This is the first movie I’ve reviewed for this webpage that I haven’t seen previously. Well, sort of. I have seen Irwin Allen’s The Swarm before, both on TV and on video. That it’s one of my favorite Bad Movies is one of the reasons for its inclusion here. However, while prepping for this article I noticed that my local video store’s copy was missing. So Paul Smith, the technical director of this page, arranged for them to order me a personal copy. Imagine my mixed feelings of horror and anticipation when the tape arrived, and the box mentioned that it was the "expanded video edition". Indeed, reference works indicate that the theatrical release had a running time of 116 minutes. The "expanded video edition" has a running time of 156 minutes, an additional forty minutes. This represents a running time over a third longer than that of the original. Since I write these reviews piecemeal after watching bits of the film, I haven’t started the tape yet. Ah, the bitter sweetness of "anticipation". It’s making me wait.

The Swarm of one the two nails Irwin Allen drove into the coffin of the 1970s cycle of Disaster Movies (the other being his subsequent volcano flick When Time Ran Out). This is appropriate, for Allen was nicknamed the "Master of Disaster". His film The Poseidon Adventure was the template for the Seventies disaster genre, which was kickstarted by the success of the later Airport. As well, Allen’s The Towering Inferno is probably the best of that period’s run of disaster flicks. However, like any overworked mine, the genre eventually collapsed after being exhausted. After the obvious cinematic disasters (ship wrecks, burning buildings, earthquakes, airplane mishaps, etc.) had been exploited, producers began looking for ever more outlandish disasters to depict. This included avalanches (the awful Avalanche), meteors (the moronic Meteor) and, for the highest budget in Hollywood history at that time, the explosion of the glorious airship Hindenburg. (As usual with overly exploited genres, budgets rose while box office fell.) The problem with the film The Hindenburg was that the "disaster" part lasted all of about 37 seconds. The hydrogen filled bladders that kept the ship aloft burst and burned in an admittedly spectacular fashion, but also almost instantaneously. While other movies could depict a major disaster halfway through and deal with its aftermath at length, that option wasn’t available here. There were some gorgeous fx shots for airship fans, but the two hours leading to the inevitable explosion were excruciating.

Growing up during the Seventies, I saw some Disaster Flicks in the theaters, including The Towering Inferno, The Hindenburg and Earthquake (in Sensurround!). To me, they were always "box movies", because of the films’ posters. Film posters, along with lobby cards, used to be a much more important selling tool for movies than they are today. There were far fewer movie theaters then, and this meant you were likely to frequent only one, perhaps two, local cinemas. Such venues as were available tended to sport only a single screen. This meant that to seek out an individual film might require driving quite a distance. So the average consumer would instead just check out the "Coming Attraction" posters and lobby cards at their local theater(s), to see if anything warranted attendance. As a result, these advertising materials were not only the most important, but sometimes the only, advance publicity available on upcoming films. Obviously, they were ultimately superseded by saturation television advertising, eight minutes theatrical trailers, and omnipresent media coverage of upcoming films. At one time, people were most likely to call up the image of a film’s poster when recalling a movie. Today such posters are barely noticed, often not even being used in the movie’s newspaper ads.

Disaster Flick posters would cram as much spectacle as possible into the (generally painted) main body of the poster, under the film’s title. Meanwhile, along the bottom (usually) would be a series of boxes (hence, of course, "box movies"). These contained close-up photos of the various stars, often labeled with their roles (Paul Newman is The Architect. Steve McQueen is the Fire Chief…). This is because part of the appeal of the ‘70s cycle of Disaster Flicks was that they were star-laden extravaganzas. So the only way to get the huge casts across was the box method. The video box for my copy of The Swarm continues the tradition, although space limitations keep them from revealing the actors’ roles (except, oddly, for Henry Fonda and Fred MacMurray). The thirteen featured players run the gamut from Fonda and Michael Caine to Bradford Dillman and Richard Chamberlain. Slim Pickens is on hand to fulfill the apparent requirement that any ‘70s Disaster Flick feature either him, Ernest Borgnine or George Kennedy. Luckily, they’re pretty much interchangeable, so you could hire whichever one was available.

The star-studded cast is an element of the ‘70s Disaster cycle that will never be duplicated, for two major reasons. First of all, with a big enough budget at that time you could afford to get a large collection of really big stars. The Towering Inferno starred two of the biggest (perhaps the biggest) stars at the time, Paul Newman and Steve McQueen. Stars cost quite a bit more now. It would be nearly impossible today to afford, say, Tom Cruise and Harrison Ford or Mel Gibson and Arnold Schwarzenegger for one movie. Particularly if the cast also sported a second round of more minor stars, such as, say, Gene Hackman, Kim Basing, Kurt Russell, Melanie Griffith and Jeff Bridges (…is The Bank Manager).

The second factor that can never be replicated is that in the Seventies, there were still Movie Stars. Stars that were bigger than life, grander and more glamorous than us mere mortals. The incessant tabloid press of today, both print and electronic, too readily exposes the foibles of modern celebrities to ever allow them the awe with which the stars of the Golden Era were held. Tom Cruise may be the biggest movie star in the world today. Yet he will never be regarded with the same reverence that a Jimmy Stewart or a Charleton Heston was accorded. With the destruction of the Studio Systems in the ‘60s, the public was began to tear down their former screen idols. The disaster films profited from that. The rules of movie storytelling were changing at the time, overlapping with the last gasp of larger-than-life Hollywood. So a film could, for really the first time, kill a star like Heston (in Earthquake). And the act would carry a far larger than normal impact with audiences of the day. They were conditioned to "rules" that mandated that such stars would live. Take The Towering Inferno. The audience response to seeing a fairly incidental character die a horrible flaming death was magnified by the fact that it was Robert Wagner that was bursting into flames. Wow, they actually crisped Robert Wagner!!

In this fashion, the ‘70s Disaster Flicks were partly the bastard stepchildren of the strange "Revered Old Female Stars as Murderous Loons" cycle of the ‘60s. The archetypal example of which was What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, starring former megastars Joan Crawford and Bette Davis. This surprise hit was quickly followed by numerous similar pics. Former screen luminaries like Talulah Bankhead, Shelly Winters (before she became kind of a joke) and Olivia de Havilland (who, hey, is featured in The Swarm) all starred in such movies. Again, part of the appeal of the films was that they were, for the first time, breaking the rules. Such beloved stars couldn’t really be playing psycho-killers. It just wasn’t done. So the shock was genuine when, often, their characters were in fact revealed to be homicidal nutcases. It fed into the build-‘em-up-and-tear-them-down mentality that America views it’s celebrities with. We’ve become so streamlined in this regard that we can create and destroy a celebrity in a matter of months, weeks or even days. In the past, though, this facility wasn’t as efficiently developed. Forcing glamorous stars of the past to play nutballs in order to get work was one of its earliest manifestations. This "kill/humiliate the stars for extra effect" technique was also on display in other genres in the Seventies. Horror opuses like The Omen (Gregory Peck) and The Omen II (William Holden, who survived The Towering Inferno) serve as examples.

In 1979, when producer Irwin Allen started casting about for another disaster to exploit, ideas were running short. Nor, it should be noted, was Irwin Allen himself any stranger to crap. He was the producer of such TV laughfests as Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Land of the Giants and Lost in Space. Ultimately, he elected to focus on "killer bees", and purchased the rights to Arthur Herzog’s novel The Swarm. There had recently been a spate of news stories on how killer bees were moving their way north from Central America, and might someday threaten the United States. In the aftermath of the thousands of deaths caused by marauding bees in the last two decades, we now know that these fears were justified. Oh, wait. We don’t. Anyway. Since this was a "disaster" concept that exploited a hot contemporary issue, Allen felt sure he had another surefire hit on his hands. It should be noted, however, that the entire micro-genre of "killer bee" pictures have pretty much all sucked. This includes a number of independent films and TV movies rushed out to exploit the expensive studio production of The Swarm. In fact, the cheezy John Saxon starrer The Bees might plausibly be considered even worse than The Swarm, depending on how you scale things. However, I’m going for the didn’t-have-to-suck, multi-million dollar, star packed The Swarm over the doomed-from-the-start cheapie The Bees. Still, for the strong willed, they’d make an interesting (well, that might not be the right word) "theme" video double feature.

As our feature begins, we hear an orchestral composition which wittily sounds like...bees! Get it? But let’s just say I don’t think Rimsky-Korsakov has to worry about being displaced in the pantheon of classical "bee" music. We follow an Armored Personnel Carrier as it enters the confines of an abandoned military installation. To make sure that none of the people who starred in our movie fail to be embarrassed, the tape remains letterboxed for the length of the credits, making sure we catch each and every name. A small group of guys jumps out of the APC wearing what children might consider to be NBC (Nuclear, Biological and Chemical) protection suits. The white suits look pretty lame, but the orange ones, which feature jumpsuits accessorized with the kind of helmets (with pull-up visors!) and oxygen masks that a fighter pilot would wear, are a hoot. The helmets aren’t even connected to the suits! Gee, I hope any radiation or nerve agent they might find in the future isn’t dangerous to bared flesh or anything.

They fan out among the few exposed buildings, some armed with flame throwers (?), some with M16 rifles, one with a revolver. This is kind of odd, as the standard military sidearm for the past sixty years had been the Colt .45 Automatic (although it’s since been replaced with the NATO compatible Beretta 9mm). Finding nothing, they enter a bunker. Inside, they take an elevator deep underground to the "Communications Center". In an "awesome" moment, the doors open to reveal some dead bodies, one standing up against a control panel (?). Even though there’s no physical indication of what killed them (anybody want to guess?), the leader of the team, Major Baker (Bradford Dillman), removes his helmet (!). It’s like one of those ‘50s sci-fi flicks where they decide to see if the air on an alien planet is breathable by taking the headpiece off their spacesuits. Apparently Baker has removed his helmet so that he can report in, using a walkie-talkie off his belt. Frankly, if I sent guys into a potentially contaminated area, I’d install radios in their headgear. That way they could report in without killing themselves. But what do I know? Of course, since his helmet wasn’t connected to his suit, I suppose it wouldn’t make a great deal of difference anyway. Also, one question has been answered: at least part of the extended length of the movie is going to be stuff like adding footage to prolong the "search" scene on the base. Wow, nothing is added plot-wise, but it’s a lot more boring. Thanks!

Now, you’re probably wondering how come there’s no evidence of how these men died. After all, the title "The Swarm" kind of gives it away. So you might be saying, c’mon Ken, it’d be obvious that the cause of death was, you know, bees. For instance, since bees eviscerate themselves when they sting, there’d have to be thousands of dead bees around. And even if bees didn’t die when they stung someone, well, certainly some must have been killed during the attack, or at least squashed under the bodies of the guys they killed. And even if there somehow were no dead bees around, people stung to death would have massive hives, which would indicate bites or stings of some sort. Well, actually, none of those signs are included here. Because, you know, this is the "mystery" part of the movie. The characters have to figure out what’s going on. If there were a bunch of dead bees on hand, well, it would ruin the cliché structure of the film. And we wouldn’t want that. Would we?

How the bees got seventeen floors underground in a secure missile base, then back out again, isn’t explained either. Maybe some bees entered through the elevator when someone ran inside, but how did they get back out? Did they push the button for the top floor after killing everybody? Later, there’s a quick line about "open missile bays". It’s thrown out and moved on from speedily, obviously in the hope that the audience wouldn’t examine that concept too clearly. Also, would a missile base be constructed so that one could gain entry to the entire underground complex by rappelling down the side of a missile silo? Even if the missile bay was open, wouldn’t the interior hatches be secured? Wouldn’t there be mechanisms to keep intruders from wandering around every sub-floor of the base, even if they could breach security on one? Also, we later see the departing swarm tracked on the base’s radar. If they can track the bees departing the base, wouldn’t they have tracked the bees approaching the base? Since the bees only move at seven miles an hour (established through dialog later), the base would have had ample time to notice the incoming radar signal. Then, one would have to assume, they would have secured any possible access to the base until the swarm had passed safely by.

