The Deadly Bees (1966) Online
Pop singer Vicki Robbins collapses from exhaustion while shooting the 1960s equivalent of a music video, and her physician prescribes a respite on Seagull Island with colleague and beekeeper Ralph Hargrove. Vicki finds the Hargroves' bitter marital strife oddly relaxing. But when a mysterious swarm of specially-bred attack bees starts killing island residents, Vicki fights for her survival, setting fire to nearly half the structures on the island in her escape.
Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
Suzanna Leigh | - | Vicki Robbins | |
Frank Finlay | - | H.W. Manfred | |
Guy Doleman | - | Ralph Hargrove | |
Catherine Finn | - | Mary Hargrove | |
John Harvey | - | Thompson | |
Michael Ripper | - | David Hawkins | |
Anthony Bailey | - | Compere | |
Tim Barrett | - | Harcourt | |
James Cossins | - | Coroner | |
Frank Forsyth | - | Doctor | |
Katy Wild | - | Doris Hawkins | |
Greta Farrer | - | Sister | |
Gina Gianelli | - | Secretary | |
Michael Gwynn | - | Dr. George Lang | |
Maurice Good | - | Agent |
The male leads were written for Christopher Lee and Boris Karloff
Watch for the guitarist for the group The Birds at the beginning of the movie - it's a pre-Faces, pre-The Rolling Stones Ronnie Wood. He's on the far right of the screen.
The special effects for the bee attack sequences were quite simple. Often footage of swarming bees would be superimposed over footage of the actors and fake plastic bees would be glued to the actors. Some shots of swarming "bees" was actually footage of coffee grounds, floating and swirling in water tanks, that was superimposed over landscape footage.
Freddie Francis years later admitted that he should not have had Robert Bloch's script rewritten, as it only made things worse.
The exteriors of the Hargrove farm were built entirely on sound stages, complete with fake trees, fences and sheds.
Director Freddie Francis wasn't completely satisfied with Robert Bloch's first draft of the script, so Francis brought in Anthony Marriott to do some re-writes.
In the novel, written in the first-person singular, "I", there is no visiting female pop star on the island. The lead character is a local man who likes honey and one day decides to buy it from a different beekeeper than he usually does. This ties into the novel's title, "A Taste for Honey".
For the role of H.W. Manfred, Frank Finlay was made to look older with makeup. His hair was also dyed gray.
Released by Paramount in the US on double feature with The Vulture (1966).
Widely considered the first killer bee film ever made.
The 1967 review of this film in the now-defunct "Monthly Film Bulletin" magazine claimed that the film had originally run 123 minutes and been shortened against the wishes of its makers by forty minutes. This was entirely incorrect, as a later edition of the magazine conceded, but the misinformation has found its way into reference works.
Ron Wood's guitar is Fender Telecaster not a Stratocaster.
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