Famous Monsters: I read in the foreword that you always know when October arrives because your phone starts ringing. You have done a lot of work, great work besides The Fly (review), do you think you are remembered more for your role as Andre Delambre or for the large body of work you have contributed to the acting profession?

David: Both actually. Andre Delambre, Lee Crane and Felix Leiter (in two James Bond films – Let and Let Die and License to Kill) are the roles I am best known for – all over the world. I also did a National Tour of Chapter Two (the Neil Simon play) in 1979-80. Those are roles I consider my best known work out of the over 100 roles I’ve assayed in my 60 year career.

Famous Monsters: Does it amaze you at all that The Fly remains so popular and ingrained in the hearts of horror fans given the big budget, special effect extravaganzas we are bombarded with today?

David: Not at all. It tells a story. A good story, tragic and heartfelt, about this fantastic discovery — teleportation — that can change the world, but we as human beings don’t have the discipline or the knowledge to use it wisely. It’s a classic tragedy. I loved playing the part of the doomed scientist.

Famous Monsters: I make sure I watch three movies and one TV show every Halloween…It’s The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown, The Fly, Dracula with Bela and John Carpenter’s Halloween. What are your favorite Halloween movies?

David: Psycho — the 1960 Hitchcock version — is my favorite horror film. They don’t come any better than that.

Famous Monsters: What was the most enjoyable part you ever played?

David: A BBC TV version of Summer and Smoke was the best review I ever got. A PBS play by Oliver Hailey called For the Use of the Hall that aired in January of 1975 was the most fun I ever had doing a part. Lee Grant directed me and she was marvelous.

Famous Monsters: The least enjoyable.

David: The movie Undeclared War. I was in Poland. The Director, Ringo Lam, assured me I was far enough away from the explosion I wouldn’t have to worry. It went up, blew out all the glass windows in the entire block and shredded the suit I was wearing. There was no second take after that fiasco.

Famous Monsters: I really enjoyed how you talked about the special effects for the fly transformation and having an eyeball fall out, I think that would have been great. Can you imagine in that time period the screams you would have gotten from the audience?

David: I sat in back row of the Westwood Theatre in 1958 and I can assure you that the audience I was watching my film with was screaming …

I totally agree with you, however, that my ideas for progressive makeup for my character would have much more effective in scaring that audience than the mask the studio went with.

Famous Monsters: A little off the Fly topic but one interesting tidbit I really enjoyed is that you believed in true love like your parents and some friends had and that you only wanted to marry once. You met Bridget Mori, married her and are still together. Can you expound on what life is like with your one true love?

David: I knew when I saw her across the room in 1967, she was the one. Two lovely grown daughters later, she is still the one. You just know and you work at it and you always listen. It worked for me.

Famous Monsters: In closing, I find most of today’s horror / sci-fi to be, to put it kindly not very good. Today’s movies show everything no matter how disgusting and leave nothing for the audience to imagine. In other words, to me The Fly is magic and it seems to me that there is not much magic left in today’s cinema as compared to movies like The Fly. What are your thoughts?

David: Whatever happened to telling stories? Effects, no matter how good, cannot carry a film. You have to care about the characters, what their problems are. You want to root for them to be successful. One recent movie I saw that was violent and still had a story was No Country For Old Men, so they still can make them. I’m a big fan of Javier Bardem.

David Hedison
10/18/2009

Now fifty-years after the film was made, Diane Kachmar and David Goudsward have published The Fly At Fifty; The Creation And Legacy Of A Classic Science Fiction Film, with a foreword by the star Al (David) Hedison.

Let me start by saying that this is a meticulously researched and thoroughly in-depth book. The level of detail is grand in scope, while being entertaining at the same time.

They start from The Fly’s beginning; the original short story by George Langelaan published by Playboy in 1957 and take you on a nostalgic journey through the entire process that brought the short story to the final film we love today. There are detailed synopses of the main characters involved with the film from the producer/director Kurt Neumann to make-up artist Ben Nye.

What really stood out for me is the acting credentials of the cast before and after the film. Everyone knows about Vincent Price’s career but the rest of the cast’s credentials are pretty impressive. From TV to movies to theater this cast was an extremely talented bunch.

They did not stop at The Fly though. They also covered 1959′s Return of the Fly, 1965′s Curse of the Fly, the 1986 remake The Fly and The Fly II from 1989.

There is an extensive interview with Mr. David Hedison, a chapter about “The Fly in Popular Culture” and for an added treat, the original short story by Langelaan is also included. This was the icing on the cake as I had never read the short story before.

