The Swarm

The subject line says it all: this is a B-Movie about, well, bees. Sorry about the pun! Despite the big budget and big cast, this essentially is an old 1950's style B-Movie, and in that way it works very well as a guilty pleasure. Mixing together the cliched concepts of both a creature feature with a 70's disaster epic, what The Swarm ends up as is not quite exactly either one, but certainly a good part of both. The effects are good but not great, some of the performances are pretty good (Richard Widmark I thought played Slater very well), and it kept my interest for its entire (extended) running time. This one is worth checking out if you are a fan of Irwin Allen, bug movies, or 70s-style monster movies.

There is no doubt that Irwin Allen's killer bee thriller "The Swarm" is considered by most people who have seen it as one of the worst motion pictures ever made. Movie critics came down hard on it when first released in 1978, putting it on their lists as one of the worst movies of the year. I hate to admit this, but "The Swarm" is one of my guilty pleasures. Sure its a bad film, but I found myself kinda liking it anyway. I don't know why. If it weren't so stupid like Allen's other disaster epics, this would be a great film. But its stupidity keeps this from being a classic. However it can be considered a classic on another level, a camp classic. To watch all these wonderful actors (Michael Caine, Katherine Ross, Richard Widmark, Henry Fonda, Richard Chamberlain, Olivia De Havilland, Fred MacMurray, Ben Johnson, Lee Grant, Jose Ferrer, Patty Duke, and Slim Pickens) in a movie featuring some of the most laughable dialogue ever heard is kind of a shame (seven of those actors are Oscar winners!), but the scenes when the bees are on screen attacking everybody and destorying property are entertaining. The special effects are mediocre to be sure, but not as bad as they were in Irwin Allen's dreadful "When Time Ran Out" which came out two years after this. I dunno. "The Swarm" is no doubt one of the strangest movies I've ever seen. Bad movie buffs will lap this up. The raising question I ask myself about this film is "How can you like a movie that is so badly made?" The answer is "I don't know." I did like some of it, but surely not enough to recommend it. I give "The Swarm" a mixed review.

**1/2 (out of four)

Others have written much better synopses than I can. I'd rather give some historical context to this movie.

There was a shift in cinematography in the 1970s as a response to the loss of the Vietnam War, the distrust of government following Water Gate, and repeated environmental disasters like the Cuyahoga River Fire. This movie, albeit cliché and contrived, exemplifies this: the bees are an environmental mutation, the military just wants to nuke the bees, but the scientists refuse, and the protagonists shouts down the general stating that the bees annually pollinate billions of dollars worth of crops and people would starve. The nuclear power plant manager ignores the scientists' advice creating a nuclear explosion.

The miltary is heavy handed and incompetent. The population is under threat because of the environmental disaster of migratory and mutated bees. Nuclear power is dangerous - even if just used for electricity generation. The towns people themselves are oblivious and helpless to what is happening to them. Even the end has an ominous warning: "if we use our time wisely, the world just might survive."

If one wants to watch this from an analyticals perspective regarding subliminal take on popular culture's turn against the Cold War dominating the United States for the last 3 decades, have a gander. Or, if you like cheesy monster movies, give it a spin.

But otherwise, it's overripe with a flimsy, cheesy, and predicatable plot, generic dialogue, and a laughable premise. As such, I'd tell most people to pass on it.

"The Swarm" has its share of flaws, no doubt about that: it's overlong, it's filled with genre cliches (many veterans cast in pointless supporting roles, indifferent romances) and it's occasionally overacted, especially by Michael Caine, who has a role far below his abilities. However, those who are calling it "terrible" and "campy" are REALLY overdoing it. The special effects are actually FIRST-RATE and most of the attack sequences are utterly convincing. Don't judge the film on the basis of its bad reputation; watch it for yourself and you'll discover that, while it's not an "art" film, it's an agreeable way to kill two hours.

THE SWARM

Aspect ratio: 2.39:1 (Panavision)

Sound format: 4-track magnetic stereo

A swarm of African killer bees rampage across America's south-west before descending on Houston, destroying everything in their path.

Contrary to popular opinion, THE SWARM is not the worst movie ever made, and anyone who says otherwise clearly hasn't seen the collected works of Jesùs Franco, Andy Milligan or Woody Allen (just kidding!). Representing the last gasp of the disaster cycle inaugurated by Ross Hunter's big-time adaptation of Arthur Hailey's AIRPORT (1969) and further popularized by the likes of THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE (1972) and THE TOWERING INFERNO (1974) - the latter a bona fide Hollywood classic - THE SWARM encapsulates director Irwin Allen's basic commercial ethos: Big stars, big set-pieces, and big drama.

Taking its cue from previous small-scale entries like THE DEADLY BEES (1966) and TERROR OUT OF THE SKY (1978), Allen's old-fashioned monster movie revels in the destruction of towns, trains, nuclear power plants and the reputations of numerous high-profile actors. However, Stirling Silliphant's script is so hokey, it's difficult to believe he wasn't poking inglorious fun at the entire project: Michael Caine is so obviously miscast (as a 'brilliant' entomologist), and so clearly contemptuous of the material, his expression never changes throughout the entire film, though co-star Richard Widmark gives it everything he's got as a gruff military type who's eager to quell the threat by bombing everything in sight. Henry Fonda rises above the fray as a dedicated immunologist, and Slim Pickens is quietly dignified as a bereaved father, while Olivia De Havilland forms the centerpiece of a gentle romantic subplot (she's courted by Fred MacMurray and Ben Johnson). Richard Chamberlain, Lee Grant, Jose Ferrer, Bradford Dillman and Patty Duke Astin are featured in supporting roles alongside leading lady Katharine Ross, who seems particularly embarrassed by her ridiculous dialogue (get a load of her hysterical reaction to the death of a sympathetic younger character - if you lean forward, you can almost *smell* the ham!).

The film exists in two separate versions: The 116 minute theatrical print, and an expanded 'director's cut' running 155 minutes which pads the narrative with pointless dialogue exchanges, turning a tightly constructed disaster thriller into an endless yak-fest. Stick with the original.