Anyway, back to our "plot". Baker contacts General Slater (Richard Widmark), flying in via helicopter. He reports the mysterious deaths, noting that the only sign the that base has been breached was an empty civilian van. This apparently entered through the wide open gate we saw earlier. Now, of course, even if everybody on a top secret military base died immediately (and there were no bodies outside. If everyone had enough time to go underground, how could they have failed to report the bee attack?), that would hardly explain a gate being left open. Still, the "script" dictates that a civilian character be running around the base. Maybe if you just show the gate open the audience won’t ask how it got open. Right. Slater asks if there’s any sign of a CW (Chemical Warfare) attack, and Baker replies no. You might wonder on what basis he’d make this statement. I think it’s because he took his helmet off and didn’t immediately die a horrible death.

Slater, in a "dramatic" series of shots, leads a convoy of military vehicles to reestablish control of the base. Meanwhile, down below, Baker and his men are surprised when a civilian, Brad Crane (Oscar™ winner Michael Caine. Ouch!), wanders into the Communications Room. As well they might be. After all, even with everybody dead, is it possible that the individual buildings, or the elevator to the underground levels, could be accessed without some sort of security code? Guess so (even though, when Baker’s troops entered the facility, we clearly saw them enter a key code to access the elevator). Frankly, if this is what our security was like, it’s amazing we won the Cold War. I haven’t seen a military installation with security this poor since I last caught a rerun of Hogan’s Heroes. Baker and his troops pull weapons on our intruder, who responds wisely by raising his hands. However, I don’t know if I’d continue to walk towards them. I think the "halt" idea when confronted with firearms is pretty standard. Baker asks how he got on the compound, an obvious question. Crane responds, "That’s a complicated story. It begins a year ago. But let’s skip that." And they do! I guess it’s OK to fill the script with grotesquely illogical plot holes, as long as the characters say they have an explanation. Even if, you know, they don’t give it.

General Slater pops in, and upon spying the mysterious civilian, tells Baker to "check him out." Gee, good idea, Sir! Slater’s informed that radar has picked up an outgoing blip, traveling only seven miles an hour, but huge. Slater orders a pair of helicopters to investigate. They find a "black mass" (which is superimposed on the screen with "special effects", creating the illusion that you haven’t dusted the screen of your TV set in a long time). The bees swarm around the helicopters, and one of them crashes. Why? I don’t know. The other copter lasts long enough to radio in "Oh, my God! Bees! Bees! Millions of Bees!" I guess that line looked logical in the script, but in the movie it plays hilariously. Maybe it’s the stilted delivery, or perhaps it’s the gold painted Styrofoam pellets they blow at the helicopter to simulate bees. I don’t know. Ordered to get above the bees, the pilot replies, "I can’t! I’m losing power!"(?). Then he crashes. This scene really reminds me of the one in The Giant Claw (reviewed elsewhere) where the cast listens as pilots go to their deaths against that film’s avian menace. As we shall see, this won’t be the only scene reminiscent of a cheezy earlier sci-fi film.

Shocked, Slater has a call put in to Hastings Air Base, with orders to track the swarm. As he shouts for Crane to be brought in, we hear the call placed. The phrase "scramble all aircraft" is plainly heard, making one wonder why "all" the aircraft on an entire Air Base would be scrambled to follow bees. Would it even be possible for, say, fighter planes, designed to fly at speeds of hundreds of miles an hour, to "track" bees traveling seven miles an hour? Crane reveals that he’s an entomologist who’s been following the bees. In a subtle but truly funny moment, they go to the bother of explaining Crane’s (Caine’s) British accent (he’s a naturalized citizen). As if that’s the plot hole that we’re wondering about. Crane warns that vast swarms of African bees (the killer ones) have entered the country, threatening the entire Southwest. An incredulous Slater replies that even if the bees make it this far north, they aren’t projected to hit the U.S. for another ten years. "On whose timetable, General?", Crane retorts, "Yours or theirs?" (Wow!). During this exciting dialog, Allen displays his artistic side by filming the scene with a continuous camera movement that circles around the actors for no reason.

By now the characters are yelling at each other. Crane tells the General to call the President’s Science Advisor, but is acting like such a jerk that Slater orders him locked up. Just then, Helena Anderson (Katherine Ross), the base physician, makes her entrance. She and a few men managed to isolate themselves from the bees. However, the men have been stung and will die without an anti-toxin. Crane steps forward and informs her that he has "Cardio-pep compound" in his van. "Cardio-pep!", gasps the startled Helena, "I’ve just read an article in the medical journal about Cardio-pep! By some scientist named…," she pauses, "thinking", as we wonder what name she’ll come up with (duh), "…Crane, I think.". Wow, that was timely. I should mention that even in this little scene, Ross is totally unbelievable as Anderson, all wide-eyed amazement and exaggerated reactions. Plus, I have to wonder at her statement that she read the article in "the" medical journal. Which one would that be? Is there only one? (This would be news to, say, The Journal of the American Medical Association, or The New England Journal of Medicine, or The Lancet, or…).

Crane is, of course, cleared by this lucky (if farfetched and sloppy) coincidence. He informs Helena that the test results of the drug have been encouraging. When Slater objects to using an experimental drug on the men, Helena argues that they should bow to Crane’s expertise here. "This is his area!", she asserts. Really? An entomologist’s "area" is in the field of testing experimental drugs? I don’t think so. Even for bee sting anti-toxins the tests would be conducted by medical doctors. Malaria was carried by mosquitoes, but the vaccine was still developed by MDs. Helena continues on to say that she needs to talk to an immunologist. Crane replies that the best immunologist in the country is Walter Krim (this guy’s a font of knowledge!). As Crane happens to be a friend of Krim (of course), he goes off to make the phone call. Helena then briefs the General on the attack. She relates how, on the monitors, they could see the above ground personnel "covered" with bees. This only serves to remind us that there were no bodies to be found outside the bunker (maybe the bees carried off the corpses). The General has trouble accepting that bees have accomplished, "…what nothing in the world could have done, except germ warfare or a neutron bomb. Neutralize a ICBM sight!" (Actually, a squad of Eagle Scouts could have taken out this ICBM sight.) Now that we’ve been informed that the bees are more dangerous than, say, the Soviet Union (remember them?), we cut to close-up footage of bees milling around. Oooh, spooky!

Pulling back, we see the bees are swarming a tree branch, under which a car parks. A typical movie family pops out, and only the hopelessly clueless (and the sleeping) will fail to discern that our first on-screen victims have made their appearance. Mom, Dad and their young teen son, Paul, remove and set up their picnic gear. Their actions are accompanied, for no good reason, by wacky "comedy" music. I mean, they’re not really doing anything "comical". I guess it’s to throw us off guard, so we’ll be even more "shocked" by the "horror" of the "surprise" attack. The "comedy" music quickly segues to "suspense" music, as we cut to a close-up of a solitary bee. Hilariously, we now get a POV shot from the bee’s perspective, using the inevitable "zillions of little pictures" technique pioneered in the original film version of The Fly. Even better, the pictures rotate around, reminding one of the "kaleidoscope" opening credits on the old I Love Lucy TV show ("Mrs. Car-michael!! Did you let these killer bees into the bank?!?" "Waaaaaah!").

Paul runs back to the car for something as Mom bugsprays some bees (uh oh). Sure enough, a huge mass of Styrofoam pellets is blown with a big fan out of a fake tree prop…, uh, wait. I mean, a huge mass of killer bees erupts from a hollow tree and attacks the couple. The question of why such bad actors were hired, even for this small of a scene, is answered: because they were willing to lie down and let hundreds of bees crawl over them. Paul escapes by driving off as best as he can in the family car. Luckily, I guess bees can’t disable a Ford Mustang as easily as they can military helicopters. Oh, and watch closely the scene where Paul clears bees off the windshield with the wiper blades. I don’t think we’ll be seeing one of those "no bees were injured in the making of this film" notices.

Back at the missile base, General Thompson ("Cameron Mitchell" Alert!) appears on a big screen that comes down from the ceiling. Phoning in from (I assume) the office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he relays the administration’s credulity problem with the base-wiped-out-by-bees concept (although he doesn’t mention the audience’s credulity problems with same). Crane warns him he better get off his butt: "We’ve have been invaded, by an enemy far more lethal than any human force." Uh, would that include the mass firing of atomic weapons? Anyway, no less of an expert than our own Vice President of the United States, Al Gore, stated that the greatest danger facing the continued existence of mankind was the internal-combustion engine (in his tome Earth in the Balance.) Thompson warns Crane that his credentials will be checked.

We cut to the nearby small town (well, actually, it’s a backlot, but you know...) of Marysville, as the film turns its attention to how our menace will impact "ordinary" Americans. A big banner hanging across the main boulevard welcomes us to the town’s "Flower Festival" (boy, they must have spent a lot of time coming up with that clever name). So…hey, wait a minute! A "Flower Festival"! Won’t that attract a lot of …uh oh! Anyway, Felix (Oscar™ winner Ben Johnson. Ouch!), a bachelor approaching senior citizenship, greets the similarly aged object of his affections, Maureen (Oscar™ winner Olivia de Havilland. Ouch!). Olivia’s a long, long way from Gone With The Wind and The Adventures of Robin Hood. Next he meet the third corner of our romantic triangle, Clarence (Fred MacMurray). Watching these three screen veterans embarrass themselves with this poorly written "romantic competition" sub-plot is about the single most grueling aspect of the movie. Particularly since, and forgive my bluntness, I could give a rat’s ass about which sixty something coot winds up with the no-spring-chicken-herself de Havilland. Worse yet, this is the film’s attempt at a running "comic relief" bit, with Felix and Clarence trading "zingers" in an effort to bag Maureen. Get ready to choke back bile when Felix gazes at Maureen and swarmily oozes, "Well, I’ll tell you one thing I do approve of. This year’s theme [for the Festival]: Love!". During the old timers’ wrangling over the banner, we learn that people come "by the thousands" to attend the festival every year. Uh, is this going to work into the plot somehow? We are saved from further witty "repartee" when Paul comes whipping around town, eventually crashing into a flower stand. Suffering from shock, he can only report that "they killed my mom and dad!"

Next, in a classic "yeah, sure, I buy that" moment, General Thompson calls back to the missile base to report that Crane’s credentials have been verified. Crane snidely looks at General Slater, then asks, "Nothing more?" Amazingly, yes. "The President", Thompson continues, "has instructed me to place you in direct command" of the bee situation. When Crane asks as to the limits of his authority, Thompson grimaces and replies, "None." Thompson orders Slater to give Crane whatever he wants, without question. Now, need I point out that nobody has "limitless authority"? Certainly not the President himself, constrained in power by both the Congress and the Supreme Court, as dictated by the Constitution. What if Crane ordered Slater to fire nuclear missiles into the swarm? Or ordered him to seize media outlets in order to effect a news "blackout" on the situation? I mean, he’s the hero, so he wouldn’t. But, you know, c’mon.

We now get to watch the military guys’ "comical" discomfort with the reverse in authority. Crane requests both his sunflower seeds and a file, marked "Personnel", that’s in his van. This he handily had ready and waiting for the inevitable day when the President of the United States handed him Supreme Power to deal with whatever insect rebellion broke out. The people listed in the file are to be flown in. "Just tell them, the war that I’ve always talked about is finally started", the Ahabesque Crane commands. The always-prepared scientist also provides a pre-drawn up equipment manifest to be filled. The base will act as their command center. When Crane splits to talk to the attack survivors, Slater orders Major Baker to keep an eye on him. He finds it suspicious that Crane was lurking around the base just as the bees attacked, and has such complete preparations ready-made. "It is strange", Baker agrees. Well, yeah! I think this is supposed to be an example of how paranoid the military is, but, I mean, Crane’s preparedness isn’t just strange, it’s positively silly, an obvious plot contrivance. I guess if bees hadn’t attacked, Crane would have spent his days riding around in his van, thinking, "Yeah, the day will come. Then I’ll be in charge! Ha ha, wait ‘til they see all my plans! I’ll show ‘em!"

