Irwin Allen – The Magnificent 60s

I’m delighted to inform you that there was only disappointment this time around, no provisos to save the day, no reassessment to make me change my original views. This truly is a terrible picture. Possibly the worst to involve Michael Caine, who was no slouch when it came to making inadvisable choices. Just as with The Island (1980) which on paper appeared a slam-dunk hit coming as it did in the wake of Jaws (1975) and The Deep (1977), based on Peter Benchley bestsellers, this looked like a no-brainer, another Irwin Allen disaster picture following on from mega-hits The Towering Inferno (1974) and Earthquake (1975).

It’s tempting to blame it on the bees. The special effects creating the sky-borne swarm makes them look like nothing more than a strange smudge on the screen. And the bodies or cars or helicopters smothered in millions of static bees score pretty low, actually, on the scare-o-meter, nothing like a giant shark on the loose. Anyone caught in the swarm has to go into some kind of slow-motion dance that fails to shake them off.

Sure we’ve got a runaway train coming off the tracks and sliding down a hill, but the action quotient is surprisingly pretty low. The opportunity, a la The Birds (1963), to lay low a town is ignored and after a few peremptory shots of bees causing havoc we’re stuck with TV reports. Even giant bees, caused by hallucination, might cause an audience to vaguely squirm but it doesn’t replicate the gut-wrenching terror of a killer shark or the tension of a burning skyscraper.

The cast spend most of their time in exposition mode, or arguing with each other as to whose exposition is better. We know a heck of a lot more about the bees, and why they’re on the rampage, some nonsense about alarm horns replicating the sound of bees mating, than we do about any of the characters.

There’s a smidgeon of romance between Dr Bradford Crane (Michael Caine) and Capt Dr Helena Anderson (Katharine Ross) but it doesn’t get beyond the teenage (“am I walking too fast for you?). And there’s a truly terrible attempt at romantic comedy as old codgers Felix (Ben Johnson) and Clarence (Fred MacMurray) fight over school marm Maureen (Olivia De Havilland) who looks as if she’d like to crack their heads together.

A young boy is caught up in the melee and a pregnant woman, and I was looking out for the statutory nun, a strange omission is a disaster narrative.

The only effective bit of the movie is the opening when a squad of soldiers all Hazchem-med up descend on a deserted missile base and find the entire garrison – apart from a half-dozen – lying dead on the floor. That Dr Crane happens to be passing by leads to a stupid subplot where Major General Slater (Richard Widmark) and sidekick Major Baker (Bradford Dillman) take the suspicion option and look for an excuse to bang up the academic.

This initially went on general release in a curtailed version running just short of two hours rather than the original 155-minute cut which you can now catch, as I did, on YouTube.

You can’t blame Michael Caine (The Island, 1980) for this mess and he would have acquitted himself well if there had been any actual acting to be done outside of the exposition and arguing with the major general. His best scene is when he gently carries crippled mentor Dr Krim (Henry Fonda) into his wheelchair. Katharine Ross (Hellfighters, 1968) has such a restrained screen persona half the time you think she’s going to burst into tears.

Uber-producer Irwin Allen (The Towering Inferno) had decided by this point that he could dispense with a name director and take on that chore himself. But I doubt if anyone could have made a better job given they were stuck with bees and a terrible script by Stirling Silliphant (In the Heat of the Night, 1967).

A true stinker.

A pair of pink knee-length boots, courtesy of adventuress Jennifer (Jill St John), are among the wondrous sights awaiting our band of intrepid explorers. She’s not the only curiosity, Professor Challenger (Claude Rains) is certainly the most obstreperous of archaeologists, aristocrat Hoxton (Michael Rennie) must have a screw loose to keep on resisting the charms of Jennifer, while Gomez (Fernando Lamas) brings along his guitar to (literally) strike a chord at appropriate moments. But it’s a fun ride – cannibals, volcano, giant phosphorescent spiders, carnivorous plants, and dinosaurs.

