Gloria Swanson Commands Killer Bees in ABC Movie of the Week

Gloria Swanson Commands a Psychic Swarm of Killer Bees In ABC’s Ludicrous Movie of the Week

From 1969 to 1975, ABC put out weekly films. They functioned as TV pilots, testing grounds for up-and-coming filmmakers, and places for new and old stars to shine. Every month, Chloe Walker revisits one of these movies. This is Movie of the Week (of the Month).

It’s a well-known piece of classic film lore that silent movie star Gloria Swanson came out of a long retirement to take her seminal role in 1950’s Sunset Boulevard. Far less well known were the films she made afterward.

In an attempt to avoid typecasting, Swanson followed up the drippingly acidic noir with jaunty 1952 train comedy Three For Bedroom C. Fully committing to her bizarre career trajectory, four years later she showed up in Italian historical spoof Nero’s Weekend, alongside Brigitte Bardot and Vittorio de Sica. Neither production was well-received, and any hope that Sunset Boulevard would ignite a second wind for Swanson and the big screen was swiftly extinguished. Nevertheless, she never gave up performing, and during the 1960s made guest appearances in popular TV shows like Dr. Kildare, The Beverly Hillbillies and My Three Sons. And in 1974, it would be the small screen that gave her her best post-Sunset Boulevard role: As Madame van Bohlen in ABC MOTW Killer Bees.

After much effort, Victoria (Kate Jackson) has finally managed to persuade her boyfriend Edward (Edward Albert) to take her home to meet his family. Soon, she understands why he was so reluctant. There’s something strange about the van Bohlen clan, from the way they preside over the town where they live (which is named after them), to their sprawling abode, to the unusual relationship matriarch Madame van Bohlen (Swanson) seems to have with the family’s bees. Despite the frosty reception she receives, Victoria is determined to find out what makes this peculiar family tick.

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Killer Bees was directed by Curtis Harrington. It was his third entry in the ABC MOTW franchise, after the Anthony Perkins-led How Awful About Allan, and the similarly spooky The Cat Creature. His theatrical work included Whoever Slew Aunty Roo?, Queen of Blood, and Devil Dog: Hounds of Hell. All of which is to say that the creepy B-movie territory of Killer Bees was very much in Harrington’s wheelhouse.

ABC executive Barry Diller had originally wanted Bette Davis (who had history with the ABC MOTW) to play Madame van Bohlen. Davis’s allergy to bees put the kibosh on that, and Swanson was next in line.

You might imagine that a woman who had come to fame during one of the most glamorous eras of Hollywood would sniff at appearing in such a movie, but by all accounts, Swanson enjoyed the experience, and was proud of the result. She and Harrington bonded over both being “health food nuts,” and he admired her equanimity during the scenes where she was covered in bees – their stingers had reportedly been removed, but as Swanson would comment wryly in her 1980 autobiography, Swanson on Swanson, “that kind of information is always hard to believe.” She and Harrington would remain friends until her death, in 1983.

As Victoria surreptitiously explores the family and their cavernous mansion, it becomes apparent that 1) Madame van Bohlen can control the literal bees with her mind, and 2) Edward, his two brothers, and their father, are the equivalent human drones to Madame’s queen bee.

Turns out, the van Bohlens are a mini, matriarchal cult. Harrington often has the men in dark clothes, gathered reverentially around their leader, who’s dressed in lighter tones. For the film’s whole duration, there’s something deliciously off about the performances of all the men, which comes to a head when Victoria suggests that she saw Madame had been stung. They all laugh for what feels like five solid minutes – it’s a silly moment, but the longer their synchronized chuckle lasts, the more a genuine air of unease starts to permeate.

And it’s on that delicate ground that Harrington works his magic. Killer Bees is a ridiculous movie, packed with goofy line readings and ropy effects, and centering on a woman who can telepathically control a deadly swarm of insects. It is, in no way, a serious venture.

That’s all true – but it’s also true that with the lore of the family, the commitment of the performances, and directorial ingenuity, Harrington invests his TV movie with far more intrigue and atmosphere than it had any right to possess. You can (and probably will) laugh at Killer Bees, but there’s something about it that is hard to shake off. Compare it to a daft Amicus production from a decade earlier, The Deadly Bees, or lifeless fellow ABC MOTW Locusts – say what you will about these films, their titles got straight to the point! – and it becomes strikingly clear what a difference it makes to have a strong hand at the helm of even the most frivolous feature.

Throughout the movie, a battle of wills persists between Madame and Victoria as to who will emerge as the metaphorical queen bee. In clumsier hands, especially considering the era we were in, this could have become a mess of misogyny. Not so.

In the matriarchy of Killer Bees, the battle for power is given a weight usually reserved for such battles between men. The male van Bohlens are thinly written and almost indistinguishable from each other (only Edward Albert – who looks uncannily like a young Peter Gallagher, but with less impressive eyebrows – stands out); the women have personality and agency. And though Kate Jackson, two years off starring in Charlie’s Angels alongside Farrah Fawcett, is a charismatic foil, it’s the game enthusiasm of Gloria Swanson that makes the MOTW work as well as it does. It’s her hive, and the rest of them are just buzzing around it.

Swanson only had one more feature role left after her collaboration with Harrington: a cameo as herself in Airport 75. She retired from the screen altogether then, and died nine years later.

As we’ve seen time and again in this column, real career longevity for actors who came of professional age in the silent and classic eras necessitated a willingness to embrace changing times, and bring their star power to parts many would have considered beneath them. As much as any of the many choices she made in her long life in Hollywood, Gloria Swanson’s willingness to put all her formidable actorly weight into the role of a woman who can manipulate bees with her mind shows why her stardom endured.

Chloe Walker is a writer based in the UK. You can read her work at Culturefly, the BFI, Podcast Review, and Paste.

Gloria Swanson Commands a Psychic Swarm of Killer Bees In ABC’s Ludicrous Movie of the Week