In the infirmary, Crane the entomologist is telling Helena the doctor how to care for her patients ("get another blood sample", he dictates, as she writes down his brilliant orders). Baker, now at least in an actual uniform and out of that goofy orange jumpsuit, passes a phone call from the local hospital to her. Why a base on emergency status would pass through outside personal calls isn’t explained. "Oh, my God!", she exclaims. "They’ve killed all the Durant family except for Paul." Yeah, like, both of them. She heads into town (no one objects about her patients needing supervision or anything), joined by Crane and Baker. At the hospital, Crane and Helena are directed to Paul’s room. Inside, the hysterical Paul is hallucinating that there’s a giant bee in the room. Weirdly, his vision looks exactly like a badly superimposed blow-up shot of a bee. In one of the film’s highlights, Crane manages to quiet Paul down by calming repeating, basically, "There’s no bee here. I promise you, there’s no bee here." We know that Crane’s brilliant intervention technique has proven effective when the silly looking giant bee that’s superimposed over his shoulder disappears. (Assignment for Bad Movie Scholars: Prepare a report on Crane’s technique for dealing with hallucinations as compared to Elvis’ technique for curing autism in Change of Habit.) Paul’s doctor admiringly notes that "Everything I tried failed. I was afraid I was going to lose him." You know, Crane is really pretty multitalented. Perhaps, if he has time, he could hit the psycho ward and cure everyone there ("You’re not Napoleon. I promise you, you’re not Napoleon.)." Crane makes to leave (presumably to instruct some engineers on reinforcing a dam or something), and Helena thanks him for saving Paul’s life. Significant glances and lush music indicate that they’re falling in love (duh).

Crane and Baker join Slater at the site where the Durant family was attacked. An intensive, if goofy, search is underway. Guys wearing those chem suits are marching around, even though it seems rather pointless to have some guys in chem suits and some not. If they’re fear of contamination, everyone should be suited up. If not, then they’re just an encumbrance. ("We paid for those suits, damn it, and we’re going to use them, whether it makes sense or not!") Two helicopters are ordered to begin their dispersal pattern. What kind of "dispersal pattern" you can run with only two helicopter isn’t explored. Crane finds a bit of plastic, leading to one of the most incoherent conversations I’ve ever heard. This isn’t helped by Caine’s adopting both the "William Shatner Significant Pausing" and the "Burgess Meredith Emphasis on Inappropriate Words" acting techniques. I’ve inserted commas in Crane’s lines where Caine pauses for no reason.
Crane: "Plastic. It’s a piece of a plastic cup. There are pieces all around here. Look. Look, there. There. There."
Slater: "What’s so significant about that?"
Crane: "I’m afraid to speculate. But, I think, the bees, did this."
Baker: "Are you saying these bees eat plastic?"
Crane: "No, no. But I’m wondering. Your American Honeybee has a weak mouth, that couldn’t even break the skin, of a grape. But it looks like this species, is tearing up, plastic cups, possibly to line their hives. Now, if this is true, they didn’t, just get here. I mean, the invasion, didn’t, just now begin. They have been here some time. Breeding. Increasing."
Slater: "So?"
Crane: "Well, suppose these bees, are using plastic, to insulate their hives."
Slater: "No bee is that smart."
Crane: "Suppose these African bees are."
Next up in our Cavalcade of Embarrassment: OscarÔ Winner Henry Fonda (Ouch!), as Dr. Walter Krim, the immunologist. Krim arrives at the command base via helicopter. Greeted by his old friend Crane (in this movie, everybody must have at least one pre-exiting relationship with another character), Krim is revealed to be wheelchair bound. I believe this was Fonda’s idea, in the hopes that people would feel bad if they made fun of him for being in this movie. But then Fonda was obviously at the stage in his career where he was grabbing up as many paychecks he could glom on to. Note his appearances in such other Seventies classics as Tentacles, Meteor and Roller Coaster (In Sensurround!). A little expository dialog is engaged in, so that we, the audience, can learn that there’s no "cure" for African Bee stings (wow!). Particularly annoying is a loud "squeaking wheelchair" noise repeatedly foleyed in ("Foley" artists are the guys who insert a film’s sound effects in post-production, from stepping on gravel sounds to fistfight noises). Said squeaks are inserted to set up some excruciating "comical" banter between Crane and Krim (Krim refuses to oil his wheelchair, while Crane wrote a "raunchy" paper on the mating habits of insects. Har de har, har!). This "repartee" is used to reinforce the audience’s awareness that they’re old friends. Well, guess what? We got it, already! So please, PLEASE stop the "humorous" dialog! After the squeaks have served their "purpose", Crane has a throw away line telling an offscreen minion to oil the wheels, so as to explain why they don’t squeak for the rest of the film. Again, an inane amount of attention given to explaining teeny details while the film is collapsing into its numerous cavernous plot holes.

Crane wheels Krim into the temporary morgue, where all the bodies are bagged and tagged. Actually, there only appear to be, I don’t know, twenty or so bags, whereas a missile base would presumably be manned by hundreds of personnel. Luckily, the bees must have attacked on a slow day. Krim looks at a toe tag, noting that the victim was 18 (oh, the pathos!), and from nearby Marysville. After Crane withdraws from the room, the macho Baker (every military guy in this movie is a doofus, all the scientists are level-headed and responsible) makes a snide insinuation about Crane’s manliness. "I noticed Dr. Crane seemed uneasy in here.", he smirks. Quick-minded Krim acidly retorts, "I can’t imagine why anyone would be uneasy around all these dead men. Can you, Major?" Believe it or not, this is apparently supposed to be a major "burn", as the Major’s oily grin slowly turns into an angry grimace, after which he stalks off.

We cut to the base’s entry gate, where a "Warning" sign informs visitors that "All Weapons, Explosives or Incendiary Devices May Be Confiscated". Wow, guess I was wrong about the lack of security. Outside the gate, a man ("Slim Pickens" Alert!), Judd Hawkins, is demanding to see someone in authority. Oddly enough, General Slater himself comes out to deal with the situation. I guess that with Dr. Crane in charge, Slater’s kind of bored. Maybe later he’ll go on "butt patrol". It turns out that Hawkins’ son is stationed on the base. Rumors are spreading around town about the bee attack, and he wants to see his kid to make sure he’s alive. Slater, trying to avoid telling him that his son is dead, informs him that it’s impossible to let him on the base right now. Hawkins then informs Slater that he’s the "county engineer", and that if they don’t let him see his son he’ll cut off the base’s water supply!

This concept is problematic, to say the least. First, what if his son were alive (which he might be, for all Hawkins knows)? Dad would be getting junior in more than a tad of trouble by threatening the Commanding Officer of the base where he was stationed. Second, what kind of high security missile base has a water supply that can be cut off by the local authorities? Wouldn’t that indicate that perhaps the facility’s a tad vulnerable to saboteurs? Third, even if this were possible, such a threat against a military installation would obviously be a major felony. However, Slater’s only response is to lamely state, "I’m not sure you have the authority to do that to a federal installation." What, you mean a civilian couldn’t legally cut off the water supply of a high-security Air Force missile base because he wants to see his kid? Hawkins replies that it doesn’t matter, because while Slater is "checking" on this, he’ll be turning off the pipes. Obviously, at this point Slater orders the guards to arrest Hawkins for illegally threatening a federal military installation. No, wait, I’m sorry. In fact, he utterly capitulates. Outmaneuvered by the wily Hawkins, Slater lets him in.

Crane enters the makeshift morgue, where Krim is running toxicology tests on the bodies. "The toxic content is their tissues is the highest I’ve ever found", Krim reports. "Even more virulent than the venom of the Australian Brown Box Jellyfish. That baby tags you, you’ve got two minutes to say your prayers." Thanks, doc, that’s really edifying. So, wait, if the bees are more virulent than the sting of an animal that kills you in two minutes, how many bee stings would it take to kill you? Krim goes on to calculate in an expository fashion that three stings would be enough to kill the average person, who’d be unconscious within a minute. (Everybody got that?) Now it’s time for Crane to give his "prophet in the wilderness" speech. "We’ve been fighting a losing battle against the insects for fifteen years," he expounds. "But I never thought I’d see the final face-off in my lifetime." Now, to start with, isn’t the whole point of this character that he’s been trying to warn people about the inevitable, imminent war with the insect kingdom? Plus, isn’t it a little early to posit this situation as the final apocalyptic battle between Man and Bug? Crane continues, issuing one of the movie’s great lines: "And I never dreamed, that it would turn out to be the Bees. They’ve always been our friend." Uh, yeah.

Baker pops in to inform them that Slater’s outside with Hawkins. Entering, Slater starts running through the toe tags, looking for the kid’s body. Somber music plays as he checks one tag after another, so that we understand that the whole "lots of dead guys" thing is sad and all. Of course, Hawkin’s body is on a table with some space around it, in order to stage a dramatic "lamentation" scene. In an ironic counterpoint to his character’s earlier threats, Pickens now turns on the waterworks, hamming up his "big scene" with great relish. Reaction shots of Caine, Fonda and Widmark are meant to portray their empathy for the man’s pain, but instead come off as the quietly embarrassed reactions of fellow actors to Pickens’ hamola antics. Finally, Hawkins scoops up his son’s body, over Slater’s objections. "The only way you can stop me, General, is to shoot me!," Hawkins tearfully replies, "And I’d thank you if you would!" With over an hour and a half of this fiasco left to watch (!), the average audience member might well offer a similar sentiment. With not a wet eye (or an open one) left in the house, Pickens’ work is completed. And so he lumbers off, as this tender vignette draws to a close.

Now that one character story arc has been wrapped up, we proceed immediately to that familiar helicopter. Landing again, it brings us our next Guest Star. It’s rather like an episode of Fantasy Island, if there had been a really, really long one where Tattoo got killed by bees. Hey look! It’s the "King of the TV Mini-Series" himself: Mr. Richard Chamberlain (insert audience applause and whistles here). Chamberlain’s fresh from portraying the "Sleazy Contractor Who Dies a Horrible Death" in Allen’s earlier The Towering Inferno. Should have quit while you were ahead, dude. Here he plays Dr. Hubbard, who distinguishes himself by telling Crane that he came "reluctantly". Apparently, Hubbard’s role is to provide "dramatic tension" by butting heads with Our Hero. Crane tells Baker and Slater that whenever the next people arrive, give them a half hour to shower and then get them to the Briefing Room. Uh, wouldn’t it be better to, you know, schedule the briefing. What if the next arrivees don’t show up for an hour? Or two? Or six? Slater bitches about Crane, "You’d think he was a General!" I think this is supposed to be funny (because, giggle, Slater is a General. Get it?!). Baker informs him that Crane wants the base’s audio surveillance tapes from the period just prior to the attack. Slater replies that he himself has listened to the tapes and gotten nothing out of them. Ah, but I’m sure Crane will spot something Slater missed, because, you know, he’s the hero and everything.

