Cast and Crew: Sterling Silliphant (Screenplay); Jerry Goldsmith (Score); Katherine Ross, Richard Widmark, Richard Chamberlain, Olivia De Havilland, Ben Johnson, Lee Grant, Jose Ferrer, Patty Duke, Slim Pickens, Bradford Dillman, Fred MacMurray, Henry Fonda, Cameron Mitchell
What It’s About: North American bees cross-breed with Africanized honey bees from South America. Something causes them to form into huge swarms and decimate entire cities. Can entomologist Brad Crane (Michael Caine), who believes the bee has always been our friend, find a way to stop them?
Why Watch it Today?: After years of scare mongering, including a sub-sub-genre of bee attack films, the “killer” bees finally invaded our shores on this date in 1990. We’ve yet to see a disaster on the scale of this Irwin Allen film which just might be the zenith of the 70s run of Disaster films, with its outlandish premise, laughable dialogue, and cast of big stars.
The League of Dead Films 
We survived that onslaught because THERE IS NO BEE!
Well, at least the soundtrack was the main saving grace on this one (You can’t go wrong with a Jerry Goldsmith score from around that time, that’s for sure!)…
I need to see this again. It’s probably been 15 years, and back then I was less attuned to the glory that is a great Goldsmith score.
I used to own a ton of soundtrack LPs (had to sell them off except for a few CD’s when I was dead broke a few years back) and was continually amazed by Goldsmith’s work (even when it wasn’t so hot or was used well in awful films). Some of his 60’s and 70’s stuff is incredible to listen to without a movie getting in the way. I keep meaning to work on a post about him for my site, but those sidetracks and detours keep popping up. However, now that I have a bug in my ear (so to speak), my radar has been reactivated…
Have to keep an eye out for it, Geelw.