Return of the Fly (1959)

Our sequel today picks up fifteen years after the events of its originator at the graveside service of Helene Delambre, who never really recovered after assisting her husband Andre’s suicide.

You remember, right? When the mad scientist placed his head and hand into a hydraulic press after his experiments in matter transportation went staggeringly awry, where his atoms were mixed with a fly, turning Andre into a fly-headed monster? Right? Right. If not, go watch The Fly (1958) and then come back. Go on. We can wait -- just remember where you left off.

For the record, only Helene, the deceased's brother, Francois (Price), and Chief Inspector Charas knew the real truth, about the mutation, with Charas being responsible for the murder of the other half of this failed experiment, trapped in a spider’s web, crushing the pitiful, pleading creature with a rock before a spider pounced.

But now, their orphaned son, Philippe (Halsey), demands to know the truth as to what really happened to his father, which haunted his mother so badly all these years that it eventually drove the woman to an early grave. And once his uncle finally spills the beans, Philippe is soon determined to perfect his father’s teleportation machine and secure his family's legacy.

At first, Francois wants no part of this but soon comes around -- mostly to make sure Philippe doesn’t make the same critical mistakes his father had.

Moving all the machinery to the basement of the old ancestral mansion, using his father’s notes, Philippe, Francois, and Philipe’s assistant, Ronald Holmes (Frankham), soon have the transporter rebuilt and fired-up and successfully disintegrate and reintegrate several varmints.

Too bad for all involved that Holmes is acting under an alias, is a wanted man for murder, and is currently engaging in some industrial espionage. And after his assistant uses the contraption to destroy the body of one of Scotland Yard’s finest, Philippe sniffs out his true intentions before the villain can cash-out.

Unfortunately for Philippe, this confrontation does not go his way at all and he winds up in the transporter, too.

Also, Holmes tosses a fly in there with him because, one, his former boss suffers from a severe case of pteronarcophobia; and two, he’s seen what the transporter can do when two different test-subjects get zapped at the same time (-- that aforementioned cop and a hamster); and three, he’s just that big of an asshole.

Alas, Francois arrives too late to stop any of this and winds up taking a bullet while Holmes escapes; but he does manage to trip the switches for the reintegration process, and then Francois comes face to face with his worst nightmare come true... 

After squandering a shit-ton of money converting their projection booths to accommodate 3D stereoscopic films, a fad that had barely lasted six months, most theater owners were either skeptical or downright hostile when Darryl F. Zanuck asked them to now tear all of that out and widen their screens instead for his newly minted CinemaScope process in late 1953.

However, having learned a harsh lesson over the non-standardization of the 3D free-for-all, Zanuck promised more consistency to appease exhibitors, promising a steady supply of product in this new widescreen format.

The Grand Island Independent (December 31, 1953). 

To do this, Zanuck and 20th Century Fox struck a deal to make the lenses and equipment for CinemaScope readily available to other studios; and Fox even went so far as to bring in Robert L. Lippert to produce a series of B-Pictures shot in the same widescreen process.

And so, together, they formed Regal Pictures in 1956, which landed Lippert a seven year commission to make 20-pictures per year, each shot in seven to ten days, with a budget of $100,000. Though one should note that Zanuck hedged the deal, not allowing his new B-Unit to smirch the reputation of his A-product, which is why things like Stagecoach to Fury (1956), Kronos (1957), and Hell on Devil’s Island (1957) were all technically shot in 'Regalscope.'

The Grand Island Independent (July 18, 1957). 

Fox and Zanuck never were ones for genre pictures and seldom dabbled in horror and sci-fi -- the only real monster movie I can think of was The Undying Monster (1942), which was pretty great if you've never seen it, which makes their production of The Fly a bit of an anomaly; especially after the big-budgeted sci-fi epics This Island Earth (1955) and Forbidden Planet (1956) both disappointed at the box-office for rival studios Universal and MGM respectively.

But even though The Fly was shot in CinemaScope and Technicolor, the production cost was kept fairly low, around $350,000, when compared to $800,000 for This Island Earth and $1,900,000 for Forbidden Planet. But unlike those other two films, The Fly proved to be a huge hit for Fox and became one of its biggest money-makers of '58. And technically, it wasn’t really a Fox product at all -- at least not at first.

“The Fly was an in-house project,” said Bernard Glasser in an interview with Tom Weaver (Science Fiction Stars and Horror Heroes, 1991). Glasser was one of Lippert’s stable of producers, who revealed, “Regal purchased the short story by George Langelaan that appeared in Playboy Magazine. Lippert felt that he had something special with this project, and he requested additional funds to produce the picture.”

And so, The Fly would essentially get an upgrade and nearly all traces of its Regal origins were systematically removed. Said Glasser, “If Lippert relinquished producer credit, it must have been for a good reason; I’m sure that he could’ve had producer credit if he felt it was important.”

And perhaps slightly embarrassed by its subject matter despite the box-office success, but not embarrassed enough to not cash-in, when a sequel proved to be in order, the studio quickly distanced itself and turned the franchise back over to Lippert.