Cut to Crane listening to the tapes. Just before being killed by bees, one of the victims, Jerry, was relating how much he, like, loved his girl, Rita; and how happy he was, and how they were soon to be married, and how they’re going to have a baby, and so on. Oh, brother!! It’s about as hackneyed as you can possibly imagine. Gee, how tragic that a young man in love, with his whole happy life in front of him, yadda yadda yadda. Crane somberly listens to this "tragic" recital, which sounds like the worst written radio play in history. After this obligatory dialog, we hear the men run a test of the alarm system. Gee, could it turn out that the sound of the alarm is what attracted the bees to the base? Yeah, like it’d be something that obvious (or stupid). Crane asks Baker what the alarm system is for. Baker replies that it’s a backup system used in case the base loses radio contact and/or the phone lines. How this would occur is never explained. And wouldn’t the primary use of the radio be to communicate with outside military personnel and installations? How exactly would an alarm siren on the secluded base be used to, say, inform SAC headquarters that the base was under attack? Our bad little radio drama continues, as we hear our oral protagonists fall prey to the bees. Oh, the Humanity!

Now that we know that the bees were attracted to the alarm, we can move on to the next scene. So an extra informs Crane and Baker that the briefing group is assembled. The Briefing Room comes conveniently furnished with banks of mainframe computers along the walls. Probably because they’re...so...uh...helpful when a briefing is in progress. Also, the computers are those big magnetic tape jobbies. I guess they were cutting edge at one time. Still, the modern viewer might be forgiven for wondering where the lava lamps and "black light" velvet posters are. The computers look particularly silly contrasted with the self-opening "Star Trek" doors that the base comes equipped with, apparently part of the set designer’s efforts to make the facility look "futuristic". Crane begins his briefing, and is soon interrupted by Hubbard. Hubbard not only disagrees with Crane’s theories, but suggests that the bees be referred to as "Brazilian Bees", rather than "African Bees". This last remark is followed by a close-up of Crane, fuming with chilly, teeth-clenched anger.

This leads into a really pointless, overlong and boring (needless to say) argument with Hubbard robotically contradicting everything Crane says. Again, I believe this is to create a sense of "dramatic conflict". But since we know Crane’s going to prove correct about everything (not to mention that Hubbard will pay for his impudence by being one of the movie’s "celebrity" victims), we just grind our fists into our eyes, hoping the pain will distract us while we pray for the movie to GET ON WITH IT! Of course, the scene goes exactly as you (or me, or anyone) would predict: Crane provides proof positive that the bees are African bees, Hubbard looks stunned and humiliated, and the shocked assemblies make "watermelon, watermelon, cantaloupe, cantaloupe" noises. But here’s the best part: the proof presented is a photographic slide of a bee’s wing, which matches the configuration of the African Bee’s. Crane introduces the slide by saying that the photo was taken from the one dead bee (!!!) they’ve managed to find. Yep, between the base, the presumably searched area where the helicopters went down, and the scouring of the site where the Durants were attacked, they only managed to come up with one dead bee.

Crane, now reestablished as alpha dog, assigns team leaders: Krim to develop an anti-toxin; a guy who’s not a star so it doesn’t matter to head up the "genetic counterattack" team; and Hubbard will lead the "Environmental Team". Exactly what the function of the last group might be is left to our imaginations. Perhaps the Environmental Team will deal with those little pieces of plastic the bees are leaving everywhere. In attendance, due to the danger to nearby Marysville, is Clarence, because he’s the mayor, and Maureen, because she’s the School Superintendent (?!). Crane asks for any input, and Clarence mentions that he’ll have the town’s air raid siren fixed, to be used in case the bees attack. Apparently, the script indicated that Maureen is the next to have a question, because Crane calls on her as if her hand were raised. However, we see her sitting next to Clarence, and she’s done absolutely nothing to indicate that she’d like to comment. Of course, as soon as she’s called on, she acts as if she had wanted to speak. So either Crane is physic, and knew Maureen had something to say but was too shy to raise her hand, or Allen forgot to "direct" his actress to pretend her character wanted to say something. She lamely says she’ll inform her teachers to expect "the worst" (whatever that means), and then thanks Crane for inviting them. Finally, another woman asks how long they can expect to be assigned to the project. "Until we have destroyed, the African Bee," Crane responds, (insert dramatic pause here) "or it, has destroyed us." Cue Ominous Music Burst, cut to shocked attendees making "watermelon, watermelon, cantaloupe, cantaloupe" noises.

Back in town, Paul is making his escape from the hospital. He looks out the window, his plan proceeding like well-oiled machine as two of his pals arrive on bicycles, towing Paul’s bike between them. After a stealthy exit, Paul grabs the binoculars they brought, and the trio hop on their wheels and ride off. Meanwhile, Felix exits the local bank with a bouquet of roses in one hand and a wad of cash in the other. Apparently, the cash is prominently displayed to keep anyone in the audience from wondering why he was in the bank ("See! He’s got money in his hand. That’s why he was at the bank."). Felix enters the local diner and greets Rita, the waitress (OscarÔ winner Patty Duke. Ouch!). Rita has rather obviously been crying. Since she’s also noticeably pregnant, one must assume (assuming that one is still awake, and that one’s brain is still functioning enough to draw conclusions) that this is the Rita that Jerry, the guy on the tape, was talking about. Remember? Crane was listening to the tape, and one guy was yakking on about how in love he was with his girl before he got beed? A little expository dialog between Felix and Pete, the owner of the diner, confirms that Rita is that Rita. Also, the gossip around town has it that Felix is edging out Clarence for Maureen’s affections. That being established, Felix splits. Why, speak of the Devil. Who does Felix meet on the street but Maureen herself. Sappy music punctuates the scene, as Felix presents her with the roses and makes his pitch. Maureen, obviously conflicted between the two boring codgers she has to choose from, weasels off without indicating her answer. By the way, we’re just now approaching the movie’s hour mark. That leaves us roughly (and I do mean roughly) and hour and a half to go. Boy, time flies, huh.

Meanwhile, Paul and his two chums are engaging in a little field work - literally, they’re out in a field. They immediately come across a big swarm of bees that no one else has stumbled across. Given the perspective of the camera, I’d put them at about twenty feet away from the bees. Yet when Paul uses his binoculars, he sees the bees at a smaller size ratio than the establishing shot from his position moments earlier! Good binoculars, dude! The shot, of course, utilizes the familiar "binocular outline" effect. Next, maybe Paul will look through a "keyhole". Hey, I know! Have a bee look through the binoculars, thus utilizing both the "binocular outline" and the bee-vision "zillions of tiny rotating pictures" effects. That’d be groovy! Paul (still ashen from his earlier encounter) suggests a strategic withdrawal while they formulate their plans.

Back at the base, the men go about their duty as the news plays on that big screen that comes down from the ceiling. They’re probably waiting for Jenny Jones to start. A radar man informs Crane and Slater that he’s located a giant swarm, only two hundred miles from Houston. Slater suggests sending helicopters with "chemical agents" to take care of the bees. Crane takes him aside, and they engage in a rather inarticulate shouting match, as both actors try to out-yell and out-ham each other. This leads to some choice dialog, even for this turkey. Slater tries to maintain that he isn’t required to consult Crane on military decisions, like how to attack the bees, leading to this inexplicable argument:

Crane: "THESE BEES, GENERAL, ARE OF JOINT CONCERN, AND THEY ARE KILLING AMERICANS, WITHOUT REFERENCE AS TO WHETHER OR NOT THEY HAVE A SERIAL NUMBER AND ARE EXPECTED TO SALUTE YOU!!! SO THERE WILL BE NO AIR DROPS OF ANY KIND UNTIL I GIVE THE OK!!!"
Slater: "YOUR OK, HUH?! THEN JUST POSSIBLY I CAN PERSUADE YOU TO ATTACK THIS PARTICULAR SWARM, NOW THAT WE KNOW WHERE IT IS!!! ATTACK AND ELIMINATE IT!!!!!
Crane: "POSSIBLY, IF YOU CAN EXPLAIN TO ME, HOW YOU AIR DROP CHEMICALS, WITHOUT KILLING THE NATIVE INSECT LIFE!!!!!!!!!! IF YOUR CHEMICAL WILL KILL THE AFRICAN BEE, IT WILL ALSO KILL THE AMERICAN BEE, RIGHT????!!!!!"
Slater: "RIGHT!!!! AND BETTER A FEW AMERICAN BEES THAN A LOT OF AMERICAN PEOPLE!!!!!"
Crane: "THAT IS THE POINT, GENERAL!!!! THE HONEY BEE IS VITAL TO THE ENVIRONMENT!!!!! EVERY YEAR IN AMERICA, THEY POLLUNATE SIX BILLION DOLLARS WORTH OF CROPS!!!!! IF YOU KILL THE BEE, YOU’RE GONNA KILL THE CROP!!!!! IF YOU KILL THE PLANTS, YOU’LL KILL THE PEOPLE!!!!!! NO!!!!!! NO, GENERAL!!!!! THERE WILL BE NO AIR DROP, UNTIL WE KNOW EXACTLY, WHAT WE ARE DROPPING, AND WHERE, AND HOW!!!!! EXCUSE ME!!!!" (Crane departs)

Uhm, actually, I believe I can answer those criteria. First, Slater wants to drop a chemical insecticide. Second, he wants to drop it on top of the swarm that’s currently outside of Houston. As to "how", well, uh, by helicopter or plane, I would guess. Isn’t that kind of inherent in the whole "air drop" phrase. Now, I don’t really get that thing about the bees having serial numbers. Still, it seems to me that dropping chemicals on one confined area currently housing a swarm is not likely to destroy enough American insects to have a widespread environmental impact. Of course, the real reason why Crane doesn’t approve the chemical drop (aside from Hollywood scoring P.C. points with the whole "environment" thing) is because then the movie would be over. I mean, here’s Crane yelling about a crop famine causing deaths when earlier in the movie he was warning that the bees could conceivably wipe Mankind completely off the face of the Earth. Crane stalks off, Slater huffs off, and Baker looks disappointed that the air drop won’t be proceeding. Next seen, Crane is listening to the audio tapes of the attack again. For some reason the room is lit with weird "atmospheric" red lighting, like in an old Star Trek episode. Crane’s timing the period from the beginning of the alarm siren to when the attack commenced. Presumably, he will later use this data to again inform us of how formidable these particular bees are.

Back in the field, Paul and his two pals are preparing to implement their carefully designed stratagem for dealing with that milling swarm they’ve found. This brilliant scheme involves tossing some Molotov cocktails at the tree where the bees hang out and then running like hell. They’ve stationed garbage cans (how appropriate!) about a block away. In the off chance that their machinations result in less than the total destruction of the swarm, these will be used to provide protection. Personally, I would have kept them closer to hand, but then we wouldn’t get that dynamic "chased by bees" scene. Amazingly, some of the millions bees manage to survive their fiery projectiles, and the boys run to the cans, turning them upside down and sitting inside them. Good thing they didn’t hide in bit plastic cups, eh! We now know how little protection that would have afforded. Frustrated at their inability to get at the little arsonists, the pissed off swarm takes off en masse, heading into Marysville for an attack. Thanks, kids!

Meanwhile, we see Crane and Helena driving around desert roads in his van, looking for Paul. Helena thanks Crane for taking time away from his responsibilities to help find the lad. Crane replies that Paul is one of his responsibilities, and admits that he also likes being with her. "You’re the one positive thing that’s happened to me here," he gushes. "I like that," she replies, "I really do!" Ah, love! Makes you want to vomit, doesn’t it? You know, considering how self-righteous Crane has been to everybody, he’s got a lot of nerve taking time off to tool around in a van, searching for some kid and smoozing a chick. Since he’s recently reamed Slater for his suggestion on how to deal with the bees, you’d think he might want to spend some time coming up with a better plan. Maybe, you know, before the bees moved into Houston or something. But, hey, who doesn’t deserve a little "me" time. Suddenly, Crane stiffens up, as he notices the swarm milling angrily in the sky. He stops the van, and points at the big, black, buzzing mass in the sky. "Look," he says, pointing up, "the Bees!" This is a regular problem with films featuring optical effects, which are inserted later into the movie. Take, for instance, dinosaur flicks like The Beast From Twenty Thousand Fathoms. In the scene where the monster rises from the water to crash onto the dock, you can be sure to expect a reaction shot of men on the wharf shouting and pointing at it. Of course, in real life, you wouldn’t have to point at it. I mean, a giant dinosaur coming on land would draw everybody’s attention nicely by itself, thank you. Imagine this scene:

First Guy: "Ohmygod! Look at that!!"
Second Guy, misinterpreting: "What, that big forklift? You’re not kidding. Man, look at the tires on that thing!"
First Guy, now pointing: "No, doofus, that giant Dinosaur eating that guy!"
Second Guy, now looking where the other guy’s pointing: "Oh, yee-aah!"

