The Swarm (film)

The Swarm is a 1978 American disaster film about a killer bee invasion on Texas.

Directed and produced by Irwin Allen. Screenplay by Stirling Silliphant.

It's more than a speculation - it's a prediction! Taglines

Brad Crane

• [About the killer bees] We have been invaded, by an enemy far more lethal than any human force.
• We've been fighting a losing battle against the insects for fifteen years, but I never thought I'd see the final face-off in my lifetime. And I never dreamed, that it would turn out to be the bees. They've always been our friend.
• Bees, bees, what a lot of bees.

General Slater

• Houston on fire. Will history blame me, or the bees?
• By tomorrow there will be no more Africans... at least not in the Houston sector.

Maureen Schuster

• Attention! Attention! This is Miss Schuster. Please listen very carefully. A swarm of killer bees is coming this way.

Dialogue

[Crane has found something at the ravaged picnic site]

Brad Crane: [Holding it up] Plastic. It's a piece of a plastic cup. There are pieces all around here. [He starts pointing out the other fragments] Look. Look, there. There. There.

General Slater: What's so significant about that?

Brad Crane: I'm afraid to speculate. But, I think, the bees, did this.

General Slater: Are you saying these bees eat plastic?

Brad 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.

General Slater: So?

Brad Crane: Well, suppose these bees, are using plastic, to insulate their hives.

General Slater: No bee is that smart.

Brad Crane: Suppose these African bees are.

---

[As helicopters drop special sound-emitting floats to attract the swarm to its doom]

Helena: Won't the noise of the helicopters drown out your sound?

Brad Crane: No. It's an entirely different sonic level.

---

Dr. Andrews: Billions of dollars have been made to make these nuclear plants safe, FAIL safe! The odds of anything going wrong are astronomincal, doctor.

Dr. Hubbard: 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?

Taglines

• It's more than a speculation - it's a prediction!
• ... is here!
• Monsters by the millions - and they're all for real!
• This is more than a movie. It's a prediction!
• The most terrifying thing about THE SWARM is that it is based on Fact: It exists. Fact: It has awesome destructive power. Fact: We don't know how to stop it.

Cast

• Michael Caine — Brad Crane
• Katharine Ross — Helena
• Richard Widmark — General Slater
• Richard Chamberlain — Dr. Hubbard
• Olivia de Havilland — Maureen Schuster
• Ben Johnson — Felix
• Lee Grant — Anne MacGregor
• Jose Ferrer — Dr. Andrews
• Patty Duke Astin — Rita
• Slim Pickens — Jud Hawkins
• Bradford Dillman — Major Baxter
• Fred MacMurray — Clarence
• Henry Fonda — Dr. Walter Krim

External links

• The Swarm (1978) quotes at the Internet Movie Database
• The Swarm (1978) at Rotten Tomatoes