By 1959, Lippert had dumped the Regal moniker and rechristened his unit as Associated Producers Incorporated (API). And to pull off this mandated sequel, Return of the Fly (1959), he turned to Glasser and director Edward Bernds -- the two men who had produced Space Master X-7 (1958) for him, which had served as the equally successful bottom-bill for The Fly.

“The Fly was the sleeper hit everyone had hoped it would be,” said Glasser. “It was Harry Spalding’s idea to make a sequel. (Spalding was Lippert’s production supervisor.) He suggested that Ed and I be given the project.”

“Why we got Return of the Fly I don’t know,” Bernds explained to Weaver (Interviews with B Science Fiction and Horror Moviemakers, 1988). “Maybe Fox thought it was going to be a slough-off, just something to cash-in on the popularity of the first one. But I also think it was kind of a bad time for Fox and they thought they could capitalize on us, at a reasonable cost, and get a reasonable product.”

I delved into the cinematic history of Glasser and Bernds when I wrote up Space Master X-7 a while back, so feel free to check that out to get up to speed on them. But as they set to work on the sequel, it turns out the parent studio wasn’t quite ready to let go of the project after all -- at least not completely.

“Return of the Fly was supposed to be just another Regal project,” said Glasser (Weaver, 1991). “Perhaps it was the quality of Ed’s script or revised thinking on Lippert’s part that upgraded the project".

To start, the production was under orders to use the still standing sets from the first film to help save even more costs, meaning it would be another rare feat for Lippert’s B-unit, where it would be allowed to actually shoot on Fox’s backlot, which had been strictly forbidden.

Said Bernds (Weaver, 1988), “We who worked for Lippert were kind of second class citizens as far as Fox was concerned -- pariahs, so to speak. Fox didn’t want us on the deluxe Westwood lot, but when the time came to do Return of the Fly they wanted us there.

The San Francisco Chronicle (August 3, 1959). 

“I believe this was a tough period for Fox and they wanted us to absorb some of their overhead," Bernds continued. "Return of the Fly was made at the Fox Westwood lot, with Fox personnel all the way through, even a cameraman. Fox just simply couldn’t do things in any way except top-notch, and so our sets for Return of the Fly were as good as an A picture’s would be.”

Thus, the sequel would be shot officially in CinemaScope but would be demoted to black and white film stock -- just like its co-feature, Roy Del Ruth's The Alligator People (1959), whose title pretty much says it all. 

The Los Angeles Times (August 26, 1959). 

Added Glasser (Weaver, 1991), “Most of our money was being spent unproductively … The production department of the Fox studio asked Lippert to move Return of the Fly to the studio instead of our shooting it at an independent lot. Of course this means an increase in production costs and no control. Because of the inefficiency of the slower Fox crews and the added charges and surcharges for set operation and construction, it was impossible for me to lock in any expenditures. I had been reluctant to make the move to Fox and had predicted problems. But Lippert didn’t want to antagonize the Fox big brass. But shooting on the Fox lot greatly enhanced the production values of the picture.”

Still, despite the upgrade, Bernds felt the shoot was plagued with bad vibes. “It seems to me that the 20th Century lot was a rather dismal place when we shot Return of the Fly there. Not much (other) production, and many of the crew worried about their jobs.”

Meanwhile, as Bernds hammered out the script, it would prove interesting enough to coax Vincent Price back into the fold to reprise his role as Francois. “He wouldn’t sign to do the film until he read the script,” said Bernds (Weaver, 1988). “So, as soon as I had a first draft I sent it to him. Then, after he’d read it, I visited him in his palatial home -- that’s a fancy word, but believe me, his place was palatial -- and he said he liked the script. We discussed it at considerable length, he said he’d sign and he did.”

“We were surprised when Lippert approved Price and his salary,” said Glasser (Weaver, 1991). “Perhaps Price had been a good luck omen for Lippert. It began with Price appearing in Lippert’s The Baron of Arizona (1950). Or perhaps Lippert was playing on a hunch. At any rate he approved the additional expenditure for Price, $25,000. (The total budget was estimated around $275,000.) Price was always a gentleman, always ready and prepared, but as I recall he was not overly enthusiastic about the screenplay!”

Yeah, unfortunately, most of those “interesting” moments Price signed-up for wound up cut-out completely, much to the star’s chagrin.

Said Bernds (Weaver, 1988), “What Vincent read was a first draft, and like many first drafts it was a little overlong, and some cuts were made to trim it down and some changes made to bring about budget economies. Vincent liked some of the scenes we had cut, and he objected.

“If I recall correctly, they were mostly scenes with Danielle De Metz -- scenes of warmth and charm, but, when you’re pressed for footage, not truly essential to the progression of the story. But I conferred with Vincent from time to time, and I made changes that satisfied him.”

Thus, despite these changes, Bernds found Price a delight to work with, calling him “thoroughly professional, always prepared, giving his best to every scene. His wasn’t even the biggest part in Return of the Fly, but his star status and the strength he brought to his performance lifted it out of the B-category it might have fallen into."

