I watched a terrible disaster film this evening that I would not have ordinarily watched but for the cast.  It was about a swarm of African killer bees attacking and devastating small towns in Texas on the way to Houston.  

Michael Caine, Katharine Ross, Richard Widmark, Richard Chamberlain, Olivia de Havilland, Ben Johnson, Lee Grant, José Ferrer, Patty Duke, Slim Pickens, Bradford Dillman, Fred MacMurray, and Henry Fonda.

Such an all star cast in such a terrible film.  It was made in 1978 in the style of 50s disaster-scifi films.  Richard Widmark as an overweight Air Force general looked like he should have retired a decade before.  Michael Caine as the scientist who likewise looked beyond his prime.

Why these stars consented to perform in such a trite disaster movie is beyond me.  I doubt they needed the money.  It was almost embarrassing to watch them after having seen such wonderful perfomances by them in so many previous movies.

The movies was a disaster at the ox office despite the cast.  It was also a box office disaster only grossing half the cost of making it.

A zero star movie if I ever saw one it's only saving grace was watching top tier movie stars at the end of their careers.

Noel

When Michael Caine was asked in an interview, why he chose to appear in some rubbish films including the absolutely risible Jaws 4: The Revenge, he said - 'Oh there were a couple of million reasons'. Strictly speaking, there were approximately 1.5 million reasons for his appearance in that Jaws movie, but since the filming only took a couple of weeks and he got a nice holiday in the Caribbean out of it too, he was happy to accept the role, particularly since at the time he was in the process of moving to the US and having a house built, so he was a bit strapped for ready cash.

Caine has also commented in relation to that role in that awful Jaws 4 movie: '"I have never seen the film, but by all accounts it was terrible. However, I have seen the house that it built, and it is terrific."

Unfortunately for Caine, his decision to do the role in Jaws 4 meant that he was unable to attend the Oscars that year, and so he was unable to accept the Oscar he won that year (not for Jaws 4, obviously, it was as best supporting actor in Hannah and Her Sisters).

It's worth bearing in mind too that even as good an actor as Michael Caine can have a dry spell with roles and such was the case when he accepted that role in Jaws 4: The Revenge and several other terrible films from around that time too, including The Swarm, which in spite of it being terrible and a massive flop financially, did receive an Academy Award nomination for Best Costume Design, which it didn't win. So yeah, he did that stuff for the money. But he also did The Man Who Would Be King too (in 1975), so not everything he knocked out in the 70s was terrible, because that's an amazing movie.

To redress the balance, I recommend you watch another Caine movie from the 70s, Too Late the Hero, which is one of Caine's best roles and also one of the better WW2 war movies out there. It's not factually accurate, being somewhat allegorical of the Vietnam War, which was becoming increasingly criticised at the time (1970). Nevertheless, it doesn't labour the point too much, instead sharing some great characterisation spread across an ensemble cast of familiar faces which recalls aspects of another of director Robert Aldrich's great movies, The Flight of the Phoenix, which he had made five years prior to shooting this one and with which it shares several of the same cast of actors, including Ronald Fraser and Ian Bannen.

The film is also remarkable in managing to be good in spite of the fact that Caine's co-star, Cliff Robertson and Robert Aldrich did not get along because Robertson was forced on Aldrich by the studio and would not play the role in the way Aldrich was directing him to do so, although personally I think the fact that he's a bit peed off kind of adds to the believability of his character's dislike of being on the mission he is sent on.

Ironically, Cliff Robertson won an Oscar for his role in the movie Charly whilst he was on location filming Too Late the Hero, so he couldn't accept his award in person either as Aldrich wouldn't let him go off for a couple of days, something he was definitely peed off about at the time.

Edited February 2, 20215 yr by Chock

Chock, Cain and Connery in the Man Who Would Be King was magnificent and is one of my favorite all-time movies.

I can see star actor or actress being in terrible B movie, but the Swarm has so many of them.  All that was missing was John Wayne.

 

Noel

6 hours ago, Chock said:

'Oh there were a couple of million reasons'.