So here’s Crane, parked in the featureless desert, pointing out the window at the optically inserted giant swarm filling the cloudless blue sky. He also feels he has to verbally mention the bees, to make sure she knows exactly what he’s pointing at. Actors must feel pretty stupid when they see effects that were added in later, and see that on the screen they’re trying to call attention to something that in real life you couldn’t miss. (For another problem with optical effects inserted later into a film, see the anecdote on Jeff Morrow’s reaction upon seeing the "monster" inserts for the first time in my The Giant Claw review.) "They’re headed towards Marysville.", Crane notes. He awkwardly turns his clunky ‘70s van around and heads into town to warn them. Luckily, we know the bees travel seven miles an hour, while Crane’s van, if he floors it, can do twice that.

We cut over to the Marysville elementary school, where we see something that truly makes our blood run cold. No, not bees killing hundreds of children. It’s Clarence, sitting outside Maureen’s office with flowers. Yes, our most excruciating subplot now continues. Clarence sits in a common area, and kids run all over, apparently unsupervised (wow, the movie was ahead of its time!). A little blond kid shows up, standing next to Clarence as he licks his absurdly large lollipop, like a kid in a cartoon. The kid stares at Clarence. Clarence looks uncomfortable. Musical cues indicate that this is "humorous". Finally, to his relief (but not to ours), Clarence is allowed into Maureen’s office. Our deepest fears are realized, as Clarence declares his love, and asks Maureen to marry him. It’s a grotesque, maudlin little speech, that hits all the expected notes: Maureen says she’s already married, to her job (wow, it’s like that song, "Brandy"); how Clarence loves her, although he nobly admits that for all his ribbing, Felix is a good man who’d also make a good husband; that he’s known her since they were kids and always loved her, and will continue to no matter what decision she makes; etc. In a way, the saddest aspect is that, in spite of how lame their "characters" are, and how poor the script is here, MacMurray and de Havilland are such pros that they almost pull it off. It makes you realize what a disservice it is to these veteran actors to saddle them with this junk. Maureen, feeling pressure from both sides, admits she’ll have to make her decision. She’ll inform them before the school term is over.

Earlier we had seen the base’s viewscreen tuned into TV coverage of the bee attack on the Durants. The reporter we saw then, Anne MacGregor (Lee Grant), now drives into Marysville with her crew. A good newshawk, her instincts tell here that they’re a story brewing. She mentions that it’s more than just one family being killed, it’s something bigger. So apparently the media is unaware of the attack on the missile base. Now since they’ve heard of an attack on two people outside of little Marysville, and since we’ve seen at least three scenes that confirm that everyone in town knows about the attack on the base, how is it even possible that the media would not be aware of the base being knocked out? Anyway, Crane’s van finally whips into town, horn a’blazin. Running into the police station, Crane and Helena inform them about the incoming bees, and the alert goes out. Crane and Helena split, and as the desk officer makes calls, we hear Crane outside yelling "The bees are coming!", followed by generic "screaming crowd" noises. We cut outside, seeing the "panic" as Crane runs around, yelling warnings. Hilariously, one of his lines, yelled as everyone is seen screaming and running inside, is "Don’t you understand?! The Bees are coming!", as if he were talking to people who were just standing there staring at him. He also handily suggests to them, "Take your children with you!" Hey, yeah, good idea.

At the school, Maureen jumps onto the intercom, ordering everyone inside. But it’s too late. Out front we see a dozen or so kids and a couple of teachers already falling to the rampaging bees. That no one in the school noticed the huge swarm of marauding bees right outside is somewhat of a mystery. We watch the charming sight of ten-year old boys and girls falling in agony to the bees. The camera closes in on one victim. It’s the blond kid we earlier saw with the big lollipop. The shot continues to zoom in to a "horrifying" close-up of the bees swarming his sucker. Egad, what poignancy!! What pathos!! Maureen runs into a classroom to try to calm the kids, then stares in horror at the bees milling around on the window. When she spots the bodies outside she turns away, giving a mournful "Ohhhhh!" sound. This, for some reason, is presented to us in slow motion (!).

MacGregor runs into her news van, ordering her minions to get it all on tape. When we cut outside we find, hilariously, that this involves guys actually standing outside, on top of the van, and manning the cameras! Crane and Helena are still outside herding the lesser-intellected inside. When the optical effect of the swarm blots out the entire sky, Crane "notices" them. Pointing (of course) at them, he tells Helena "Run!" Wow, that kind of quick, decisive thinking reinforces why this guy’s in command. In spite of the fact that it’s been at least ten minutes since the alarm went out, what seems like hundreds of people are still out on the street. This is the big attack scene, of course, and victims are required, whether it makes sense or not. A flurry of shots ensues. Crane and Helena run inside the diner where Pete and Rita work, but not before Helena gets stung on the neck. Those cameramen on top of the news van, swinging at clouds of bees, finally decide to get inside the van (good thinking!). MacGregor watches the carnage on the monitors. Some moron, too stupid to get in out of the bees, crashes through the diner’s window, somewhat compromising it’s integrity as a bee haven.

Everyone runs into the back storeroom. Crane suggests they hide in the diner’s enormous walk-in freezer, which seems pretty big for an eatery that never seems to be serving more than two people at a time. However, the panicky Pete runs inside first, slamming the door behind him. "He’s locked it!", yells Rita (A freezer that locks from the inside?!). Asked if they aren’t safe in the storeroom, Crane points to an air conditioning vent. "No," he states, "They’ll come through the vent." Uhm, actually, wouldn’t the rather thick looking grate covering the air conditioning vent keep the bees out? And wouldn’t you at least try to barricade the vent with whatever materials are at hand? Some luck is with them though. "It’s forty degrees in here. We’ll be all right for a while," he posits, looking at a convenient thermometer. "Bees don’t function well in temperatures under fifty." Uh, wouldn’t it be a lot colder than that in the actual air conditioning duct? And what does it mean that bees don’t "function" well in colder temperatures? That it’ll take them longer to break through the grate? Helena starts feeling the effects of her bee sting. Hey, it’s "Goofy Hallucination" time again! Looking into the worried Crane’s eyes, Helena sees a big bee in his pupil. Luckily for her, she passes out. Unluckily for us, we don’t.

Back at the base’s Communications Room, various screens and terminals are displaying the news coverage of the Marysville attack. Again, no mention on any network is made of the attack on the base, a fact that couldn’t possibly have escaped notice. One reporter notes that "scientific experts" are advising that the attack was a freak occurrence, and "could not possibly be repeated". This statement is obviously inane. Someone might posit another attack as unlikely, even extremely so, but "could not possibly be repeated"? Even if someone made such a statement, wouldn’t the reporter question it? Anyway, back in Marysville, the clean-up is commencing. Body bags are being stacked up, and the hospital is overflowing with patients. The background soundtrack is loaded with "wailing" noises and other general sounds of misery.

Krim catches up with Crane at the hospital via the phone. Crane and Helena, last seen "trapped" in a storeroom that was under the imminent threat of bee invasion, are now free and clear with absolutely no explanation (even in this, the "expanded" version). Considering the big deal they made of the "siege" scene, they could have at least covered it with a line of dialog. Crane reports that the attack was about as bad as it could possibly get: over two hundred dead, almost three hundred total casualties. Which, while admittedly bad, doesn’t sound about "as bad as it could possibly get". Surely, even in a smallish community, two hundred dead must not represent more than, say, five or ten percent of the population. I mean, wouldn’t an eighty or ninety percent casualty rate be closer to being "as bad as possible". (Not to sound insensitive or anything.) Krim has more worrisome news: one of the initial attack survivors, stung only twice, was on the apparent verge of recovery when his condition abruptly worsened and he died. Crane, looking over at the stung Helena, pushes Krim to work harder on finding the antidote.

Crane goes outside to confer with Slater. Paul comes in and confesses to Helena about fire bombing the bees, and how it, you know, might have exasperated them a tad and resulted in the attack on Marysville. Outside, Slater explains that the attack has resulted in a nationwide panic. Still chaffing under civilian control (even though our system of military is always under civilian control), Slater attacks Crane for wasting time when they could have attacked the bees and avoided the massacre. Crane asks Slater what he would have done had he been in charge. "I’d evacuate this area," he replies. "Put up roadblocks across the state. And spray the hell out of every tree and bush from here to the Gulf!" Crane decides to answer each suggestion in order, leading to yet another conversation that sounds like the questions and answers were cut up separately and reassembled in the wrong order. "Why evacuate?", Crane queries. Uhm, perhaps to reduce the number of possible victims? Of course, this logical answer isn’t given. "Your Dr. Hubbard was out collecting live Africans! [I’m assuming he means bees, not, you know, people from Africa.] He’s brought them back to the complex. Thousands.", Slater snidely replies. First of all, this in no way appears to answer the "evacuation" question. Also, Slater and Baker both seem shocked when Crane approves of collecting live specimens. Duh! How could anybody not understand that a group dealing with bees would want samples on hand? We also learn that Hubbard collected the bees when they were resting on the surface of a local lake (?!). This is a plot point, so remember it later.

Crane actually presses on how this would require evacuation. Because, Slater answers, when the bees "discover" some of their "little buddies" (insert your own Gilligan’s Island joke here) are missing, they might come back to Marysville seeking vengeance (!!). Crane, who has spent the entire movie spouting off on how powerful and intelligent these bees are, now himself looks askance. "Are you endowing these bees with human motives?," Crane asks. "Like saving their fellow bees from captivity, or seeking revenge on Mankind?" "I always credit my enemy, no matter what he may be, with equal intelligence.," Slater answers. Well, no great leap there. Amazingly, rather than make any of the obvious retorts, Crane seems to swallow this "logic". He agrees to evacuate Marysville. Big deal. They should have been done that anyway, since the bees are still in the area. Crane skips over the flaws in the "roadblock" scenario, such as how bees don’t actually drive cars, or how roadblocks and evacuations seem to contradict one another. He instead asks how Slater would attack the bees. Slater replies that planes equipped with radar would drop pesticides on every swarm of African bees that could be located. Crane asks how Slater would keep the wind from blowing some of the chemicals over civilian area. Slater reasonably points out that sometimes it’s necessary to choose the "lesser of two evils." Crane explodes. "Ridiculous, General!!", he sputters, in spite of the fact that this may be the least ridiculous line in the entire movie. "We’ll do it my way!," Crane continues, "Now give it a chance!" No one points out that up to now they have done it his way, resulting in a death count pushing two hundred and fifty.

As Crane walks off, he’s intercepted by Paul. Paul runs through the whole firebombing incident, explaining how he was seeking revenge for his parents’ death. "I got a lot of ‘em!," he explains, "And the rest of them flew in the air and…" Actually, we saw the firebombing, and I’d say at best they got a couple hundred of the millions of bees. Improbably, Crane consoles him by telling him that he would have done the same thing. Crane tells of how his parents died in a fire when he was seven. So he found a big fire and threw beebombs at it. OK, I made that last line up. "It’s not good to have to grow up without a mother and father." he continues. Wow, a statement both insultingly obvious to a boy who just saw his parents die and yet morose enough to cause further depression. Good work! Now that Paul has completely expedited his complicity in the deaths of hundreds through a little confession, Crane sends him upstairs to watch over Helena. Walking to his van, Crane is ambushed by MacGregor, who asks for a statement. Crane warns that danger hasn’t passed, and continues on. Driving out of town, he looks out at the assemblage of black body bags piled up on the lawn of the town square, toasting nicely in the sun.

