This ’70s Horror Flick’s Cast Combined 8 Oscars Couldn’t Save it From Disastrous 8% RT Score
It’s hard to believe a movie like The Swarm ever got made. Killer bees and celebrities? How can this exist?
In the 1970s, Hollywood was attempting to redefine itself. Following the fall of the Production Code in 1968 — the self-censorship that kept movies chaste for over 30 years — and the rise of auteurs such as Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, and Brian De Palma, the studio system was essentially in shambles. The old way of making movies as an assembly-line product just didn’t really exist anymore. But when the studios did hit on something that worked, not unlike every era of cinema, they milked it until the well was dry … or really, beyond dry.
Disaster Movies Were All the Rage in the ’70s
The Swarm came at the tail end of a cash-cow trend. In 1970, Universal Pictures released the blockbuster hit Airport, which featured an all-star cast, up in the sky, going through various melodramas as the entire flight faces certain disaster. Throughout the decade, studios kept upping the ante — with increasingly complex special effect sequences, big-name actors, and (oftentimes) bloated runtimes. For a while, it worked. The disaster movie genre likely peaked with 1972’s The Poseidon Adventure, which — like Airport — scored a bevy of Oscar nominations and was a cash cow. Two huge hits, of decidedly varying quality, also came out in 1974: Earthquake and The Towering Inferno.
By 1978, everyone from Paul Newman to Gene Hackman to Charlton Heston had thrown their names above the title of an apocalyptic adventure. But the returns were starting to dip. Three of Airport’s four sequels had been released, and each had made a little less than the last — although, admittedly, still blockbusters. Other attempts to replicate the success of previous movies, such as The Hindenburg in 1975, became box office disasters in their own right.
Outside the skies, studios were struggling to find new disastrous ideas. Some are worth watching, like the tense thrillers Two-Minute Warning and Black Sunday, but few made a big impact with audiences.
‘The Swarm’ Had Dozens of Stars and Millions of Bees
The Swarm is perhaps the most notorious of all the genre movies. Set in a small Texas town, an insane lineup of stars has been assembled, each going through their own little day-to-day drama. There are a total of eight acting Oscars between the cast members. Now, to be fair, lead Michael Caine hadn’t won either of his Academy Awards yet. He’s a scientist who is attempting to keep a swarm of … you guessed it … killer bees from stinging a bunch of innocent people to death. Among the innocents are Henry Fonda, Katharine Ross, Richard Widmark, Richard Chamberlain, Olivia de Havilland, Fred MacMurray, José Ferrer, Ben Johnson, Lee Grant, Slim Pickens, Patty Duke, and Bradford Dillman. Yes, ALL of these people, many of whom are in the greatest of the greatest movies ever, said, “Sign me up” when a script about bees hit their desks.
Of course, having director Irwin Allen on board was likely part of the appeal. He had been responsible for The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno. Stirling Silliphant, his writer for The Towering Inferno, was also on board — as initially was David Zelag Goodman, the scribe behind Lovers and Other Strangers and Logan’s Run. It was being produced by Warner Bros. and filming on its historic lot. It even came from a literary source, Arthur Herzog’s 1974 novel of the same name. Even if the concept was kooky, surely it would be done well? Right? Right?!
The production itself included a real swarm all its own. Somewhere between 15 and 22 million bees were used (reports vary on the exact number), and 800,000 bees had their stingers removed in order to protect the stacked cast, although Olivia de Havilland apparently did get stung at some point. Bee keepers, totaling around 100, were employed by Warner Bros. Much publicity about The Swarm was drummed up in the months leading up to its premiere, including an alleged lawsuit by the American Bee Association for defaming the American honeybee — no further information on that one beyond a Hollywood Reporter article.
Warner Bros., though, appeared to have high hopes for the movie, ordering 1,228 prints for a then-record opening weekend for the studio. It did not make it to number one upon its July 14, 1978, release, however. That summer was dominated by a word audiences had heard: Grease. And the reviews for the movie were … not remotely kind.
As of 2025, The Swarm holds a 9% rating on Rotten Tomatoes — which, shockingly, is not the lowest rated of the Irwin Allen disaster features (that would be 1980’s When Time Ran Out). A retrospective review in Empire Magazine is perhaps the nicest available, giving the film three out of five. Adam Smith writes, “For all its technological flaws it is actually quite good fun (arguably down to Caine) as it sweeps over you.”
The Movie Flatlined With Box Office and Critics Alike
Contemporary notices, though, didn’t see the fun in it at all. “Mr. Allen might just as well have devoted his talents to man-eating goldfish, poodles on the rampage or carnivorous canaries,” wrote Janet Maslin of the New York Times. Jennifer Selway, of Time Out, wrote, “A number of journalists, rolling in the aisles with laughter, were ejected from the press screening.”
There are two cuts available of The Swarm — one just under two hours and one just over two-and-a-half hours. While the shorter cut does simplify matters, the longer cut is worthwhile. Somehow, in spite of a large budget for the time (reportedly $11 million, though IMDb lists it at $21 million), the special effects don’t work well — as the reviews hint at — and the actors are taking all the proceedings a little too seriously. One scene in which two-time Best Actress-winner Olivia de Havilland announces to a school that the killer bees are descending upon the town is particularly unintentionally hilarious.
On The Graham Norton Show, Michael Caine once recalled the production, calling it one of the worst of all of his films. (And remember he’s got a filmography that also includes Jaws: The Revenge.) “They offered me a film with Henry Fonda, José Ferrer, Olivia de Havilland, and Fred MacMurray,” Caine said. “And I thought, ‘Bloody hell, this is fantastic!’ … I didn’t even read the script, I said, ‘Yeah, I’ll do it.’ And it was The Swarm. And the first inkling we got of how bad it was … we got this special situation where all the ceiling was swarmed with bees. And me and Henry Fonda, we’re doing a scene underneath it. And as we were doing it, we saw these little black specks on our shirts … and we looked up, and the bees were shitting on us. I didn’t know at the time, but the first review was it.”
Perhaps most surprisingly, The Swarm, did manage an Oscar nomination for Costume Design. Well done, Paul Zastupnevich. There was also a report in 2010 that filmmaker Ash Bolland would helm a remake, but that seems to have gone nowhere.
- Release Date
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July 14, 1978
- Runtime
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116 Minutes
- Director
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Irwin Allen
- Writers
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Stirling Silliphant