Exactly so, it's always about "the reasons". Look at the really bad commercials done for television by big-name celebrities for products/services they know nothing about and have never, nor never will, use. Those appearances are all about "the reasons" also. But, what the heck, I guess I'm just jealous that I don't have a bunch of reasons for much of anything anymore.

6 hours ago, Chock said:

 

Caine has also commented in relation to that role in that awful Jaws 4 movie: '"I have never seen the film, but by all accounts it was terrible. However, I have seen the house that it built, and it is terrific."

 

Quote of the decade there! Would of course always recommend "The Italian Job" and "Zulu" (thousands of them). 

That 1970s movie with the killer bees sounds very familiar. I think I watched it on TV when I was about 12 and loved it! If there were any airplane scenes in it, plus something as fascinating as a swarm of killer bees advancing, that's pretty much all it took to keep me glued to the screen.

But now I'm very critical when I watch anything. The slightest discrepancy and I switch to something else or turn off the TV. Still if planes are in any way involved, I tend to be more forgiving. I watched Neerja a little while ago, not a very cheerful film and maybe quite a few irregularities, but because most of it was set on board a 747, I still enjoyed watching it.

7 hours ago, Chock said:

"I have never seen the film, but by all accounts it was terrible. However, I have seen the house that it built, and it is terrific."

A poor boy like me who has to count his nickels and dimes has a hard time figuring out what those high priced top tier Oscar winners did with their money to embarrass themselves appearing in a picture like The Swarm.

Noel

12 minutes ago, birdguy said:

A poor boy like me who has to count his nickels and dimes has a hard time figuring out what those high priced top tier Oscar winners did with their money to embarrass themselves appearing in a picture like The Swarm.

Noel

Spent it unwisely!  🤔  Bet none of them used a financial planner.  Probably relied on their corrupt "Manager" for financial advice.

24 minutes ago, birdguy said:

A poor boy like me who has to count his nickels and dimes has a hard time figuring out what those high priced top tier Oscar winners did with their money to embarrass themselves appearing in a picture like The Swarm.

Noel

If you think that's depressing, check this out...

When Denzel Washington made Man On Fire, with Tony Scott directing it, he apparently enjoyed working with the director a lot and was keen to do so again. I guess the success of Man On Fire probably didn't hurt either (it doubled its production budget in box office takings and did well on DVD and streaming sales too).

To be fair, if you can get past Scott's obsession with shaky-cam (TM) and an editor who looks like he's just found the built in flash effects in Adobe Premiere and wants to try them all out at the same time, then it's not a bad flick, even if it is yet another 'Cop in a Hawaiian Shirt' type of movie; a genre which which Denzel is beginning to make entirely too many of. He's yet to reach Bruce Willis levels of rent-paying potboilers, but his recent movie, The Little Things, with Rami Malek, is looking like a contender for a move into that kind of territory, which just goes to show you that you can get two good actors in a movie and still have it suck, and blow, at the same time.

As such, when Washington was offered the role in Unstoppable, which Scott was also directing, he agreed to drop his fee to a mere eleven million dollars, so he could work with Tony Scott again. Be nice if we were in a position to be so fiscally magnanimous eh?

Now in fairness to Denzel Washington, if people are willing to pay him that kind of wedge to pretend to be someone, then good luck to him because he is undeniably an engaging screen presence, and in Unstoppable, which he took that wage drop for, that genuinely is Denzel running on the top of that train, it's not CGI. Granted he has a safety wire which has been CGI'd out, but he was still jumping about on a moving train and he was aged 55 when he was doing that. That's not bad for a guy who was five years off the big six-oh at the time.

Edited February 2, 20215 yr by Chock

2 hours ago, charliearon said:

Spent it unwisely!  🤔 

They blew most of it on alcohol, women and fast cars .. the rest they spent unwisely.

As we Irish would say.....I spent half of it on whiskey and women and WNA'd away the rest.

Edited February 2, 20215 yr by W2DR
kant spel