The Fly Guy: A weird, twitchy mess worth a look

Is it worth the watch?

Look, if you are the type of person who needs a tight script and high-end polish, skip this. You will probably find it boring or just plain baffling. But if you dig movies that feel like they were made in someone’s backyard because they just wanted to see what would happen? Yeah, pull up a chair. 🪰

It’s not as polished as Seine Hoheit, der Eintänzer, that’s for sure. The pacing feels like a guy trying to drive a car with a square wheel—it’s bumpy, it stops when you don't want it to, and then it suddenly jumps forward three blocks.

Harry Bailey is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. Sometimes he looks like he’s actually having a breakdown on camera, which might be acting or just sheer exhaustion. I couldn't tell. I don't think he knew either.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of The Fly Guy (1931) through its definitive frames.

The bits that stuck

• There is a scene in the hallway that lasts way too long. The shadows are all wrong, and you can see the lead actor looking toward the camera like he’s waiting for a cue that never comes.
• The dialogue sounds like it was written on a napkin during lunch.
• I actually laughed when the hat fell off. It wasn’t meant to be funny, I’m pretty sure, but it was just so awkwardly timed.

John Foster shows up for a few minutes and just stands there looking confused. It’s perfect. It makes the whole thing feel more human, you know? Like, half the cast is just as lost as the audience is.

It reminded me a bit of the aimless energy in The Hayseeds Come to Sydney, but with less charm and more weird, static shots of doorways. You really start to notice the wallpaper pattern after the fourth minute of staring at a locked door.

Final thoughts, maybe

The movie gets noticeably better once it stops trying to tell a coherent story and just lets the characters wander around. It’s got a weird, dusty vibe to it. Almost like you’re watching a dream that someone else had and forgot to write down properly. 🌀

It’s not going to change your life. It won't win any awards. But there's something honest about how messy it is. Most modern stuff is so sterilized that it feels like plastic, but this? This feels like it might actually fall apart if you look at it too hard.