ferbs54
Immediately before the release of his $21 million disaster epic "The Swarm" in July '78, producer/director Irwin Allen boasted to the press that he thought the film would be "the most terrifying movie ever made." And the so-called "Master of Disaster" had good reason to feel confident; his previous films, "The Poseidon Adventure" and "The Towering Inferno," had been monster hits, performing remarkably well at the box office. But "The Swarm," which dealt with an attack of African killer bees in the American Southwest, failed to live up to expectations, and indeed brought in a mere $7 million in box office returns. The reviews were scathing, with "The New York Times" calling the film "the surprise comedy hit of the season" and London's "Sunday Times" deeming it "simply the worst film ever made." "Time Out" has gone on to call it a "risibly inadequate disaster movie," the "Maltin Movie Guide" has awarded it its lowest BOMB rating, while the Medved Brothers, in their "Golden Turkey Awards" book, give it the prize for The Most Badly Bumbled Bee Movie of All Time. So IS "The Swarm" the worst movie ever made? Well, of course not, and all those who have heaped such savage and hyperbolic condemnations on the film have obviously never seen such truly awful and ineptly made motion pictures as "The Beast of Yucca Flats," "Horror of the Blood Monsters," "Dracula vs. Frankenstein," "The Worm Eaters" and "Blood Freak." But is "The Swarm" a good film; a quality motion picture? Well, I wouldn't go THAT far.The film, to my great surprise, is fun to watch, and several of the sequences involving those bee attacks are exciting and fairly well done. And if the film truly IS as bad as they say (perhaps I should add here that I have a very high tolerance for shlock cinema, and that the print of "The Swarm" that I recently watched was the theatrical, 116-minute version, and not the 156-minute extended cut that some say is the preferable way to go), its exceedingly large cast of famous faces is surely not to blame, all of whom give it their professional best. Thus, we have Michael Caine, Katharine Ross, Richard Chamberlain, Henry Fonda and Alejandro Rey as scientists desperately searching for a defense against the venomous critters; Richard Widmark, Bradford Dillman and Cameron Mitchell as military men; Olivia de Havilland, Fred MacMurray and Ben Johnson representing three sides of a love triangle in the quaint little town of Marysville, Texas; Patty Duke Astin as a pregnant widow; Slim Pickens as a grieving father; Lee Grant as a reporter; and Jose Ferrer as the head of a nuclear power plant. Rather, and to my huge amazement, the blame here must rest squarely on the shoulders of screenwriter Stirling Silliphant, whose script contains many lines of stunning banality, and plot points that just peter away into nothingness. I say "amazement" because Silliphant had previously been responsible for the majority of the scripts for one of my favorite television programs of the '60s, "Route 66," many of which were remarkable for their poetic and literary qualities. His script for "The Swarm," however, is far, far from the work he had done for that show some 15 years earlier.Still, the film does have some compensations, and, as I say, some nice touches. I did enjoy the scene in which three kids chuck Molotov cocktails at the swarm's tree trunk nest, and then cower beneath metal garbage cans in the resultant bee storm. The film has a VERY high body count (the ridiculous scene in which the bees invade that nuclear power plant and cause an immediate mushroom cloud accounts for the deaths of 36,422 people alone!), and is not afraid to show youngsters being both attacked and killed by the vicious little monsters. In what is surely the film's most suspenseful sequence, Fonda self-administers a 6X lethal dose of the bee venom into his system, and then injects himself with a possible antidote, as we wait breathlessly to see the result. The bee attack on the Marysville population (resulting in 232 dead) forcefully brings to mind a similar scene in Hitchcock's "The Birds" (it is hardly as well done, of course), although the attack on a speeding train is not nearly as convincing. As I mentioned earlier, many story lines simply dwindle away, such as the one with Patty Duke and her baby, and that love triangle is, surprisingly, summarily snuffed out in the train disaster. Perhaps the longer cut brought these story lines more satisfactorily to a conclusion? I would like to think so. And then there are the questions of why didn't the fireball at the nuclear plant destroy all the bees, when fire is shown to be a very effective means of combating them later on? And, as the Widmark character mentions early in the film, just what WAS Caine's civilian character doing at the Air Force base at the film's beginning anyway? Gaping plot holes and inconsistencies aside, however, "The Swarm" remains a moderately fun watch, and is most assuredly NOT the worst movie ever made. And really, any film with a POV shot from a bee's eyeballs can't be ALL bad, right?
