Sunday, July 20, 2014

Movie review - "The Curse of the Fly" (1965) **

Third in The Fly franchise owes more to Jane Eyre than it's two predecessors with a disappointing lack of fly action. It's set in Canada, where a young scientist (okay maybe George Baker isn't that young) comes across a woman in her underwear (Carole Gray). They fall in love and get married - he doesn't tell her he's descended from the family of the original fly, and has relatives who are still performing operations (including Brian Donlevy, acting as if he's drunk most of the time). She doesn't tell him she's been married before and escaped from an insane asylum.

There are a bunch of badly-transported people locked up in various stables and rooms, plus a nasty housekeeper and some murders with an axe. The acting varies wildly - Gray is pretty but not very good, Baker alright, Burt Kwouk pops up in a support role.

Don Sharp's direction gives some occasional flourishes (I enjoyed the opening with Baker running around in her underwear in slow motion, and some of the killings and poking around at nightare effective). But there's only so much he can do with a silly script.

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