The Fly (1986)

this movie annoyed me as a teen. I could never decide whether or not Goldblum's penis was visible in the scene op linked.

The scene in OP's pic was one of the first times I felt a stirring in my pants, watching it on TV late at night as a kid. I had no fucking clue what it was, only that a vague feeling of "well, crap" was arising at the same time.

Goldblum really transformed into a hot guy for this film. I only knew him prior from The Big Chill.

This scene and the ending scene are the most heartbreaking moments

The ending makes me cry. Seriously, so sad.

I thought Jeff Goldblum was so sexy in this. I wish he had a full-on nude scene though.

He and Geena Davis were excellent in this film. They really sold the story which was a hard sell. The ending is tragic and devastating.

It sucked when they broke up in real life because they were such a quirky couple and I loved them on screen (The Fly, Earth Girls Are Easy).

Wasn't there a story that at some Playboy mansion party one of the playmates referred to Goldblum's dick "Brundlefly"? And he cracked up.

He was so hot in this. Lucky Geena. I too miss them as a couple

Yeah, I cry at this movie, too. People think I’m insane when I tell them, but I just assume they’ve never actually seen it. It’s a truly powerful tragedy.

Cronenberg's films at this time were all deeply melancholy and imbued with an overwhelming sadness. I think of those films as a trilogy or three film cycle: DEAD ZONE --> THE FLY --> DEAD RINGERS. I can't think of many films that are as deeply moving as those. That sense of sadness in all three really stays with you for days after seeing them.

The only thing I remember about The Fly is the very end. But still so disturbing!

When Goldblum and Geena Davis divorced, Davis then married Director Renny Harlin, and Goldblum got engaged to Harlin's then ex-girlfriend, Laura Dern.

And they all lived......Actually, they all probably hate each other now.

We’ve seen his dick. He’s hung.

For awhile, there were some nasty rumors about Jeff Goldblum. Danny Thomas-like rumors, for those who know what I'm talking about.

Cronenberg called it his meditation on ageing, after his father died of a particularly debilitating and sad disease. You can definitely feel the melancholy at seeing a loved person transform so radically.

It took me a long time to recover from that inside-out baboon.

R13 where you see some dick at? Lots of bulges but no dick in that film :(.

R8 I love when he comes out of the pod thing and fucks the blonde . I envied her fictitious hole for having him inside of her.

I loved this movie, it was so gross but so well done. I have always found Goldblum very sexy.

Tragic that he was snubbed by the Academy that year.

Details please! R14

R4, is that Michael Jackson?

The movie The Fly was also made in the 1950's. That one had lots of blinking lights which were par for the course for computers back then. And it has a similar gruesome ending. They didn't have good CGI back then but they knew tricks of the camera and exploited them.

Now the 1986 version - the story changes a little bit. The Bartok industries thing kicks in number one. And Staphis Barnes wasn't in the 50's version. But the one thing the 1986 version had in spade was the grotesque scenes. They were awesome.

The 1958 original has one of the boldest openings of any film I've ever seen. The scientist's head and arm have been crushed in a giant hydraulic press and his wife confesses to the crime. The story is told in flashback.

Not one scene in the 86 version is wasted, and each scene builds on to the next with making the ending so moving. I saw it twice at the movies, the first time "for the film" the second for the themes and relationship. It's one of the best films of that year, overlooked because of the "Horror" aspect.

R14 I don't know who that is. Care to elaborate on the rumours?

The only slight flaw with Cronenberg's films are that his characters are are often firmly rooted in the fashion of the day they were made, so they tend to look a little dated on that front. Michael Mann is the worst on that score.

I know that it was rumored that Jeff was a notorious spreader of herpes.

Never saw it. I don't like Goldblum (particularly in L&O) and the earlier version of The Fly was great -- who needs some shitty remake?

R25 This.

^^It could be true about Goldblum. But it could also be true that he mistreated one of his exes so badly that she started the rumor.

Jeff Goldblum should have been nominated for an Academy Award for this role. It's a crime that he didn't get a nomination.

I was always scared of this movie as a kid, especially the arm wrestling scene when he rips a guy’s arm off. I can’t believe they aired this on TV.

Gina noticing the coarse hairs on Jeffs back freaked me out.

The arm wrestling did too.

Jeff looks like a fly withnhis big protruding eyes

Geena giving birth to a slimy maggot in a dream sequence.. I lost it as a kid, I was phobic about worms and larvae and squiggly things like that. I think I even had a nightmare.

I saw this when it came out and I was struck by how unexpectedly sad and tragic the ending was.