ibondifo
But Oldman also sinks deeply and empathically into Churchill's lower ebbs, projecting a sagging, load-bearing frailty and eloquence-sapping indecision we less readily associate with this semi- mythical figure. As foreign secretary Viscount Halifax (Dillane, once more compelling as a grey, rigid man of power) politically manoeuvres against him, we see Churchill flag and flounder. Not only is it impressive evidence of Oldman's dynamism and flexibility as an actor, it's also a timely reminder that world leaders should pause,
Scarecrow-88
Awful, awful, awful "killer insect" film from Irwin Allen who hires names from the past just so that the potential of putting ass in seats, but that certainly didn't happen.Overlong (this should have been 90 minutes tops), with subplots that should never have been added to begin with (geriatric love triangle between Suthun-voiced Olivia De Havilland, retired "master mechanic" Ben Johnson, and store clerk Fred MacMurray which ends with all of them dying in a train disaster! Patty Duke is pregnant and has her baby. County "water control" Slim Pickins crying over the body of his soldier son, getting access inside the military base after threatening to cut off the water! A little boy who watches his parents die, drives their car into the nearest town, sees a hallucination of a giant bee that Michael Caine successfully helps him free himself from, later returning with some boyhood friends to hurl Molotov cocktails at a tree containing the swarm!). Michael Caine just shows up at the military outpost and is provided carte blanche by the President of the United States much to military man, Richard Widmark's chagrin. He declares himself an entomologist, and his credentials are later confirmed. So Henry Fonda (the best bit of casting this film has going for it) and Richard Chamberlain (absolutely wasted) are brought in as important scientists to either find a cure for the bees or to kill them. Caine gets a love interest in Katherine Ross (a military doc), but they register zilch in chemistry. The movie spends plenty of time showing this black mass representing the swarm in the sky but this isn't the least bit scary. Slow motion attacks on people is more laughable in its presentation than convincing as a horror in motion. Allen loves to blow everything up or set it on fire. Houston in flames thanks to the moronic use of blow torches by men in white suits and helmets who seem to just aim at anything including their fellow man! Finally, it is discovered that the Africans (the term for the African bees!) are drawn to a type of alarm that sounded by the military installation attacked at the beginning of the film. Caine and Ross (of course), miraculously escape Houston unharmed despite everybody else bites the dust, and get back to the Texas base, working on a payload carrying horns sounding off the same alarm that drew the bees in the first place. Missiles drop and KABOOM! A nice fire cloud in the background as Caine and Rose hug each other tight. This is as terrible as most tell you. It is truly sad some good actors are attached to it, but disaster films often occupied old Hollywood veterans in key roles to draw audiences. In this film's case, people fortunately didn't waste their time watching this drivel. De Havilland with her Southern accent is rather humorous, and the old timers out to gain her hand are ditched like toilet paper after a trip to the bathroom which left wondering why on earth they were in this film at all besides their recognizable names in the cast. Widmark and Caine often scream at each other for no reason; all I could guess was there seem to be this need to pit military against scientists which might explain their unnecessary animosity. Jose Ferrer's casting left me baffled: Irwin Allen's cousin's brother's uncle could have played this throwaway part. Also given parts are Cameron Mitchell as a military sergeant who receives news from the Pentagon and transfers information back and forth to the Texas military base, Lee Grant (her role is meaningless) as a reporter who shows news reports of the Texas town disaster where 200 locals perish due to a killer bee attack, and Bradford Dillman as Widmark's second he orders around.Overcrowded and yet absurdly plotted, The Swarm deserves its rotten reputation. Sadly this was MacMurray's final film…maybe after this disaster he felt the need to call it quits! Fonda using himself as a guinea pig with no one else in the lab while injecting himself with an experimental serum makes no sense! He injects himself with the venom and has trouble reaching the anti-toxin vial!