In a lab at headquarters, we see some woman tapping on the glass covering a segment of beehive. Apparently, she was annoying the bees for her own amusement, for as Crane enters the room, she walks away. Crane dons bee-proofed gear and enters the secure Bee Room, where Krim and Hubbard are at work. They’re checking a series of grids that are electrified with low voltage. Then they release some bees and pile them on the grids. The bees, pissed-off, "sting" the grid, thus allowing for the collection of venom. I don’t know if this equipment is valid (it seems pretty goofy). But personally, I would have the grids in a glass cage or something, and so release the bees into a small, contained area. Instead, the grids are left out on the table, and the bees are released to fly around the entire room! After collected the venom smeared panes, they leave the room and enter a connecting chamber, like an airlock. Since bees are flying around freely in the interior chamber, what’s keeping them from entering the middle section with our Heroes when the door is open? I mean, since it’s now been confirmed that two, perhaps even one sting can be fatal, a small number of escaped bees could wipe the entire lab staff out. Luckily, I guess the bees just didn’t think of it. Of course, the guys also have some bees crawling on their suits, but they take care of this by wiping the bees off each other with little brushes (!). With this high-tech non-contamination routine finished, they reenter the main lab. Meanwhile, Baker checks out the infirmary, where Helena has returned to work. He’s received reports that she’s developing a "personal relationship" with Crane, and warns her it might be wise to end it. Of course, she basically tells him to stuff it. The fuming Baker is reduced to frustration for the one hundredth and forty-ninth time this movie.

At the town hospital, Rita is finished being medically examined before leaving town (the evacuation, remember?). You’ll be glad to know that she and the baby she’s carrying are fine (Whew!). Now we witness a contender for the film’s most pointless scene (and what a mighty battle it is). The hospital’s doctor, who we’ve seen in a minor way in a couple of peripheral scenes, now wastes our time with his own authentic sub-plot. Talking to Rita, he obviously intends to declare his love for her, now that Jerry’s dead (remember?…Oh, forget it). This comes entirely out of nowhere and is as well completely pointless. Rita, obviously creeped out, runs off to grab the last bus to the train station. The scene ends with the Doctor staring into the camera, a mourning, soulful look on his face.

At the railroad station, people are boarding the train out of town. For some reason, this is being supervised by Major Baker and General Slater (why is a two star general herding civilians onto a train?). We also get a "comical" scene of Clarence and Felix fretfully waiting for Maureen, and then, when she appears, tussling over her bag. Har har. Meanwhile, Rita gets dropped off at the terminal just in time to go into labor. Back to the hospital. Wow, escape was so close! Baker is still megaphoning instructions to boarders. Pausing, he makes a snide remark about Crane to Slater. Slater reams him out for attacking a man behind his back, as well for his obvious attempt at brown nosing. This serves two purposes: one, Baker, the film’s official whipping boy, has now been dissed by every other character in the movie. Second, it makes Slater (all of the sudden) more likable, thus adding tragedy to his inevitable death (oops, hope I didn’t blow anything for you).

Later, we see Helena and Crane walking down the streets of the evacuated backlot, er, town. "Poignant" music softly plays in the background. As they walk past the diner where they fled from the bees (hey, I hope somebody got Pete out of the freezer!), strains of the movie’s "Bee" music are subtly played. Helena, saddened at the death of her hometown, starts telling Crane of growing up there. We start scanning the skies, hoping the bees will attack and shut her up. No such luck, I’m afraid. The couple now engages in their first, gentle embrace. The audience now engages in its latest upchuck.

We cut to the evacuee train, a’rollin’ down the tracks, to the junction. Or something. While Crane and Helena’s stroll was clearly set in the early evening, the current scene is in broad daylight. So what the timeframe is here, well, you got me. It hits us that one of the last places you want to be in a "giant monster" movie is a train. And while you might want to debate the issue, for all intents and purposes a gigantic swarm of super intelligent, plastic cup-tearing bees is a giant monster. However, the more horrifying fact is that, sure enough, we take the opportunity to drop in Clarence, Felix and Maureen. Where are those bees?! Clarence and Felix engage in some friendly, if unentertaining, zinging, while Maureen has a premonition that she’ll never see Marysville, or her children (in that order), again. Bum bum bum! She adds that she can’t shake the feeling that something’s closing in on them. What could it be? Godzilla? King Kong? The Giant Claw? (All of whom destroyed trains in their initial screen appearances. See what I mean?) A snacks guy, paper hat, tray and all, comes down the aisle, making us wonder what decade this movie was made in.

We cut to the engine, a really bad set featuring guys in the most stereotypical "train engineer" togs you can imagine. You wonder if "Choo Choo Charlie" is going to show up. Even though fleeing the site of a massive bee attack, the engineer’s windows are wide open. Sure enough, the compartment is soon filled with what are either bees or unpopped popcorn kernels. I can’t really tell which. The flailing engineer knocks the throttle full open before expiring, and the train rushes to its demise (yay, something almost interesting is happening!). The train (or an unreasonable facsimile thereof), rolls off the tracks, crashing down an incline. Clarence and Felix are tossed through windows as the train rolls down the hill, while Maureen’s still inside when the train cars explode and burst into flames (?!). For those who are wondering, Clarence and Felix were apparently supposed to be killed. This is the conclusion reached by me and another viewer the first time we watched this movie, based on the fact that neither character reappears. This is, however, only a supposition. And wow, we never even learned who Maureen was going to choose. How sad. Not that we didn’t learn this. That precious minutes of our lives (and more than a few) were wasted with this stupid, boring, who-cares subplot, one that they didn’t even bother resolving. Good-bye, Fred, Olivia and Ben. You’re going to a better place. No-longer-in-this-movie-stan.

Back at the base, the report on the train attack in coming in. Slater explodes, asking Crane when they’re going to go on the attack (not an unreasonable question, at this point). Crane, however, now has an air-drop weapon ready. It’s a poison, all right, but in the form of pellets. These will be consumed by the bees, but won’t blow into civilian areas or kill plants (unless it rains, and the pellets melt into the root system…but anyway). Slater, still favoring conventional pesticides, attacks the effectiveness of the pellets. However, he backs down when both Krim and Hubbard support the technique. Krim also posits that the only alternative to the pellets is finding an antidote, which may well be impossible. Uh, actually, isn’t the dropping of conventional pesticides an "alternative"? Again, it’s getting harder to prop up the "environmental damage will be worse than the bees themselves" theory, as hundreds die and the bees approach Houston. The computer projections, in fact, put them in Houston in three days.

Next, we see the actual deploying of the pellets. It’s kind of low-tech, involving guys with bags of pellets shaking them out of helicopter doorways. Luckily for Crane, considering he’s in the lead copter, the bees don’t bother to attack them. However, an unforeseen problem arises. The bees choose not to eat, or lick, or interact with the pellets, or do whatever was supposed to make them work. Wow, there’s a fatal flaw in their plans. This clearly drives Crane irrational. "They’re not touching the pellets," he radios in. "They seem to sense it’s something that will kill them." And your empirical basis for that statement would be…? Back at base, the shattered Hubbard mumbles, "They’re brighter than we thought." Krim dryly replies, "They always are." (??) Gee, maybe you should have taken that into account, then. Of course, no one no suggests they go with a conventional chemical attack. You know, Slater’s supposed to strike us as a hothead, but he’s making the scientists look pretty stupid. If he had been put in charge in the first place, it’s likely the bees would have been wiped out right away. And without the wide-spread environmental damage Crane and his guys keep spouting off about. By the way, where’s the President during all of this? Is he going to just leave Crane in charge while the death toll mounts?

A quick scene shows Helena in the town hospital, watching over Paul. He must have had a relapse (when was this?!), as he’s back in the hospital hooked up to various "pinging" machines. She keeps rehearing in her head his confession about firebombing the bees. Down the hall, we check in on Rita, just leaving the delivery room. Dialog indicates that she’ll end up with the Doctor guy after all. Oh, I’m so glad it worked out for them, aren’t you? Back in Paul’s room, his heart monitor flatlines. Helena calls in the good Doctor, but it’s too late. Wow, one life enters the world, one life leaves it. It’s profound, really. OK, maybe not. Now we know why Helena kept hearing Paul admit he caused the attack on Marysville. It’s so when old women in the audience complain, "That’s awful. Why’d they have to kill that poor little boy!", their companions could reply, "Well, he caused all those people to get killed." You know, Movie Morality. C’mon, can’t you pretty much guess who’s going to get offed in these things? Maybe one or two "good" characters for pathos, but you just know anybody who, say, is an adulterer, or a crook, or acts cowardly, or whatever, is going to get it.

After a short "grieving" scene for Helena, Crane walks in. Too bad he wasn’t there a minute ago. I’m sure he could have saved Paul ("You’re not dead. I promise you, you’re not dead."). This is Ross’ big "Oscar Clip" moment, as she shrilly (and poorly) delivers Helena’s big, "What Good Are We If We Can’t Save the Children?!" speech. She then falls sobbing into Crane’s arms. On the way back to the base they engage in a rambling conversation. This ranges from more whining about Paul (he wanted to be an archeologist) to the fact that Crane failed to inform the previously stung Helena that most sting victims have suffered a fatal relapse. This is a totally useless scene that was cut out of the theatrical version, for good reason, and reinserted in the "expanded video edition", for no good reason. It’s a "character" scene in a movie that has no real characters.

Back at the base, Slater’s complaining about how the pellets didn’t work. It turns out the bees are heading into Houston faster than expected. "General," Dr. Hubbard replies, "you should know the enemy’s always expected to do the unexpected!" Which, considering that Hubbard designed the failed poison pellets, takes a lot of gall. The cast is watching a map with white Christmas lights embedded in it, which supposedly is used to track the bees’ progress towards Houston. Like many other pieces of equipment shown throughout the movie, it’s ridiculous, obviously fake in a way that leaves no possibility that anyone could actually think it does anything. Baker comes in with a tally of the various factories, facilities (including a nuclear power "center") and towns between the bees and Houston. Crane orders everything shut down and/or evacuated. Slater warns that the nuclear power plant will never agree to be closed down. He’ll try to arrange for Washington to order it. Hubbard suggests, since he knows most of the management staff there, that he personally go and try to persuade them to shut down. How is it that he knows them? Because he keeps hauling them into court on environmental issues. Oh, yeah, he sounds like just the guy that management will listen to when he comes in and orders them to shut the plant down. Maybe he can take Ralph Nader with him.

Heading into the lab, Crane spots a nurse (?) removing Krim’s untouched meal. Crane notes that everything they’ve tried (uh, one thing, actually) has failed, and their only hope is that Krim come up with that antidote (not that you should feel pressured, or anything). Crane notes that if he can’t come up with it right away, they might as well "ship out to New Zealand"(?). Specifically, they need something that can be self-injected in case of a bee sting, and they need it right now. This is stupid on a number of levels. Let’s say Krim magically pulled the anti-toxin out of his pocket right at this moment. How could they mass produce it, much less its delivery system, a one-dose, self-contained hypodermic needle, in time for it to be available for the Houston attack? (And if that’s not the goal, what’s the immediate rush?) And since most people have been attacked by a massive cloud of bees, this "self-injection" concept would be largely useless. How many people are going to keep their heads enough while being stung by hundreds of bees to break out a needle and give themselves a shot? Anyway, Krim agrees to test his current experimental serum on the first human guinea pig to volunteer. Crane replies that will take too long. They’ll test the serum the next day: on Crane himself. Crane leaves, and I guess if you’ve never seen a movie before, you won’t figure out what happens next.