In closing I would like to say that if you are a fan of The Fly or just movies in general this book is a must buy and is highly recommended. It gives you a wonderful insight into the making of a science fiction classic with detail, clarity and an obvious love of this film.

Now some questions for the authors and Mr. David Hedison.

Famous Monsters: Notwithstanding the 50 year anniversary, why The Fly?

Diane: It’s a classic film that never had a book written about it. There has always been a lot of interest. The film has major cult status. We decided the 50th anniversary was the time to do it once and do it right.

Dave: The Fly is a movie that I’ve always felt was overlooked. Yet, ask a monster movie buff to name five famous monster movie quotes and “Help Me, Help Me” almost invariably shows up. Having the contact with David Hedison, rumors (at the time) of a new opera and the landmark anniversary just indicated the stars were aligned and it was time.

Famous Monsters: How long did you work on the book?

Diane: Almost 11 months

Dave: I’ll take Diane’s word for the duration. I usually have so many irons in the fire I can’t tell what day of the week it is, let alone how long I’ve worked on a project! I was finishing off my last book, Shadows Over New England, while simultaneously tracking down Charles Herbert and researching George Langelaan as Diane was doing most of the preliminary work on the Hedison chapters from her extensive Hedison archives.

Famous Monsters: Did it come as a surprise to you as it did to me, the serious acting chops the cast had, the body of work amongst them is astounding.

Diane: Some of the actors I knew had credits: Price, Marshall, Freeman. I wasn’t surprised to learn Meyer and Flowers and other supporting cast members had long résumés. This was Fox at the end of their studio era; they would have a cast like that. The names are lost on us, a generation that did not attend movies like our parents did, but studio contract players worked in picture after pictures in the thirties and forties and fifties.

Dave: I’m currently working on a book about horror movies filmed in Florida and some of them would not be nearly as dreadful if they had used professionals, not friends. It drives home the truism that a film is only as good as its worst actor. The Fly works because the cast is solid. Even parts like “matron sitting next to Andre at the ballet” were played by actors with extensive experience in films.

Famous Monsters: David Hedison seems like a very accessible man. How instrumental was he in doing this book?

Diane: He was key to the project as our witness to the filming of this motion picture. I was born in 1958 and Dave G. was born in 1961.

Hedison has a phenomenal memory of the shoot, considering he turned 81 while we were writing this book. He was very forthcoming with everything he did remember. I have corresponded with David Hedison for 25 years, and worked for the first 15 years in his (now defunct) fan club, so I know his style of working and he knows mine, so it didn’t take long to put this book together.

Famous Monsters: Did either of you ever read the short story before you did the book. Do you like it and how do you think the movie compares?

Dave: It’s a favorite of mine, right up with Lovecraft’s The Dunwich Horror and anything by Joseph Payne Brennan. The surprising part is how few of Langelaan’s other stories have held up over the years. Several of his stories were made into episodes of Night Gallery and Alfred Hitchcock Presents with capable casts and good directors, but who remembers them? The film works, both because of the story resonates with the audience’s suspicions that scientific progress can be reckless and because director Kurt Neumann used his roots in German Expressionism film to steer the film with a steady hand.

Diane: I first read it in the early 1980′s. It has a raw power on the page even now, although the language is somewhat dated. The movie is, of course, more dramatic and has scenes that are not in the story, but really work for the film. The resonance of the story and the unhappy ending (the wife’s suicide) works for the short story.

Famous Monsters: Did you like any of the original sequels or the newer remakes?

Diane: Return of the Fly was the best. The 1986 remake was not my cup of tea, but I found the 1989 sequel to it quite watchable.

Dave: I think Brett Halsey did the best he could with what they gave him. As for the Cronenberg remake, I’m still not convinced he ever saw the original film, let alone the original short story.

Famous Monsters: Are there any upcoming projects from either one of you that you can give us a little preview about?

Dave: I have more projects than I want to think about! My next horror-topical book is Shadows Over Florida, the second in a series of gazetteers on settings and filming locations used in horror movies, regional Gothic literature and contemporary horror fiction that is due out in summer of 2009. The previous book is the aforementioned Shadows Over New England which was published earlier this year.

Famous Monsters: In closing, was it a lot of fun to work on this book together and how did the collaboration go?

Diane: We have been doing David Hedison’s official web site: davidhedison.com together since August 2004. We help each other with research for our various books. I’m currently working on my 4th book. Dave G. always has a book in progress. So collaboration between us is easy, most of the time.

