L'Inévitable Catastrophe

"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.

In the 1970s, Irwin Allen had a string of hits using the same formula. He'd hire a bunch of A-list actors to appear in his films as 'guest stars' and then put them in the middle of some disaster such as an earthquake, shipwreck or a giant fire. While these films were pretty mindless and silly, they made lots of money...until "The Swarm". In contrast to his previous films, "The Swarm" kept the public away in (dare I say) swarms. It lost many millions--so much that Allen stopped making these mega-budgeted movies*. Frankly, this wasn't such a bad thing as the noted producer/director had simply gone to the well one time too many and the public was sick of these sort of pictures. Still, you have to wonder if despite all this, is "The Swarm" a decent film? Read on....

When the film begins, a variety of bee-induced accidents occur. When a top beeologist (or whatever you call them) tries to help, Dr. Crane (Michael Caine) is treated like dirt by the military, particularly General Slater (Richard Widmark). Grudgingly, they allow him to help but what can they do with some seriously nastified Africanized bees?! Not much--at least for much of the film, as you see tons of folks being attacked by these nasty bugs. Time and again, folks writhe about with bees or stunt bees buzzing about them.

Technically speaking, this film really isn't much different from other Allen mega-pictures. The characters are shallow and underdeveloped and writing is certainly NOT a strong point in the film. What sets this one apart is the bee attacks. While Allen and his staff tried hard to make it look realistic, watching famous and respected actors writhing about and thrashing as they're supposedly being killed by bees is unintentionally hilarious! Seeing someone burned to death in "The Towering Inferno" or drowning in "The Poseidon Adventure" isn't funny and really couldn't be. That is the main difference between "The Swarm" and previous Allen epics. Seeing Olivia de Havilland (one of my favorite actresses) moaning is funny! How often can you see super- famous Oscar-winning actress embarrass herself like this?! And don't just blame her...lots of other very respected actors appear in this silly film. However, the funniest acting is by the extras--as folks being attacked by bees invariably drive into walls (and explode), run about screaming as they're engulfed in flames and generally just run amok!!

"The Official Razzie Movie Guide" listed this film in their book of biggest mistakes in Hollywood history. Given that their list is heavy on the films of the last 40 years and how much money the film lost, I think it's a reasonable inclusion. But this does not mean its a horrible film--far worse have been made over the years. But few lost as much money as this one did and made bigger fools of a bunch of famous actors.

*Allen did make "Beyond the Poseidon Adventure" a few years after this film but with many more B-listers in the film and a budget a tiny fraction of "The Swarm".

Michael Caine should have got his Oscar for uttering that line.

I was actually scared by this movie on TV when I was young because of the scene of the children being "swarmed" at recess. Yet a quarter of a century later, I had to get the DVD because this is one movie guaranteed to cheer me up. It's all been said in other comments - cheese, camp, so bad it's good. Ed Wood would be proud.

The scenes between Caine's scientist and Widmark's general are all classics. The icing on the cake is the two scenes with Slim Pickens. And the debate between Caine and Chamberlain over whether the bees should be called African or Brazilian. By the way, why does Richard Chamberlain look like he's on a break from a touring company of Victor/Victoria?

One plus of the DVD version is a half hour behind the scenes feature: "Inside the Swarm". You get to see several of the actors talk with utmost sincerity (and straight faces!) about the "real" dangers of killer bees.

The folks who wrote "Airplane!" couldn't even make a parody of this -- it's already hysterical.

Whenever I bother to watch "The Swarm," I'm always tempted to get out the Windex and spray the TV screen until I remember those dark smudges are supposed to be killer bees, the star attraction of what proved to be disaster flick king Irwin Allen's last box-office hit (and a modest one at that). That's the number one problem with this movie. How can killer bees incite terror in the viewer when they only amount to a bunch of dots on the screen?

Since the "horror" has no sting, the only thing left to do is gawk at the movie stars. Give Allen credit. Even if he wasn't much of a director (this film marked his debut in that capacity), and was strictly a schlockmeister as a producer, he did what many others, including the producers of "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," had tried and failed to do when he brought megastars Steve McQueen and Paul Newman together to headline "The Towering Inferno." The lineup for "The Swarm" doesn't have quite the same star power, but we do get Michael Caine, Katharine Ross, and Richard Widmark, as well as cameos by Henry Fonda and Fred MacMurray, along with the TV names that always round out these "all-star casts." If star watching doesn't keep you occupied, Allen's dreadful direction may keep you glued to your chair in bewilderment by his idea of style. My favorite scene is the first confrontation between bee expert Caine and short-tempered military man Widmark. While the two stars argue back and forth, the camera slowly circles the pair as if something very dramatic is taking place. It must be the worst staging of a scene since Ed Wood was grinding out another kind of B movie. But Wood's movies were more entertaining than "The Swarm," and although there are more unintended laughs to come, there not enough to combat the boredom.

Irwin Allen's first two disaster movies, "The Poseidon Adventure" and "The Towering Inferno" worked as above average productions because there always seemed to be one foot in the ground of pseudo-reality that made you feel compelled by what you saw. But more importantly, Allen had competent directors like Ronald Neame and John Guillermin handling the actors and the end-result usually produced good performances, considering the material (especially Steve McQueen in "Inferno.") Unfortunately, with "The Swarm" Allen went to the well once too much and served up a more outlandish kind of disaster story, and to complicate matters further he took over the director's chores himself and boy does it show. There is literally no coherent story structure at all in this film, and the all-star cast is uniformly bad from top to bottom. What was Allen thinking with that pointless love-triangle plot involving the over-the-hill gang of Fred MacMurray, Ben Johnson and Olivia de Havilland? Did he really expect people to take seriously lines like "The bees have always been our friends!" or "Attention, a swarm of killer bees is coming this way!" This is the kind of movie that might have worked as a short, low-budget B/W flick in the 50s (okay, a "B" movie, no pun intended) but as a follow-up to solid efforts like "The Poseidon Adventure" and "The Towering Inferno" this film is only good from a silly camp standpoint.