of the dialogue. However, the main plot line remained unchanged.
- In September 2009, it became known that the film would be remade and that David Cronenberg would direct it. Later, it was reported that no remake would be made.
- Cameo: David Cronenberg plays an obstetrician who removes a fly larva from Gina Davis's womb. David appeared in the cameo after Martin Scorsese, having become a fan of David's early films, arranged a meeting with him, during which he remarked that Cronenberg looked like a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon.
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