Dave: Diane is a grammar maven and very good at tracking down contemporary resources. I prefer to connect seemingly unrelated events through historical perspective and leave the fine-tuning of the text until the end. I think the combination works well, even when one of us wants to strangle the other one at least half the time.

See below for more details and order your copy of The Fly at Fifty here.

“Help me! Help me!”

Andre Delambre is a devoted husband, a loving father and a brilliant scientist. When his body is found in his laboratory with his arm and head crushed by a hydraulic press, his wife Helene admits to having killed him. Believing Helene incapable of such a crime, Andre’s brother slowly uncovers the truth – that an experiment with Andre’s new teleportation device went horribly wrong and Andre persuaded Helene to assist him in suicide.
When the American Film Institute distributed a ballot with 400 nominated movie quotes to a jury of over 1500 film industry figures, the abovequote came in 123rd. But this film’s influence extends far beyond a simple quote. The movie’s concept, ending and the quote have permeated pop culture from 1958 to The Simpsons to a 2008 opera based on a 1986 film remake by David Cronenberg.
The original movie The Fly was the surprise hit on 1958. Shot in 18 days at a cost of $450,00 dollars, it brought in $6 million, which at time when Fox Studios was in desperate need of a hit. It was the biggest box office film of director Kurt Neumann but he would never know – he died one month after the premiere (a week before the movie was released nationally).
This film made a star of David Hedison and cemented Vincent Price’s place among the horror film immortals. It is more than a tale of science gone wrong and hideous mutants. It is a film classic, the rare perfect blending of story, cast and crew, with the fantastic elements in sync with the universality of Andre’s struggle with what he had hoped to do with this technology and what actually happened to him. That struggle touches everyone who has ever watched this film and why, after 50 years, it remains a classic.
Complete with reminiscences from the film’s star, David Hedison, this book covers the history and legacy of this seminal science fiction film.  Just $21.95 + $5 priority mail (foreign orders please add $12 for airmail)

The Fly at Fifty:
The Creation and Legacy of a Classic Science Fiction Film

Foreword by Al David Hedison
Chapter One – The Making of a Classic
Chapter Two – Albert David Hedison, Jr.
Chapter Three – Starring Al Hedison
Chapter Four -  Main Cast
Chapter Five – Supporting Cast
Chapter Six – The Buzz on Vincent Price and The Fly by Cortlandt Hull
Chapter Seven – The Crew
Chapter Eight – Sequels and Remakes
Chapter Nine – The Fly in Popular Culture
Chapter Ten – A Little Something I Wrote on The Fly by Marty Baumann
Chapter Eleven – George Langelaan
Chapter Twelve- The Fly by George Langelaan
Afterword by Charles Herbert

CONTRIBUTORS
David Hedison starred in The Fly as doomed scientist Andre Delambre, his first starring role in a film and he’s never looked back. Best known  as Captain Lee Crane on Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and for appearing as Felix Leiter in two James Bond films, Live and Let Die and License to Kill, David remains active by working at the Actor’s Studio, appearing in regional theater and making an occasional personal appearance.

Charles Herbert was a familiar face to movie goers and television viewers throughout the 1950s and 1960s, appearing in twenty films in six years, along with countless television guest appearances. His career as a successful child actor came to an abrupt end when he grew up and fell through one of many cracks in the Coogan Law that supposedly protected child actors. Today, he is actively involved in A Minor Consideration, a non-profit foundation that offers guidance and support to young performers, past, present and future.

Marty Baumann is a writer, an illustrator and the creator of The Astounding B Monster, an award-winning website. He has written a book by the same name, devoted to B-movie history. Visit his web sites at www.bmonster.com

Cortlandt Hull is the owner of Witch’s Dungeon Classic Movie Museum in Bristol, Connecticut. A tribute to the monsters of the great movies of yesteryear, the museum doors have creaked open each Halloween since 1966. The displays feature realistic, life-size replicas of the classic creatures in tableaus from their films, with a number of figures created using the original molds and life masks. Hull, the great nephew of Henry Hull of Werewolf of London (1935) fame, was a friend of Vincent Price for over twenty years. Visit the Witch’s Dungeon online at www.preservehollywood.org

Diane C. Kachmar is a University Librarian at Florida Atlantic University. She maintains www.davidhedison.com and is the author of Roy Scheider: A Film Biography (2002). You can also visit her on the web at Author’s Den.

David Goudsward is the author of a variety of books, ranging from archaeology in Ancient Stone Sites of New England (2006) to horror movie settings in Shadows over New England (2008). His next book on H.P. Lovecraft’s visits to the Merrimack Valley of Massachusetts is due out in 2009.