Sure enough, the self-sacrificing Krim decides that since it’s his serum, he’ll test it on himself. Gee, I hope that it works, as Krim is the only immunologist working on the project (I know he’s "the best in the country", but you’d still think he’s have some guys working under him). Krim begins making a voice recording of the experiment. First, he plans to inject himself with the equivalent of six (!) stings, double the fatal dosage. First up on the test: will he even be able to use the needle, or will "muscular stiffness" prevent him from making the injection? Uh, is he sure this is the best way to test this? He hooks himself up to a "pinging" machine, and injects the toxin. The pinging comes faster, but Krim decides to wait sixty seconds to inject the antidote. That’s how long it would take for an inexperienced layman to utilize the self-injecting unit. I’m really not sure its required for Krim to be quite this rigorous. And what about variables? After all, Krim is surely in his seventies. Might not that make a difference? He describes his rational for waiting for sixty seconds for a period of roughly twenty seconds, then starts the clock! So he’s really waiting almost a minute and a half. Of course, the idea is that this is suspenseful, and indeed, if this were a good movie, it probably would be. Instead, impatient for this dumb thing to end, the average audience member is less likely to shout, "Inject yourself now, Henry! Hurry!", than "Hurry up and die already, old man!!"

The "suspense" continues. Krim’s muscles are too constricted to be able to reach for the hypodermic. Finally, he forces himself to grab it and inject himself. But they really milk this. His heartbeat drops rapidly from 160 beats a minute to normal. The shocked Helena comes in just as this occurs. She shares with him his triumphant moment. But then Krim notes that the "four physiological responses, they’re swinging from norm to, really spooky levels!" The pinging machine starts pinging faster, which is always a bad sign, ping wise (except when starting with no pings. Then you thump angrily on the chest of the ping deprived person, yelling "Live, damn you! Live!!", until pinging recommences). Krim continues his vocal narration of his own demise. Then comes the moment we haven’t been waiting for, as Krim himself hallucinates that big bee. This is really getting silly. I mean, maybe the venom would cause hallucinations, but always the same big bee? C’mon. No drug could result in the same hallucination in different people. I mean, please. Anyway, having seen this Harbinger of Death (and Boredom), Krim passes away, pingless. And since at this point we know the movie won’t end until all the "big" stars but Caine and Ross are popped off, we give a little smile. Maybe Richard Chamberlain will die by slipping on an over-waxed floor and cracking his head open while hurrying to help Krim. That would speed things up noticeably. (Sigh, no such luck.)

Helena attempts resuscitation, but it’s no go. Worse yet, the other characters start entering the room, without generating further casualties. I guess they’re going to keep draaagging this out, aren’t they? As Fonda was the most beloved star in the movie, he got the "best" (i.e. noblest) death, as well as the other stars filing in to pay homage. Crane enters. The others look away. Whether as characters, to afford Crane privacy at this most private of moments, or as actors, in order to avoid seeing the embarrassment of two great thespians saddled with this tripe, I can’t say. Crane engages in his short Oscar Clip moment, and then we quickly…

…Cut outside of a not-totally-convincing model of a nuclear power plant. This is a good sign, as the obligatory "star" demises are happening more rapidly. Not only is the interior sort of odd looking for a nuclear plant (uh, why can we see the exposed core?), but it’s brought to "life" via some rather obvious bluescreening. Tell tale bluescreen lines are evident around Dr. Hubbard and the Plant Manager, Dr. Andrews (Oscar™ winner José Ferrar. Ouch!), as they walk through the "plant". Of course, Andrews laughs off the threat, and refuses to even seek permission to shut down the facility. "Billions of dollars have been spent to make these nuclear plants safe. Fail-safe! The odds against anything going wrong are astronomical, Doctor!", he sputters. But the cagey Hubbard has a response: "I appreciate that, Doctor. But let me ask you. In all your fail-safe techniques, is there a provision for an attack by killer bees?!" Right on cue, this triggers the alarm system. Andrews and Hubbard run over to a rather generic looking "control panel", trying to find out what’s going on. Unsurprisingly, their answer is a loud "bee" noise filling the air. We see some guys attacked by superimposed "bees" (these aren’t the greatest special effects in history, if you get my drift). Hilariously, while three guys writhe in pain, one guy with his back turned just stands there, seeming not to notice he’s under "attack". Oddly, Andrews calls for the plant to "go to manual!" Uh, since your entire staff is being killed by bees, wouldn’t it be better to leave everything on "auto"? Andrews and Hubbard race for safety, but lose out. So we get some nice long dying-in-agony-in-slow-motion shots. Strangely, the plant now simply explodes, going up like a cheap model (in fact, exactly like a cheap model).

Back at the base, the immediate report lists an "estimated" toll of 36,422 (uh, what’s the "margin of error" on that?) dead in the aftermath of the plant explosion. I have to wonder if this incident hasn’t led to greater "environmental impact" than if they had gone with the chemical attack. Crane’s not exactly looking like a genius now or anything (although the movie seems not to notice). Slater comes in, having finally gotten word from Washington to close down Crane’s command. The anti-bee effort is now under military command. But, Slater has a kind word. "In spite of what you might think," Slater tells Crane, "I was kind of hoping you’d pull it off." Yeah, I guess that would have been better than the circa 40,000 death toll. Even if an egghead like Crane was proven correct. Boy, that’s big of you, General. Of course, while Slater’s finally been given command, the bees are now only seventeen hours out of Houston, so it’s not like he has a lot of time for careful planning. Crane defiantly orders an assistant to have his Oscilloscopes flown out to Houston. Crane will join him later with "the tapes, and the rest of the equipment." No one notes that Crane no longer has helicopters at his command, so I guess we’ll let that go. "I haven’t surrendered yet, General.," Crane notes, leaving. He pops into Krim’s quarters, for a "touching" scene as he fondles Krim’s eyeglasses and wheelchair. In kind of a creepy moment, he sits in Krim’s wheelchair (although he doesn’t put on his glasses), and stares into space. "This one’s for you, Walter!", he might be thinking. Or maybe not.

Crane (who’s nicely been loaned an Air Force car) and Helena are next seen driving into Houston. The radio handily informs us that most of Houston has been evacuated (in less than a day? A city the size of Houston?!). Like in a ‘50s sci-fi film, we learn that much of the nation is in church. Also, a Northern cold front is currently keeping the bees confined to Texas. "Who would have thought that bees would be the first alien force to invade America.", Crane muses. Huh? When he says "alien", I assume he means non-human (cause, you know, the War of 1812 and all). In which case the more likely question is "Who thought that any alien force would invade America?" Entering the "eerily" deserted Houston, Crane is stopped by a guard asking where’s he going, apparently to make sure he’s not headed in for an Oilers game. "Air Force Headquarters.", he responds, and is waved through. Meanwhile, we see a small number of extras in their NBC gear, most sporting flame throwers.

At headquarters, Slater is oddly cordial to Crane, showing him his plan. Now that the bees ("billions of them!") are massed in the outlying area, Slater plans to bombard them with "neutracide". Of course, Crane protests the use of such a virulent chemical. "General," he blurts, "if you use that, nothing will grow out there for the next ten years!" "Why worry about shaving when somebody’s going to cut your head off!", Slater responds, and he has a point, or he would if that line made any sense. The viewer screen shows the bees over the city, and Slater gives the command. The screen starts showing Vietnam era stock footage of planes dropping chemicals payloads. But as Helena notes, "The bees are coming through it!!" "I was afraid of this.", Crane reveals. "They’ve become immune to any pesticide." Which seems like rather a premature conclusion. And I’m sorry, but if the stuff was as potent as Crane indicated, you couldn’t develop an immunity to it. It’s only in the script to reflect Hollywood’s simplistic, knee-jerk "Environmentally Correct" chemicals-are-bad philosophy. And, of course, the bees must be defeated by the Good Guys (responsible scientists) and not the atavistic military types. The rueful Slater looks to Crane. "So," he muses, "the occupation of Houston has begun. And General Thalious (?) Slater is your first officer in history to get his butt kicked by a mess of bugs!" In a "touching" moment, Slater asks Crane if he has any of his "birdseeds" (sunflower seeds) left. Here we see the two antagonists share a "human" moment, and, sniff, it’s so beautiful! Helena oddly asks, "How long can they live in the city?" Crane replies, not too surprisingly, that if they get enough food and water (yeah, that’d help), they could live here indefinitely. However, his conclusion that they "just might decide to stay here forever" seems somewhat without foundation.

Next, one of hilarity highlights. A news report from Washington is watched, revealing that a "last resort" strategy for dealing with the bees has been formulated. No, not that a nuclear device will be detonated in the city, annihilating the bees. That would be too logical. Instead, with the accordance of "leading scientists" and "the armed forces", as a last ditch Houston will be…(wait for it!)…set on fire! Yep, the armed forces will burn down Houston. Now, one seeming flaw in this plan is that bees can, you know, FLY!!! What burning down the city could possibly achieve is never even hinted at. And how will the city be set on fire? By individual soldiers armed with flame throwers!! Uh, how would these troops then escape the city? Wouldn’t it be slightly more logical to remove the military and then air drop incendiary bombs from planes? But I guess it wouldn’t like as "dramatic" as guys in chem suits running around blazing away (literally) with flame throwers. Even the presentation is retarded. We see a squad of men standing in the middle of a boulevard, shooting streams of burning fuel that don’t connect with anything. Finally, they move forward and actually hit something with their flames, like a car (those with a quick eye will see the film crew beginning to douse the burning car with water!). Of course, the bees are beginning to get a little riled up by all this.

Crane sits listening to bee recordings. Questioned by Helena, he admits his admiration for them. He wonders if "The Creator" designed them to overcome all opposition, to become masters of a humanless world. Helena responds that maybe The Creator (look, just say "God", OK?) instead designed humans with the ability to overcome the bees. Crane responds that, if so, he’d sure like a clue how. Helena gives the weary Crane a backrub, as he begins to analyze the meanings of the various sounds the bees make. Suddenly, Helena has her "relapse", and passes out.

Outside, the "mass" burning continues, although we appear to be watching the same squad still burning the exact same street section as before. An ambulance drives through. However, the driver is being attacked by a large number of bees. How they got in there, or why he wasn’t provided with a bee suit, we don’t know. He’s so panicked that he drives from nighttime in one shot to bright daylight in the next shot. The ambulance plows through a store window in slow motion, like we were watching The Blues Brothers or Smokey and the Bandit or something (no such luck). It then not only explodes (Movie Rule #37: Any motor vehicle hitting something larger than a walnut must explode into flames), but blows up in so spectacular a fashion that it must have been transporting moonshine or rocket fuel or something. This really pointless stunt completed, we cut back to Crane and the hospitalized Helena (who wasn’t in the exploding ambulance, even though they cut to it right after she collapsed. Maybe they were trying to foster some "suspense", but that’s cheating). The prognosis looks grim, and Crane gives a little prayer, just as Slater and Baker enter. Baker looks amazed and suspicious (why?), and asks Slater, "Can we really count on a scientist who prays?" (??) This sets up Slater’s obvious, "wise" reply, "I wouldn’t count on one who doesn’t." (Wow!) Now that he knows Crane isn’t a faggy Commie atheist or anything, he tells Baker, "You can forget the Dossier." (Referring to Baker’s assignment to spy on Crane.) This "character" moment completed, Baker and Slater leave the room. Why were they there in the first place?