There are secrets, too. Hoxton has been here – a lost plateau in the middle of the Amazon – before and abandoned an earlier exploration in favour of hunting for the mythical diamonds of El Dorado, Gomez wants to kill Hoxton, Jennifer plans to hook a duke, and Professor Summerlee (Richard Haydn) wants more than anything else to prove Challenger wrong.

*A bit of poetic licence here by the illustrator, Jill St John’s pants staying intact throughout.*

And of course, in the way of dinosaur pictures, having battled to find the damned creatures, intrepidity goes out the window and the explorers spend all their time running away from the dinosaurs, seeking a hidden way down from the plateau, while being hunted by cannibals. Any time you see a ledge you know there’s something terrible above – battling monsters with long tails capable of swishing you downwards – or below, not just a sea of lava but a giant sea beast. The only element that’s missing is the booby-traps. Unfortunately, all the spunk goes out of the otherwise spunky Jennifer when faced with monsters and she turns into the quivering screaming cliché.

But the script is on point, feelings indicated by action rather than dialogue. Having learned of Hoxton’s past, Jennifer spurns him by refusing a cigarette and a moment later taking one of her own, Gomez sneaks glances at a mysterious locket. With so much action there’s little time for romance so mainly by looks and the occasional rescue sparks fly between Jennifer and newspaperman Ed (David Hedison) and between Jennifer’s brother David (Ray Stricklyn) and the native girl (Vitina Marcus). And to alleviate the drab scenery there’s always Jennifer in a new bright outfit and, for comic effect, her poodle.

Given that writer-producer-director Irwin Allen (Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, 1961) was unable to hire the likes of Ray Harryhausen (Jason and the Argonauts, 1963) for the special effects or even find the budget to utilize the drawings of Willis O’Brien (King Kong, 1933) who had been responsible for the stop-motion techniques in the original silent version of The Lost World (1925), the monsters come across on the small screen as acceptable enough. The infusion of sub-plots keeps the project ticking along.

Allen made significant changes to the original – introducing the diamonds, making Challenger rather than following in the footsteps of a previous explorer having previously visited the plateau but lost his proof, swapping the heroine’s pet monkey for a pet poodle, turning the heroine into a gold-digger, substituting as plateau inhabitants natives for ape men, and adding the heroine’s wardrobe. The spicing up of the story helps divert the tale in certain places from the dinosaurs, so the tension is not just waiting for the next attack.

Oddly enough, the film strikes a very contemporary note with regards to the current contentious issue of invasion of privacy. Challenger hits out at pestering journalists for what he views as the invasion of his privacy. Later on he says, “invasion of privacy gives man the right to kill,” but that bold statement relates to the explorers breaching the lost sanctuary, “we are the invaders.”

It’s still pretty enjoyable stuff especially allowing for the budget limitations. None of the actors is called upon to do much, which is what you would expect, although Claude Rains is a surprise and Jill St John a delight. Michael Rennie (Hotel, 1967), primarily there for his stiff-upper-lip, is provided with a neat reversal, the supposed hero with feet of clay. Claude Rains (Casablanca, 1942) is the standout as the feisty bombastic professor not above battering annoying newspapermen with his umbrella.

In an early role, Jill St John (The Liquidator, 1965) provides not just sultry evidence of her physical charms, but carries a terrific almost playful screen presence, though she’s better as the tough gal in a man’s world of the earlier section of the movie than the damsel in distress of the last part. Former Latin movie heartthrob Fernando Lamas (100 Rifles, 1969) is the only other one with a decent part, participating in the expedition to find his lost brother. Vitina Marcus (Taras Bulba, 1963) has a small but pivotal role. David Hedison (Live and Let Die, 1973) and Ray Stricklyn (Track of Thunder, 1967) are outshone by their respective amours. Jay Costa (Escape from Zahrain, 1962) is a pantomime villain.

Charles Bennett (City in the Sea, 1965) helped Irwin Allen flesh out the screenplay.

Tag: Irwin Allen

The Swarm (1978) *

The Lost World (1960) ***