I saw this film once. It was flat awful especially in several scenes where they are throwing what is supposed to be bees and hitting the actors from just offstage. LOL. And, they introduce all these big name stars and kill them off real fast before you even get to know them. LOL. And Widmark says "I'll go down in history as the only general to be creamed by bees." And Henry Fonda tries to look scared in some scenes. LOL. The score is great though. Far too good for this laugher. Great brass work in it.

The LP-the sound level is good on there, the CD is much quieter.

I like all the original tracks on the new CD and all the other action cues. EXC.

Bees Arrive and Bees Inside are super on old LP. With cut and paste job to make for better listening. I like the CD versions too, brass performance a little weaker on the Bees Arrive on CD.

On the new CD I like cues 1, 2, 4, 11, 14, Bees Inside, final cue and some of the softer ones too. Very nice.

On LP, main title-cut and paste version, Bees inside, Bees arrive and end title, Flowers cue and Bees Picnic are exc.

I still cannot believe I actually went to see this at theatre when it first came out. It was so bad I laughed at it in the theatre. 1978.

And many shots of the "bees" were created with actual dirt! As far as I know, the shots were achieved with somebody throwing dirt in the air (or in front of a backdrop of sorts) and slowed the shots down later on (sometimes, I also suspect that they filmed the dirt upside down). I'm not sure why they didn't just use stop-motion or cel animation for the bees...this was a $20-30 million dollar film wasn't it? I guess the money went into the cast.

This film is one of the hallmarks of bad filmmaking...it deserves a golden turkey. Jerry Goldsmith's score is superb though. Scoring "The Swarm" must have been a daunting task, taking everything in the film seriously and eventually coming up with a grand orchestral effort.

There are only three members of the Durant family, Paul and his parents.