ALL SCI-FI

[Bogmeister]

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__________________ The Fly (1958) - Trailer


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The downside of using a transporter (later employed as casual transportation on Star Trek TOS.

A scientist (David Hedison, credited as Al Hedison) invents this mechanism for transporting matter instantaneously, but encounters a horrific mishap when he accidentally transports himself with a common house fly. When he comes out of the “receiving booth” he has the head and claw of a fly (greatly enlarged). The fly, meanwhile, flies off with his head and arm (greatly miniaturized).



Most of the film is told in flashback. The scientist is found dead at the beginning, but his head & arm are crushed in a hydraulic press. So, the audience and the police are unaware of his recent transformation. The wife (Patricia Owens) confesses to the murder, but it's a mystery as to why she did it. She relates what happened to the scientist's brother (Vincent Price).

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A problem I've had with this story's concept since seeing it as a kid is the question of why the fly's brain wasn't transferred to the scientist along with the head. But that would have been another type of story.

The horror of the story is that the scientist is fully aware of what has happened to him. He can no longer communicate verbally, resorting to written notes, but he has full comprehension of the horror that has encompassed hi — as does, later, the wife.

Also tense is the scenario of capturing the errant fly so that the two can once again transport together and possibly reintegrate correctly. They come close to getting that fly, but it just was not to be. Would it have worked? We'll never know. It's a gripping combination of science fiction concepts and pure horror.

The sequel was Return of the Fly the following year, involving the scientist's son. Then, years later, a 2nd sequel which diverged from the stories in the first two, Curse of the Fly. A famous remake by Cronenberg was in 1986. That one also had a sequel.

BoG's Score: 7.5 out of 10

__ The Remaker: The Fly (1958) vs. The Fly (1986)


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BoG
Galaxy Overlord Galactus

[Bud Brewster]

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Bogmeister brought up an interesting question.

[johnnybear]

I still cringe when I think of this film! It's brilliant! The sort of film that makes you think about things a long time after you've seen it! That spider still gives me nightmares!
JB

[Bud Brewster]

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Damn right, JB!

The scientist's brilliant invention, which would have transformed the world by revolutionizing transportation and shipping (instantly sending food to starving populations, etc.), turned the poor man into a hideous monster that his beautiful wife couldn't even bear to look at.

And then, after the Fly Man destroys himself with the help of his brave and loyal wife, the man-fly is shown in the web, screaming for help right up the moment the spider descends on him!



Both the Fly Man and the man-fly had enough intelligence to fully appreciate the horror of their situations. So, it's doubly tragic that David Hedison's character had to die TWICE!
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Bud Brewster]

[The Spike]

It'd be funny if life wasn't so sacred.

The Fly is directed by Kurt Neumann and adapted to screenplay by James Clavell from the short story written by George Langelaan. It stars David Hedison, Patricia Owens, Vincent Price, Herbert Marshall, Kathleen Freeman and Betty Lou Gerson. Music is by Paul Sawtell and cinematography by Karl Struss.

When science goes berserk, The Fly finds Hedison as scientist Andre Delambre, who after successfully inventing the ability to transmit matter from one place to another - falls prey to a cruel slice of horrific fate...

Kurt Neumann would sadly pass away shortly after The Fly was released. Itself a terrible shame, it's doubly sad that he didn't get to see his film become a cult favourite with longevity assured. It's a film that smartly blends sci-fi with horror, and even managing to be fun into the bargain.

It's sometimes by modern observers accused of being too slow, but really it's a lesson in fine story telling. For at the heart of the tragic tale is a bountiful love story, the loyalty of a great wife in full effect. Throw in Andre's stoic pursuit of a science to benefit mankind, and this is a film that needs time to lay the story foundations.

Once we get to the horrors, and the surviving characters of the flashback structure play out this fateful tale, it simultaneously grips and fascinates. The effects work of course now looks a bit creaky, but those who first sampled them many decades ago have never ever forgotten the impact of the critical sequences.

Two pretty poor sequels would follow, which in turn would see a brilliant remake by David Cronenberg some 28 years later. Neumann's film is still a great piece of 1950s sci-fi, clinically adapted from a genius piece of short story writing. Loop holes exist, of course, but who cares, dive in and be haunted by what transpires on the screen. 8/10
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The quality of mercy is not strnen.

[Bud Brewster]

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Thinking Outside the "Plot"!
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~ A Question for the Members: If David Hedison's dream of a world with rapid matter transference had come to pass, what would our civilization have been like?

~ My Theory: Actually, award-winning science fiction author Larry Niven outlined both the good and the bad aspects of this miraculous technology.

Yes, we could send food all around the world and prevent the areas with a surplus of food from discarding it — while other areas which are suffering from famine are desperately in need!

But this two-egged sword would also allow people in overcrowded areas to "beam over" to idyllic paradises like Tahiti and flood them with homeless, hungry people!

The point is that allowing the world's population to leave the bad areas in which they've been forced to live and instantly travel to any place they think would be better . . . would soon turn the entire worlds into a place where NOBODY wants to live!
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Bud Brewster]

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I don't know why I didn't think of this before!

David Hedison's matter transmitter probably only works if the transmitter and receiver are in direct line-of-sight. Unfortunately that means they would have a limited range of about three miles — the distance to the horizon on flat land or the ocean.





To transmit anything further than that, a series of relay stations would be needed. This prevents some of the things I described above, such as allowing people and material to be instantaneously transmitted to any point on Earth.

Here's the real kicker which this causes . . .

The accumulated time delay accrued by a person or object going from one relay station to the next would be considerable. For example, it's 2,412 miles from Charlotte to Los Angeles. That distance would require a minimum of 804 relay station, positioned about 3 miles apart.





If a person were traveling from coast to coast, he'd have to be transmitted 804 times! To put it politly, folks . . . that sucks!

If each transmission took thirty seconds to disassemble and reassemble his atoms, the total trip time (if uninterrupted) would be 402 minutes . . . or almost 7 hours!

Hell's bells, it only takes 5 hours to fly that distances in a nice comfortable jet airliner — and you can eat meals on the plane, go the rest room, and watch movies!

Furthermore, nobody is going to want to have their atoms dissembled and reassembled 804 times over a 7 hour period!

For years I've been thinking that David Hedison's matter transmitter would revolutionize transportation and commerce. Ditto for Jeff Goldblum's matter transmitter pods, which probably have the same unfortunate limitations!

Admittedly these amazing devices might have been capable of transmitting matter right through the Earth, so an object in America would arrive in Australia within seconds. If that's the case, then my dire predictions are wrong — thank goodness!

However, even if the matter transmitters are limited to line-of-sight transmission, they might still have a use that would be a tremendous boon to mankind!

What if theses devices could transmit matter over incredibly long distances . . . through space!

If that were true, traveling to and from destinations like space stations, lunar cities, and Martian colonies would be nearly instantaneous! Not only could people travel to and from these places, supplies of all kinds could also be sent to these off-world destinations!











[size=22Mining camps on the Moon would send minerals to Earth for processing. The same could be done by deep space habitats in the asteroid belt which send ore they've minded from asteroids.[/size]





So, even though the matter transmitters in both versions of The Fly might be less useful on Earth than I'd previously thought, they might prove to be the greatest gift to mankind possible, because they would allow us to travel through space faster than any spacecraft ever conceived!
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And just to conclude this rather lengthy intellectual and ponderous post on a light-hearted note, here's a YouTube video that tickled my fancy until it begged for mercy!

I will never again be able to watch the heart-rending spiderweb scene in this movie without giggle in a totally inappropriate manner!

Remember, you were warned.

