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Curse of the Fly
Movie
Written by Harry Spalding
Directed by
Don Sharp
Released 1965
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The Delambre family secretly continues
experiments in teleportation.
Read the full film summary at IMDB
or
Watch the film itself at dailymotion
Notes from the
Fly
chronology
Curse of the Fly was essentially
sold to audiences as a sequel to the first two Fly
films,
The Fly
and Return of the Fly,
but it is more of a soft reboot.
Return of the Fly
is basically ignored (except for a production still of the
Phillipe-fly, which is passed off as a photo of the
André-fly from the first film). The backstory of The Fly
is loosely kept here, altering the Delambre family to have been
André with an adult son, Henri (instead of the 10-year old
Phillipe), who was able to transform his father back to human
(eliminating André's wife-assisted suicide).
It's hard to say how much time has passed since the
events of The Fly.
Since
André had an adult son at the time in this revised continuity,
he was probably older than depicted by David (Al) Hedison in the
original film. We don't know how old the adult son, Henri, was
then either. In our current film, scientist Henri is an old man,
but it is also stated here that both he and his also-scientist
son, Martin, suffer from occasional attacks of premature, rapid
aging, which aren't really explained, but are presumably a
side-effect of using the teleporter themselves, though another
of Henri's sons, Albert, does not suffer any ill effects and has
presumably also been teleported. Albert appears to be 25-30
years of age.
The film was made in 1965, with the corresponding
fashions and automobiles present, so we may suppose the events
of the story take place in about 1965 as well. If so, the film
is set 7 years after
The Fly.
Didja Know?
This film again had a lesser budget than the one previous. While
the first film had a budget of roughly $400,000, and
Return of the Fly an
estimated budget of $225,000, this one had a mere $90,000 budget
and it shows!
This film was shot by a British studio and, like
Return of the Fly,
was shot in black-and-white.
Despite being part of the Fly franchise, there
is no fly creature in this film at all! The closest we
get is a photo of the André-fly in Inspector Charas'
possession (the aforementioned production still of the
Phillipe-fly from
Return of the Fly). The story instead is about
the Delambre family's continued experimentation with
their teleportation device and the less-than-ethical
decisions they make to achieve their obsession. |
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As I will point out at the end of the study, some ideas from
this film may have inspired elements of
Chris Walas' 1989 The Fly II,
sequel to David Cronenberg's reimagining of
The Fly in 1986.
Characters appearing or mentioned in this film
Patricia Stanley
Martin Delambre (dies in this film)
hotel porter
Tai
Wan
Henri Delambre
Albert Delambre
Albert's girlfriend (mentioned only)
Samuels (dies in this film)
Dill (dies in this film)
André Delambre (mentioned only, presumed deceased)
Inspector Ronet
Madame Fournier
Patricia Stanley's mother and father (mentioned only, deceased)
hotel manager
Inspector Charas
Judith Delambre (Martin's first wife, dies in this film)
nurse (unnamed)
Judge Gerard (mentioned only)
Didja Notice?
As Patricia Stanley shuts the gates of the psychiatric hospital
from which she is escaping, two signs are seen mounted to the
brick columns holding the gates. The sign on the right is not
legible on screen. The left sign reads, "Maison de Sante
Fournier", French for "Fournier House of Health".
Martin Delambre drives a 1962
Chevrolet
Bel Air station wagon with license plate 882 321 (presumably a
Quebec, Canada plate) as the film takes place near Montreal.
An Asian couple named Tai and Wan act as servants in the
Delambre mansion. Tai is portrayed by British-Chinese actor Burt
Kwouk, but Wan was played by Welsh actress Yvette Rees with some
bad make-up to make her look Asian!
Martin's brother, Albert Delambre, is in
London, England
throughout the film, where he maintains the Delambres' second
teleport unit for sending objects and people across the ocean in
their experiments.
The father of Martin and Albert Delambre is Henri. It would seem
that the writer and producers decided to use the name of
André's son as written in the original 1957 short story
"The Fly" by George Langelann.
Martin tells Patricia that the Delambre home and laboratory are
a couple of hours north of
Montreal.
At 14:15 on the DVD, a photo of a Canadian Mountie is seen on
Inspector Ronet's office wall. It may be intended as a photo of
himself in days with the
Royal Canadian
Mounted Police, before he became an inspector for the Montreal
police.
When Martin starts feeling ill during his picnic with Patricia,
she takes over driving them back to the hotel. But she
presumably does not have a driver license with her since any of
her possessions would still be at the Fournier Mental Hospital.
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Inspector Ronet tracks Patricia to the hotel, but
she has left with Martin by the time he arrives. In the
hotel registry, the only home address she provided is
"Montreal, Canada". We see the registry page at 18:33 on
the DVD. Martin's entry above hers appears to show an
address only of Long River, New. "New" may refer to
Newfoundland, a province of Canada (now known as
Newfoundland and Labrador), but the only town called
Long River I can find in Canada is on Prince Edward
Island, another province. Neither is what could be
called
a couple of hours north of Montreal as Martin had stated
earlier; Prince Edward Island is over 11 hours drive
northeast of Montreal and Newfoundland is not even
reachable directly by car...aircraft or boat would be
required.
