"When I read the script, I believed it," says David Hedison, the first actor to take on the hybrid role. Forced to perform under heavy prosthetics, the actor spent much of the movie silent. "My best acting was under the cloth," he says. Stripped of a voice, this Fly channels fears about what science -- specifically nuclear energy -- might yield during the Cold War.

The Fly, David Hedison, 1958. © 20th Century Fox Film Corp./ Courtesy of the Everett Collection.