As for the main protagonist, Glasser cast Brett Halsey. Now, Halsey seemed to be cursed with bad timing throughout his Hollywood career. He got signed at Universal but barely made a scratch -- though some folks might recognize him as one of the two teens who get killed in Revenge of the Creature (1955), the one who wasn't fastballed into a tree -- before the studio was bought out by MCA, which cut staff and purged all contract players in 1958.

But the actor landed on his feet at American International, where Halsey headlined the likes of High School Hellcats (1958), also directed by Bernds, and Submarine Seahawk (1959). And then, after starring in Return of the Fly, he got signed by Fox to a multi-year contract. But then this was voided, too, after the whole Cleopatra (1963) debacle, which nearly bankrupted the studio.

Halsey would have much better luck abroad, working with the likes of Mario Bava and Lucio Fulci in Italy. And while Halsey does fine as Philippe, he really isn’t in the film all that much. I swear, his pasted-on head on the tiny fly almost had as much screen-time as the real actor did.

“The whole cast was good to work with -- Halsey was excellent, as always,” recalled Bernds (Weaver, 1988). “David Franklin, who played the villain, was new to me … I wanted the contrast between the charming and pleasant Alan and the killer Alan to be a startling one, and David was everything I’d hoped for when I wrote his scenes. De Metz was very young, very pretty; practically no experience, but her youth and beauty were a plus. Maybe the fact that she wasn’t an experienced actor made her performance seem more innocent and more real.”

The only disappointment Bernds had with the cast was a failure to sign on Herbert Marshall to return as Inspector Charas. “I must have written with Marshall in mind because the role in my script is referred to as Charas throughout -- but in the movie the character played by John Sutton was named Inspector Beachum. I’m not sure why we didn’t get Marshall, but he would’ve added stature to the part, and another link to the first Fly would have been a definite plus.”

The last notable cast member was Ed Wolff, a former circus giant, who had portrayed Bela Lugosi's robot in The Phantom Creeps (1939), a Martian in Invaders from Mars (1953), and the rampaging cyborg in The Colossus of New York (1958). Wolff took over the role of Philippe after his transformation into a human-fly hybrid. Then, as the creature breaks out of the lab, is merrily chased around the hills by the cops for a spell, it then spends the rest of the movie tracking down and killing those who double-crossed him.

Ed Wolff (right), The Colossus of New York. 

All the while, Francois, the Inspector (Sutton), and Phillipe's long-suffering girlfriend, Cecilia (De Metz), manage to capture the Fly Human and hope the Human Fly can be herded back to the lab and into the transmitter where they think they can, hopefully, reverse the process.

“I believe that what the science fiction writer needs most is a sense of story and enough science to make it work,” said Bernds (Weaver, 1988). But the writer / director also freely admitted that most of his films in the genre were “utterly unscientific and that ridiculous was probably not too strong a word” to describe them, and how “science really takes a beating in his pictures.” But they still entertained people and made money.

Glasser and Bernds had wanted to insert footage from The Fly to pad out the sequel and fill-in the backstory; but Fox nixed this, feeling the color footage wouldn’t mesh with the rest of the film properly. This left it to Price to get us all up to speed with a massive plot-dump at the beginning of the film.

Now, I had never seen this sequel before writing it up, but judging from all the photos and stills I had seen over the years I felt the monster design and mask for Return of the Fly looked so much better than the original. And while I still think it looks better in theory, in action -- oh, great googly-moogly.

It's so huge the poor stuntman ensconced inside it can barely keep his balance as he runs around. I mean, watch as Wolff keeps reaching for it, to steady it, as the encephalitic contraption constantly wobbles and teeters around and threatens to topple him. (Ironically enough, my problem with the original was I thought it was too small?!)

“[Wolff] just couldn’t stand on his feet for long periods of time,” said Glasser (Weaver, 1991). “And he had great difficulty breathing while wearing the fly head. Our friend Joe Becker, a stuntman, did most of the closeups wearing the fly’s head. Joe did all the action sequences for Wolff.”

Apparently, due to his condition, Wolff had little stamina, which hampered efforts to give the plodding chase scenes any real juice. The inflatable proboscis of the Human Fly was a nice touch, and they really could've had something there if the size of the whole apparatus was, I don't know, halved? 

Also sad to report that the fly with the human head FX might be even worse than the original.

However, I freely admit when the bad guy, played beautifully by Frankham, sends the cop through the transmitter, turning him into a were-hamster, who then steps on the hamster with the human hands? Thaaaaat kinda freaked me out a bit as the thing stubbornly refused to die.

Beyond that, Return of the Fly is a bit too ‘paint by numbers’ to really generate any real amperage. Not all that terrible, but no more than serviceable as far as sequels go.

Originally posted on July 9, 2016, at Micro-Brewed Reviews.

Return of the Fly (1959) Associated Producers (API) :: 20th Century Fox Film Corporation / P: Bernard Glasser / D: Edward Bernds / W: Edward Bernds, George Langelaan (story) / C: Brydon Baker / E: Richard C. Meyer / M: Paul Sawtell, Bert Shefter / S: Vincent Price, Brett Halsey, David Frankham, Danielle De Metz, John Sutton