As the film opens a window is broken with
glass flying out and Carole Gray soon follows in brassiere and panties. She
then proceeds to run through the forest to the gate and then down the road.
I was already sold on this film. There was a lot to love here though I seem
to be the only one from comments I have seen. This is considered the third
in the fly trilogy. That would consist of The Fly (1958), Return of the Fly
(1959) and this one. Folks seem upset because it makes no sense relative
to the first two films - but I could care less having seen The Fly about
a hundred years ago and never having seen Return of the Fly. I just looked
at this basically as a standalone film though it references the first one.
And as a standalone I quite enjoyed this Gothic horror sci-fi film. It has
the mad God like scientist who keeps saying people have to die for science,
it has a few mutants running around, it has a woman thinking she is going
mad, it has two scary Chinese servants, it has a deformed woman at the piano,
it has Star Trek technology long before Star Trek and it has Brian Donlevy
of the Quatermass films! What more do you want? A fly you say? Sorry the
fly union was on strike that week and refused to appear.
So Patricia (Carole Gray) is running down the road in the middle of the night
when Martin Delambre (George Baker) of the Montreal Delambre's stops his
car to help her. I ask myself would I stop at night for a woman running like
a banshee out of hell only in her underwear? Well, if she looked like Carole
Gray probably and you know she is not concealing any weapons. Then he puts
her up in a hotel and buys her clothes and of course they fall in love and
get married in a week. It is like the Paris segment of Casablanca without
the impending war or Bogart or Bergman. Now it is time for him to return
to the family estate.
A few things they didn't bother to tell each other. Her - that she
was escaping from a mental institution after a nervous breakdown. Him - that
he has a condition that could turn him into hideous ash if he doesn't get
an injection in time, that he is still married, that they have mutants locked
up in sheds and that they are transporting people through a machine as far
as London and that these transports don't always go according to plan - ie
the mutants. But on the positive side, no mother-in-law.
These are things they probably both should have mentioned in passing but
love gets in the way. Once they get settled in and the father (Donlevy) and
the two servants (one being played by Burt Kwouk and the other as scary as
a white woman in yellow face can be - Yvette Rees) get over their shock -
what the hell are you thinking - that she wasn't going to notice the creatures
in the shed? And it all goes to hell in wonderful ways in a very short
time. Directed by Don Sharp - a couple Hammer films and two Fu Manchu films
to his credit and produced by Lippert and shot in England. In black and white
which may betray its low budget.