A quick cut outside shows that the effort to burn up all the bees with flame throwers is less than successful. Then back to Helena’s room. Alone, she starts coming out of her coma. Hearing a buzzing sound, she doesn’t flee, but opens her bathroom door to check it out. Sure enough, it’s that ol’ giant bee again. Helena screams and falls back unconscious. Then we’re back on the street again (who edited this?), where the same guys are still setting fire to the same buildings. Unfortunately, none of the noticed the big fuel tanker truck sitting right out on the street, the one with "Flammable" written on it in large red letters. Maybe they just thought it was a miniature, like I did. Anyway, it blows up (duh), and the men fall to the explosion. Back at headquarters, Slater’s looking out a window. He probably can’t help noticing that in spite of setting fire to the city and all, there’s still a lot of bees around. Crane comes in to commiserate. Slater begins to muse. "You wonder, don’t you?", he asks. "Houston on fire. Will history blame me, or the bees?" Well, not to add insult to injury, General, but we didn’t see any bees out there with flame throwers. Crane complements Slater on being able to maintain a "historical perspective". Then he informs the cowed Slater not to give up. They have one more experiment to try. Hmm, maybe they should have mentioned this before the "last resort" set-Houston-on-fire plan was initiated.

Crane and Dr. Newman are listening to bee tapes and analyzing them on an Oscilloscope. Finally, just in time to end the movie, they find what they’ve been searching for, just as Slater enters the room. It turns out that the missile bases alarm (if you can’t remember back that far, don’t worry about it) just happens to perfectly match the bees’ mating sound. This is what caused the initial attack. There’s some pseudo-scientific gobbledygook spouted, silly even for this movie, but the basic point is the siren can be used to lure the bees out of Houston. Of course, now that the solution has finally been found, there’s not much time left to kill off some more of our characters. So just then, the elevator to the military H.Q. opens up, full of bees. Hilariously, they try to stop the invaders by shooting flame throwers at them. This probably kills a good dozen bees but has the downside of setting fire to the building. One of the guys stumbling from the elevator, writhing from the bee’s attack, exits just in time to walk into the stream of the flame thrower. Boy, if it’s not one thing, it’s another, huh! He then crashes through a window (in slow motion, of course), falling thirty or so floor to his death. Man, it just really wasn’t his day. Here’s a couple of questions I have. First, why are there full-length windows, especially ones made of breakable glass, that high up? Second of all, why would you have hanging plants that high up, on the walls outside the building? Well, you wouldn’t. It’s obvious that the stunt man was actually falling from one interior room to another, but the hanging plant on the wall makes it really obvious.

Now that the window’s shattered, masses of bees swarm in (another good reason for unbreakable windows). The defenders bravely, if stupidly, fight back in this confined area with their flame throwers. This sets up more (many more) stunt "gags" of guys-on-fire, as Allen obviously tries to recall his glory days from The Towering Inferno. Fat chance! Baker runs into the lab and informs Slater that the bees have broken in. Slater orders Crane and Newman out of the building, as they know how to stop the bees. Crane doesn’t want to leave without Helena, so he goes for her (through the hallway full of flames and thick with bees). He orders Newman to go the other way (through the same rather problematic hallway), and to carry on if he doesn’t make it. Crane grabs Helena and runs for the (I assume) stairway. Out in the hall, Slater, Baker and Newman fall to the bees. Amazingly, Crane and Helena make it from the infirmary room to the stairway without getting stung by any of the about million bees in the hallway. Crane reaches the stairway door and opens it, calling for Newman to come with them, but it’s too late. Crane and Helena run, without bothering to close the door to the bee filled hall behind them! Then, in the next shot, Crane and Helena are out at an airfield! So we’re to believe that a) there weren’t any bees in the stairway to begin with; b) none followed them through the door they left open as they went down thirty or forty floors worth of stairs; and c) with no protective gear whatsoever, they managed to evade the bees long enough to get out of the city, while everybody else died around them. Puh-lease!!

Luckily, Slater had left word at the airfield before his demise. Crane orders them to load the sound gear on helicopters and "spread the big oil slick over the Gulf". A convoy of tanker planes (we see one) is ordered to spread the oil, as Crane and Helena enter the lead copter. Just in case the audience is wondering, Helena asks, "Won’t the noise of the helicopters drown out your sound?" "No," Crane replies, "It’s an entirely different sonic level." I think that means they’re going to play the sound real loud. Little inflatable rafts with the stereo speakers are dropped onto the water. Sure enough, the bees leave the city and come to rest on the waters of the Gulf (do bees really rest on water?). A missile battery on the beach then fires missiles into the water, igniting the oil slick and incinerating the bees. As our Hero and His Lady are superimposed over the gigantic inferno "behind" them, the film strikes a philosophical note. "Did we finally beat them? Or was this just a temporary victory?," Helena asks. "I don’t know.," a solemn Crane replies. "But we did gain time. If we use it wisely, and if we’re lucky, the world might just survive." Actually, there was never any doubt that the world would survive. Indeed, the fact that Mankind survived the making, release and continued existence of this movie, now even more terrifying in its "expanded video edition", speaks more to our ability to survive calamity than anything we’ve seen here. But it’s not over yet. Yes, even in the end credits the film provides us with one last, insanely stupid moment, as a title card informs us:

THE AFRICAN KILLER BEE PORTRAYED IN THIS FILM
BEARS ABSOLUTELY NO RELATIONSHIP TO
THE INDUSTRIOUS, HARD-WORKING AMERICAN
HONEY BEE TO WHICH WE ARE INDEBTED
FOR POLLUNATING VITAL CROPS
THAT FEED OUR NATION.

I have more nothing to add to that. Well, OK, in the cast listings, Jerry Eisnach is credited as "Bee Boy". There, now I have nothing more to add.

AFTERTHOUGHTS:

Where to start? The first thing to be said is that a viewing of The Swarm reestablishes it’s place as among the very greatest of Bad Movies. This film is phenomenal. Not only because it’s so long (even the "short" version is roughly two hours), but because it sucks at any given moment, and in every way possible. The performances suck. The special effects suck. The set design sucks. And most especially, the script sucks. This movie rightly takes its place next to such other luminaries as Plan 9 From Outer Space and Can’t Stop the Music.

What helps makes this movie so extraordinary is the gigantic amount of talent it wastes. Take the actors. Please! (Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, and good night!) Almost every member of the cast had either won or been nominated for an Academy Award for acting. Widmark was nominated for Best Supporting Actor. Ross was nominated for Best Supporting Actress. Ben Johnson won for Best Supporting Actor. Caine had been nominated, twice, for Best Actor, (he would later win a Best Supporting Actor award). Fonda had been nominated for Best Actor, and won a trophy as the producer of 12 Angry Men, which won Best Picture (Best Picture Oscars™ go to the films’ producers). He would later win a Lifetime Achievement OscarÔ , and, at last, a Best Actor award. De Havilland has been nominated for Best Actress four times, of which she won twice, and had a Best Supporting Actress Nomination to boot. Even the bit players are so accredited. Lee Grant (the reporter) had been a four-time nominee for Best Supporting Actress, for which she picked up one win. Jose Ferrer, who as the Manager of the nuclear power plant was on screen for roughly a minute, was both a Best Actor (twice nominated, resulting in one win) and Best Supporting Actor nominee. Even director/producer Irwin Allen had an Oscar™ to his credit, as producer of a Best Documentary winner. And get this: he was also up for another, because he produced The Towering Inferno, which (yes!) was nominated for Best Picture (!!).

Yet, in spite of all this thespian firepower, nobody in this movie succeeds in delivering a decent performance. Fonda and MacMurray fare the best, but only by sticking close to their regular personas. The rest, though: Yikes! It’s obvious that it’s not the actors themselves who are to blame. First there’s a script that is so stupid that they can’t help but look foolish. Second, it’s apparent that Allen viewed the "characters" more as types (The Hero, The Girl, The Military Doofus, The Noble Old Scientist, etc.) than individuals, and directed the actors to perform in a very broad manner. Then he exacerbated the situation by filming the actors mostly in close-ups. Close-ups help you see small details and nuances in a performance. When there aren’t any, the actors look even more inept. And even when not speaking in terms of the performances, Allen direction is, at best, stilted.

But the real culprit remains the script, perhaps the single worst screenplay ever used for a major Hollywood production. What can you say about a script for a movie about bees that ignores one of the most obvious facts about them: that they die after stinging. This rather well known factoid isn’t mentioned even once throughout the entire film! And as for other problems, well, I refer you to the twenty plus pages above. Amazingly, the script was the work of an actual professional screenwriter, Sterling Silliphant. Among Silliphant’s work is the Oscar™ winning screenplay for In the Heat of the Night. Based on his script for The Swarm, however, he’s most likely saying, "They call me Mister Shit!" One can only imagine how a pro like Silliphant concocted such a disaster, so here’s my theory. I think he took the job purely for the money, even though he looked down on the project as unworthy of his talents. Knowing that Allen wouldn’t know a good script if it masticated on his behind, he decided to do a riff on junky old ‘50s sci-fi pictures. However, he didn’t approach those films with nostalgia, but with disdain for their stupid dialog, retarded "scientific" explanations and paper thin characterizations. He figured anybody that would see a movie like this had to be a moron, so he wrote a moronic script. My strongest evidence for this theory is the large amount of scenes ripped right out of obscure ‘50s sci-fi flicks. Most noticeable are two bits wholly stolen from The Killer Shrews (!).

I remember the first time I watched The Swarm, with my friend Andrew Muchoney. We both laughed at the scene where the kids hide from the bees under overturned garbage cans. This is because it was remarkably similar to the end of The Killer Shrews, where the protagonists travel under overturned oil drums to protect them from the shrews. Part of the joke was the obvious unlikelihood that an expensive studio film would be ripping off such an obscure loser. But later, our mouths were to fall open. For the scene where Fonda tape records his symptoms as he dies from bee venom was an utter duplicate of a scene in The Killer Shrews, wherein a scientist types up his symptoms as he dies from a poisonous shrew bite. At this point we could no longer see it as a oddly unlikely coincidence, but as a case of pure piracy. And the evidence mounts up. The bit where the helicopter pilots radio in their death by bees is right out of The Giant Claw. The hiding from the "monster" in a walk-in freezer bit is stolen from The Blob. The kid who becomes an hysterical near-catatonic after seeing his parents killed by bugs is out of Them!. The image of the alien invaders appearing through the dense cloud that the cast hoped would signify their destruction (when the bees exit the neutracide spraying) is from War of the Worlds. Finally, the entire ending, which involves using the insect’s mating call to lure them to their deaths on a nearby body of water is taken from the giant grasshopper flick The Beginning of the End. There are probably others I didn’t catch. Now, a few such similarities could be written off as coincidence. But not all of them.

Next, they must have spent all their money on the cast, because the set design is lame in the extreme and the "special" effects outright suck. From computers lining the walls of a "briefing" room to obviously functionless "equipment", like wall panels that light up and turn dark over and over again for no reason, the "technology" oriented sets constantly pull you out of the movie. Computer monitors show everything from television feeds to "live" camera shots from utterly impossibly angles. Other monitors spends the entire movie flashing the word "Alert". Room comes equipped with bizarre colored lighting. The movie’s "secure room" for bees is so stupidly designed that bees would be all over the place. Yet the more prosaic sets are even worse, in a way. From Pete’s Diner to the Town Hospital, the sets are designed in such a fashion that you never forget that they’re sets. The lighting is wrong, the walls too clean, the furniture a tad too generic; all adding to an almost subliminal message that everything you’re watching is fake. And the special effects! Except for the occasional shot of real bees on an actor, all the "attack" footage is "achieved" with either extremely phony looking superimposition effects (basically animating a lot of dots on the film) or using a fan to blow large numbers of obvious non-bees around. The miniature model work (the train wreck, the fuel truck, the nuclear power plant) ranges, at best, from serviceable to obvious fakery. While not the kind of stuff to make you laugh out loud (except maybe for when the train or the power plant explodes, and that from concept as much as execution), it never makes you believe in it either. And let’s not even discuss the bluescreening used to depict the interior of the power plant. I mean, holy moly.

Here’s a warning for those of you brave enough to venture this far out, onto the very tip of the Cinema Bell Curve. Don’t fall off the edge, for the Abyss awaits. And few who enter it return to tell the tale.