________________ "The Fly" Alternate Ending


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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[scotpens]

[Gord Green]

Bud, your argument reminds me of the difference in AC current transmission and DC transmission. (The Edison - Westinghouse debate from the early 1900's.)

Of course the exact "physics" behind THE FLYs matter transfers is rather unclear in the movie, as it only refers to changing matter to energy...transmitting that energy...and then reconverting that energy back to the same matter in the same condition as the original. Rather hazy physics at best, but a great story!
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There comes a time, thief, when gold loses its lustre, and the gems cease to sparkle, and the throne room becomes a prison; and all that is left is a father's love for his child.

[Bud Brewster]

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Good point. I admire the way you aren't making unsubstantiated assumptions

The way David Hedison talks about the teleportation device, he seemed to be suggesting that it could send anything from anywhere to anywhere — as long there was a booth to receive the disassembled atoms and reassemble them.

However, there's no way to tell from watching movie if there's a cable that connects the booths.

In the remake, however, there ARE large cables connecting the "pods". In fact, blasting one of the cables with a shotgun was a key moment in the climax!

If cables are required, it would diminish the usefulness of the booths, because they would need millions of miles of cables running all over the world to be effective in the manner David Hedison described. He said it would end world hunger by teleporting food from areas which had surpluses to areas which had food shortages!

Installing that cable network would be expensive and time consuming — but probably worth it in the long run.

But of course, my comment about using the teleportation system to travel to space stations, the Moon, and Mars won't work if the device requires hardwired connections.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Gord Green]

Bud, I thought the big cables were power cables: That is they provided the huge amount of power required to run the pods.

Of course they may very well have been connectors between the pods. Could have been done for experimental purposes in the lab setting with the intension of remote placement in a practical way.
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There comes a time, thief, when gold loses its lustre, and the gems cease to sparkle, and the throne room becomes a prison; and all that is left is a father's love for his child.

[Bud Brewster]

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By gum, I think you're right!

The pods would need a butt-load of power, and the whole idea of teleportation is that it works with nothing but a sending unit and a receiving unit!

Sort of like "wifi for physical matter"!

Thanks for straightening me out! I'm delight that my dream of instantaneous travel to the Moon is still possible without having to run a 240,000 mile-long cable to our satellite!
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[johnnybear]

Even if this is one day possible, will the scientists ever be able to differentiate one type of atom from another, or devise a protecting force to stop the human's molecules from degrading, or from being encroached upon by those of a fly or any other type of hidden life form also in the chamber with the transportee?
JB

[Bud Brewster]

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How right you are, sir! You've described the potential hazards of this technology perfectly!

Famed sci-fi author Larry Niven describes "transfer booths" in many of his novels and short stories. He presents them as reliable, easy to use, cheap to operate, and commonly located at all the old airports around the world where people once had to board jetliners to travel around the world, before that potentially dangerous mode of travel became obsolete.

Mr. Niven's transfer booths apparently don't involve any the dangers you so eloquently described, nor do they require the safeguards you suggested.

But we should bare in mind that the miracles of technology mankind has envisioned often turn out to be fraught with dangers we never anticipated! The best example of this is atomic energy. I seemed like a dream come true — a cheap and inexhaustible energy source!

What could possible go wrong?

Ask that question to the folks involved with Chernobyl, or the people in Japan who are still struggling with the flooded nuclear power plant at the three Fukushima Daiichi reactors.

Technology as complex as a device which can disassemble and then resemble a person's atoms after transmitting them to another location will require a staggering number of safeguards to prevent tragic mishaps.

The transporters in Star Trek have addressed this issue extremely well. They are, for the most part, highly reliable!

And yet there are numerous episodes which involve transporter mishaps, starting in Star Trek TOS and continuing through Star Trek: The Motion Picture and all the later series!

JB, your cautionary message above is definitely a "word to the wise". My advise to all the folks who value the integrity of their physical structures over a little time saved in transit would be . . .

. . . take the train!



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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)