At 1:20:46 on the DVD, a sign for Spring Hill is
seen outside the gates of the Delambre property. I've
been unable to find a location called Spring Hill in any
area that would correspond with the mansion's location
(there is a "Springhill" in Manitoba, Canada, thousands
of miles distance).
Other names and addresses in the register are:
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Mr. and Mrs. Le Clerc,
from 1046 Woodside,
Los Angeles. While there is a Woodside Drive in
Los Angeles, it does not have a 1046 address on it.
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The Reverend H.P. Pennington
from Lapfield, SAS. SAS likely stands for
Saskatchewan, a province of Canada, but I can find
no town called Lapfield/Langfield/Longfield or
anything similar there.
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At 26:22 on the DVD, one of the gauges in the Delambre lab is a
Cambridge Indicator. This was a gauge used for measuring the
thermal conductivity of exhaust gas made by the Cambridge
Scientific Instrument Company (existing 1881-1968).
When Henri goes through the teleportation process from London to
Canada, he arrives in an unconscious condition. This seems to be
expected, as Martin and Tai have equipment on hand to revive
him, which they do calmly. In the previous two films, living
subjects did not arrive in an unconscious state.
When Patricia expresses surprise that Henri arrived home so soon
after she had been told he was still in London, Henri responds
with, "Travel is so much quicker these days. One can get
anyplace almost in a flash." He's making a bit of an
in-joke between him and his son, as the teleportation process is
nearly instantaneous and is accompanied by a bright flash of
light from the transmitting and receiving chambers.
Inspector Ronet drives a 1962 Chevrolet Bel Air model 1511 with
license plate 591151.
At 41:00 on the DVD, Henri's lips are moving before we hear
words come out of his mouth. It appears that some small bit of
dialog was muted after the scene had been shot.
At 43:42 on the DVD, a chess board is set up
on a swivel table in Inspector Charas' room when the nurse comes
in to tell him he has a phone call from Inspector Ronet. Only a
few moves appear to have been made on the board. Who was he
playing against and why was the game paused after such few
moves?
It's unknown whether Charas is in an old people's home
or just a standard hospital. He wears dark glasses over his eyes
for unstated reasons. Possibly, he's had some kind of eye
surgery.
Inspector Charas is played by Charles Carson. In
The Fly, Charas was
played by Herbert Marshall.
At 46:39 on the DVD, we see that the piano in the Delambre
mansion is a
C. Bechstein.
When Henri and Martin decide they must get rid of the deformed
Samuels and Dill by teleporting them to London for termination
and disposal by Albert, Martin uses what seems to be chloroform
to knock them out by pouring a small amount on a rag and tossing
it into a cell. I can't find any evidence that this would be an
effective way to knock out a person from the fumes, even in a
small, enclosed cell.
When Charas shows Ronet the photo of
André transformed into a human fly at 55:42 on the DVD, it is
actually a publicity still of Phillipe Delambre from
Return of the Fly, as
mentioned in Didja Know? above.
Charas remarks to Ronet that Martin and his father are affected
by cold and also by bouts of premature and very rapid aging
after the restoration of André. But why would either Henri or
Martin be effected by André's addition of fly genetics when
Henri was already born and adult at the stated time and
Martin born from his father's genes long after? Their aging
would seem to have nothing to do with André's inserted fly genes
and more (presumably) to their own experimentation with
teleportation.
When
Inspector Ronet wants to know what happened to Martin's first
wife Judith, Martin and his father tell him she left him and
vanished and he got a Mexican divorce. In the 1960s, a divorce
in Mexico was popular among some separating couples because
there was less red tape, it was cheaper, and it did not require
both spouses to be present. In the 1970s and onward, many
Mexican courts stopped accepting divorce petitions from
non-residents in accordance with new Mexican federal laws.
Tai and Wan take one of the Delambre's cars to escape. It is a
1961 Chevrolet Biscayne with license plate 631 432.
When
Inspector Ronet sees Tai and Wan fleeing in the vehicle, he soon
calls an APB out on them, describing the vehicle as a "1963 blue
Chevrolet." But the car seen in the film looks much more like
the 1961 Biscayne than the 1963 model.
Near the end of the film, as Martin's accelerated aging has him
collapsing into the cab of his station wagon, he quaveringly
utters the lines made famous in the first two Fly
films, "Help me...help me!"
Unanswered Questions
What happened to Albert Delambre? Was he ever tracked down in
London and held responsible for his complicity in his father's
and brother's actions? Or did he turn himself in out of a sense
of guilt?
Ideas in the film that may have inspired elements of
The Fly II
Martin Delambre's first name may have been borrowed for the lead
character of Martin Brundle in
The Fly II, though
I propose a different origination for the name in PopApostle's
study of that film.
In both films,
Martin is affected by bouts of very rapid aging, requiring
regular injections of serum. In
The Fly II, it is revealed
the injections were placebos.
The fused form of Bartok and Martinfly in
The Fly II
is foreshadowed in that of Samuels and Dill
when it arrives in the London materialization chamber here.
Memorable Dialog