The Swarm (1978)

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General		Extras
Category	Science Fiction	Main Menu Audio Listing-Cast & Crew Featurette Theatrical Trailer
Rating
Year Of Production	1978
Running Time	148:47
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (76:19)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4,5	Directed By	Irwin Allen
Studio Distributor	Warner Home Video	Starring	Michael Caine Henry Fonda Katharine Ross Richard Widmark Richard Chamberlain Olivia De Havilland Ben Johnson Lee Grant Patty Duke Slim Pickins José Ferrer Fred MacMurray
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI	$24.95	Music	Jerry Goldsmith

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English French Finnish Icelandic Swedish Czech Greek Polish Turkish Romanian Dutch English for the Hearing Impaired	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Irwin Allen is undoubtedly the master of bad news and large scale disaster movies. Who can remember his other classics such as The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno? In this particular movie, we leave the flipped boat and the burning building to focus on people's fear of bees.

    Back in 1956, a group of Brazilian scientists were attempting to create a new hybrid bee that was better adapted to tropical areas. It is interesting that it took a bee from one of the driest places on earth to actually do this. Unfortunately, some of the bees escaped and bred with the local Brazilian bees, creating the Africanized Honey Bees hybrid. Like our local Cane Toads, the killer bees have been causing havoc ever since, but at least a large number of Cane Toads won't kill you (just don't lick their backs and you should be fine). The unfortunate outcome of the breeding tests was that Brazil went from fourth in world honey production to twenty-seventh by the early 1990s. It was not until October 1990 that the first killer bees were recorded in America, so the movie was way ahead in its predictions. Since then, the rate of spread of these bees has accelerated to over 600 km per year.

    The Swarm is a who’s who of the 70s acting world, featuring names such as Katharine Ross, Richard Widmark, Richard Chamberlain, Olivia de Havilland, Ben Johnson, Lee Grant, Patty Duke, Slim Pickens, José Ferrer, Fred MacMurray, and Henry Fonda. A military Special Defence Unit searches an ICBM (Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile) base to find out why central command has not received any of its regular communications. The Unit works its way deep down into the complex looking for the base's troops, all the while keeping a look-out for any hostile forces. As they are looking around the rooms, puzzled at what lies before them, in steps entomologist Brad Crane (Michael Caine). After the military has a coronary about the fact that a civilian is inside their base and is the only one alive, they calm down and work out the cause of the deaths - killer bees. It’s always handy to have an entomologist around when people are dying from bee stings, and in this particular case Crane happens to specialise in the Africanized Honey Bee variety.

    Now we hit what was supposed to be another tense scene when the President orders that Crane is to be the sole person in charge and that the military will report to him. Yeah, right  - the US military reporting to a civilian! Anyway, Crane orders a list of experts in the entomology field be flown in to the base because they have no time to lose.

    Things get worse when the bees look like they are going to attack the nearby town of Marysville which just so happens to be holding a flower show soon. The crew must work against the clock to either devise an antidote for the stings or come up with a way to wipe out the bee colony. Meanwhile, the military is becoming restless and wants to use brute force to wipe them out.

    At least two bees were harmed during the making of this film.

Video

    Considering the age of this movie, the transfer is remarkably clear and problem free.

    The transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 2.35:1, 16x9 enhanced.

    The transfer is surprisingly clear and sharp with no evidence of edge enhancement, evident on other titles from this era. Warner have obviously taken great care with the storage of this print. Shadow detail is not really a problem with the majority of the filming taking place out in the open and under full sunlight. Indoor shots also contain a high level of lighting so there is a great amount of detail evident regardless of the location. There is only mild low level noise.

    The colours were well rendered with some good examples of bright colour appearing from time to time. The red warning lights that hang above the doorways in the ICBM building are as bright and rich in colour as you would expect to see with your own eyes. The coloured tents in the city square at 83:03 are also bright and colourful. The numerous flowers at the local flower show are also as you would expect to see by looking through the local florist's window.

    There were no MPEG artefacts to be seen. Aliasing was also something that was not evident in this transfer. Film artefacts were quite common, with the occasional speck or light scratch also in evidence. On the positive side, the film artefacts were usually small and not overly distracting.

    This disc is an RSDL disc, with the layer change at 76:19. It occurs during a phone call when there is a scene cut between locations without any dialogue. It was completely seamless on my equipment and it should not be too distracting on slow players.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The only audio track on this disc is an English Dolby Digital 2.0 surround-encoded soundtrack.

    The dialogue was clear and easy to understand at all times. Audio sync was not a problem at all with this transfer, and was completely spot on.

    The musical score by Jerry Goldsmith was typical for the era and very similar in nature to many other 70s movies soundtracks. There are long durations throughout where there is no background music at all. In these instances, the silence is actually deafening and the movie suffers slightly as a result. The volume levels of the music did not drown out the dialogue at any point during the movie.

    The surround channels were predominantly used to provide effects sounds whenever a bee swarm attacked. One such example can be heard at 18:05 and this is typical throughout the movie. Other instances were for music ambience but these were usually limited to the same time as the swarm attacks.

    The subwoofer is not used by the Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack. There are some instances of deep bass, though, which come from the front channels - two examples can be heard at 57:58 and 63:10.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Menu

Cast and Crew

Documentary (22:13)

Theatrical Trailer

    The Region 4 version of this disc misses out on;

• Spanish subtitles
• Portuguese subtitles

• French subtitles
• Finnish subtitles
• Icelandic subtitles
• Swedish subtitles
• Czech subtitles
• Greek subtitles
• Polish subtitles
• Turkish subtitles
• Romanian subtitles
• Dutch subtitles

    The transfer has been taken from the same basic source material as the Region 1 version (although our version is PAL-formatted). Even the layer change is in the same spot. The only deciding factor here is in the choice of subtitles, and if the Spanish or Portuguese titles are something that you require. Because of the overwhelming range available on the Region 4 disc it is the undoubted winner.

    The video quality is wonderful considering the age of the print.

    The audio quality is acceptable and the surround-encoded bee swarm noises are effective and work well.

    The extras are satisfactory but not something you could watch more than once.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall