The Swarm
- Director: Irwin Allen
- Writer: Stirling Silliphant (from the novel by Arthur Herzog III)
- Producer: Irwin Allen
- Studio: Warner Bros.
- Stars: Michael Caine, Katharine Ross, Richard Widmark, Richard Chamberlain, Olivia de Havilland, Ben Johnson, Lee Grant, Jose Ferrer, Patty Duke, Slim Pickens, Bradford Dillman, Fred MacMurray, Henry Fonda
- Length: 155 min
- Genre: Disaster
- MPAA Rating: PG
- My Rating: *
- Oscar Nominations: Costume Design
- Reel Nominations: None
I feel ashamed to say that I am a fan of the 1970’s series of disaster films that began with Airport, became solidified by the astronomical successes of The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno, and was then quite literally flow into the ground by Airport 1975.
I am ashamed of it because this is the genre that produced the worst film I have ever seen. Granted, I haven’t seen that many truly bad films but The Swarm definitely tops the list. It is complete and utter garbage, right from its opening moments, which try to generate some suspense as a SWAT team enters an infiltrated government base. Instead, their search for life (I would have said intelligent life but such lifeforms never consent to appear in this film) feels laborious and pointless.
Then after introducing several characters and having some bad dialogue (which we soon come to realize is par for the course), we have the film’s first truly awful moment. Two different choppers are out surveying the area surrounding the base, and both fly into the heart of a swarm of African bees. Instead of trying to fly over or even through the swarm, both pilots decide that their best course of action would be to get beneath their buzzing friends. They aim a little too low, however, with both calmly gliding straight into the ground, their helicopters immediately exploding upon impact. If this weren’t enough to send anyone watching into fits of laughter, the pilot’s last words (rather monotonous cries of “Bees! Bees!”) are simply too much.
We are then introduced to the merry little town of Marysville, where an annual flower exhibition is underway (I kid you not). The residents have not been notified about the nearby base having been turned on its ear by a group of little pollinators, and so they just wait around engaging in uninteresting love triangles. It seems that Olivia de Havilland, a school superintendent, has been fighting off the advances of Mayor Fred MacMurray and a relatively new Marysville resident, Ben Johnson. By rights Fred should have her because he’s known her longer (at least, that is his well-thought-out argument), but I don’t really care because this unromantic romance goes nowhere and features the worst performance of de Havilland’s career. Fred MacMurray and especially Ben Johnson come off slightly better, if only because they have less screentime.
A team of newscasters who seem to have spent their lives on a street corner get their big break when sweating (he looks as if he’s just gotten out of the pool), gasping young Billy comes speeding into town (the little tyke can’t find the break), running over flowers and sending Marysville residents scurrying throughout the picturesque locale. His explanation is the same as the oh-so-eloquent last words of the aforementioned pilots, and it is soon discovered that his parents were tragically (and rather humorously) stung to death by the invading swarm. They then put him in a hospital where he imagines that a giant bee is taunting him.
I could go on and on about the sorts of things that happen to these stupid people but I must stop there. To go through all of the film’s idiotic components would require a frame-by-frame examination. Let’s just say that a movie about killer bees terrorizing America was always going to be a failure, but with the talent involved it could’ve at least been worth watching. It stars seven Oscar winners and is also written by an Academy Award recipient (Stirling Silliphant, who penned In the Heat of the Night, 1967’s Best Picture). But all of the actors give among their worst performances, and Silliphant has written some of the most horrendously bad dialogue that I have ever had the displeasure of hearing.
Still, if there is one bright spot in all this rubbish it is that The Swarm is often unintentionally hilarious. When Michael Caine says so very seriously, “I never dreamed that it would turn out to be the bees. They’ve always been our friend,” all we can do is wonder just when we last got a handshake or a pat on the back from a bee. And let’s not forget Richard Widmark frequently shortening the enemy’s name by instead referring to them as the Africans, so that they are now “trying to rid the Texas area of all invading Africans.” Did no one question the political correctness of that statement? And more importantly, did no one question the overt stupidity of this movie?
Film Write-Up 
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