L'Inévitable Catastrophe

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.

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.

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.

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)

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.