BTW I believe the original version was Luis Buñuel's all time favorite film.

Another BTW: Martin Scorsese once joked that Cronenberg looked like a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon, so in The Fly Cronenberg cast himself as obstetrician . . .

What was this movie about?

"What was this movie about?"

A scientific experiment gone dreadfully wrong. It also includes a love story. Watch it, lazybones.

Cronenberg says that when he first met Scorsese in the late-70s/early-80s, he said he was surprised that Cronenberg wasn't a creep, after having seen his films, he was nothing like Scorsese had expected. Cronenberg said he was shocked that even Scorsese, a filmmaker himself, assumed the person who directed horror films must be a creep.

R29 Thanks for the link. I hope it isn't true.

Watch the original "The Fly" starring Vincent Price.

First saw this as a kid. Love Story......HaHaHa!

I first watched this film at the movie theatre when I was 4 years old. My parents took their 4 year old to watch the fly. It was either the fly or Howard the duck but I insisted on the fly because I thought it was about butterflies. Needless to say I couldn't sleep for weeks and was utterly traumatized but it was a contributing factor to my becoming a film fanatic. This one of my favorite movies. The horror and the gore traumatized me as a child however as an adult I now recognize and appreciate the film for what it was: a very tragic love Story. Even after watching it hundreds of times I am still moved to tears at the end. Cronenberg says Seth's transformation was his interpretation of getting old but it really seemed to be (especially in 1986) a more accurate comparison to someone succumbing to AIDS. Absolutely heartbreaking. Geena and Jeff really knocked it out the park. When the sequel came out to terrible reviews I refused to see it (especially since cronenberg wasn't involved) until 2 years ago. It doesn't even compare to the 1986 version which I knew would be the case but it wasn't as awful as I had imagined.

Fun fact: the actress playing Geena Davis in the labor scene in the fly part 2 is saffron Henderson who played the heavy metal chick in Friday the 13th part 8.

Why do people keep saying this is a very tragic love Story? This was a romance? Isn’t this just about a guy who turns into a fly and dies? How do they even drag this out to two hours?

R43 did you even watch the movie? A guy doesn't just turn into a fly and dies. In the 1958 version yeah sort of but not the 1986 version.

I'm a Human Fly, and I don't know why I got Ninety-Six Tears . . . And Ninety-Six EYES!!!

Everyone needs to watch the god damned 1986 version of the fly. Do it now my fellow DL'ers! Seriously.

The Fly was when I first realized what a hot body Jeff Goldblum had.

[quote]Watch it, lazybones

I haven't heard that expression in years. Thanks for the laugh

"Why do people keep saying this is a very tragic love Story? This was a romance?"

I will explain it to you. Ronnie and Seth fall in love. It looks like it will be a great romance, but then Seth's experiment goes awry and he starts morphing into a hideous monstrous fly creature. But Ronnie still loves him. There's a scene where Seth reaches for a pastry or doughnut or something (as he turns into a fly he develops a strong craving for sugar); since flies break down their food by spewing an acidic discharge on it he vomits goo onto his snack. Embarrassed and ashamed he mumbles "oh...that is disgusting." Ronnie is appalled and revolted and in tears but she still feels such love and compassion for Seth that she reaches out and pulls him to her in an embrace. I saw the movie in a theater and that scene elicited screams of shock from the audience. It would appear that she must have REALLY loved him. And he loved her, until his transformation warps his mind. I think this movie definitely did have what could be called a tragic love story.

Taint Ani was a tragic love story too.

I too watched this on cable as a kid and was horribly traumatized.

And majorly turned on by Goldblum. I too didn't even know what "turned on" was.

Here is a piece of trivia that I don’t think anyone else knows:

In Goldblum’s loft/studio toward the beginning of the film, there is an upright piano with various classical music books scattered on it. One of the books is Bela Bartok’s “Mikrokosmos, Volume VI” which contains a piece titled “From the Diary of a Fly.”

I noticed it immediately when I first saw the movie.

Also, Seth Brundle works for Bartok industries.

Me too. Wonderful movie. Very moving.

Enough can't be said of the impact of Howard Shore's Glassian/Goreckian score. The scene below features a beautiful underpaid chorale, until the air is broken by the devastating death knell of Brundle's Theme at 1:58 on the line "I'll hurt you if you stay." It's so skillfully melded to the rhythms and pitch of Goldblum's speech, it reminds me of an operatic accompaniment to an aria.

The cue alone.

Oops.

"Be afraid. Be very afraid."