Bedrock Hollywood actors slumming in crap bee movies at the tail end of their careers

Or any insect/vermin-related movie, really.

I give you Ida Lupino in Food of the Gods

https://biggayhorrorfan.files.wordpress.com/2019/03/ida-lupino-food-of-the-gods.jpg

The Picnic Is Ruined! 🐜🐜 Myrna Loy guests in Ants! (TVM '77) #Ants #MyrnaLoy #RobertFoxworth #SuzanneSomers #LyndaDayGeorge 🐜🐜🐜 pic.twitter.com/j5MdryBBXu

— James (@pifconoma) May 11, 2017

Olivia de Havilland in The Swarm

https://usercontent.one/wp/www.culturefix.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/oliviadehavillandswarm.jpg

fabulous hair!

Looking at all the films Bruce Willis has made in the last ten years and wondering a) How long he appears in them b) Which one is the worst. c) Which ones might not actually exist. pic.twitter.com/PbRA8KSDyH

— Andrew Wassail 🎄 (@Andr6wMale) December 5, 2021

John Carradine in The Bees

https://images.static-bluray.com/reviews/13205_1.jpg

John Carradine as a bee.

Not insects but I feel like Ray Milland in "Frogs" belongs here.

https://originalcinemaniac.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Ray-Milland-1.jpeg

... and Elsa Lanchester in "Willard".

https://cache.moviestillsdb.com/i/500x/7xhlmigv/willard-lg.jpg

... which also stars Ernest Borgnine.

https://www.denofgeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/willard_01.jpg

Not bees, frogs or rats, but Joan Crawford in Trog.

Woody Strode in Kingdom of the Spiders

http://www.dvddrive-in.com/images/i-m/kingdomspiders3.jpg

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/7APh7ns4S_E/hqdefault.jpg

'Gloria Swanson in her television debut'

Borgnine doesn't belong here, though, right? Dude's monumental work ethic was obvious before and after the Oscar for Marty.

I think Bruce Willis' soul is trapped inside a Redbox machine

(xp) I just threw him in as a bonus and because the photo amused me.

https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TjvIjX-3UIE/XqRm9uQm8AI/AAAAAAABM48/JN_a6TZ57745oafQ7lYY7DZwGeEAYM8cgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/ANTS%2521%2B%25281977%2529%2Bnewspaper%2Bad%2B1.jpg

Myrna Loy in Ants (AKA It Happened at Lakewood Manor)

I'm not suggesting any of these actors are slackers. They just got offered a vermin-oriented role and went for it.

Borgnine probably belongs on the thread that spawned this one, although I was never surprised by his spouses, unless there is one I didn’t know about.

Lol, President Keyes.

lol, it took me basically zero seconds to inevitably duplicate someone else's post. Sorry, Josefa.

If you're willing to expand your scope of inquiry, there are a lot of choice late-period performances in cheesy TV movies beyond just those that are vermin-based.

If we were polling these, Frogs and The Savage Bees (not yet pictured) might be the best actual films of the bunch

Does Straight-jacket count

A slumming Hollywood star is something you should basically demand from a TV movie

Killer vermin movies were the only movies made in the 70s, basically?

Ray Milland is amazing as the Foghorn Leghorn patriarch in Frogs, drawling out complaints that nobody is observing his birthday traditions because they are too busy being killed by frogs, birds, lizards, etc. No bees; there is a tarantula scene but I do not believe Milland is involved.

; there is a tarantula scene but I do not believe Milland is involved.

What the director told Milland's agent.

(xp) Froghorn Leghorn surely?

Killer vermin movies were the only movies made in the 70s, basically?

these are basically some of my favorite movies

also (maybe not at the tail end of her career) but: Janet Leigh in Night of the Lepus

Ray Milland's agent, that was quite a job to have in the 70s

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BOTZmZTU1MzUtNGQ3OC00YzQ5LWEwODgtN2Q5ZGIyZTcwNWE0XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNTc4Njg5MjA@._V1_FMjpg_UX1000_.jpg

lol, sad to have missed Froghorn Leghorn

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BZTg3ZGNjNzktYTY4YS00Y2VjLTgxNWEtMDhmN2FlNGYyNzlhXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMDU5NDcxNw@@._V1_.jpg

George Sanders last film was the very entertaining Brit biker exploitation movie ‘Psychomania’ in 1973. Legend is that he killed himself after watching it.

Henson says "The story goes that George Sanders saw an answer print of Psychomania in Madrid. Then he went back to his hotel room, killed himself, and left a note saying, ‘I'm so bored.’ In other words saying. ‘What the hell’s happened to my career? What am I doing? I’m old. I might as well go now’."

when Ida Lupino walks into the Elks Lodge and sees giant rabbits instead.

xpost

"Night of the Lepus" has a killer 'actors with desperate agents' cast: Rory Calhoun, DeForrest Kelley, Paul Fix.

... I mean, that's in addtition to Janet Leigh and Stuart "I'll appear in anything" Whitman.

Night of the Lepus is great just for DeForest Kelley's mustard turtleneck:

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/rifftrax/images/9/9e/KelleyLepus.JPG/revision/latest?cb=20170711185538

Bah, if that didn't go through:

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/rifftrax/images/9/9e/KelleyLepus.JPG/revision/latest?cb=20170711185538

Wow, Stuart Whitman only died last year.

There is a toad in Psychomania as well

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/rifftrax/images/9/9e/KelleyLepus.JPG

"Night of the Lepus" has a killer 'actors with desperate agents' cast: Rory Calhoun, DeForrest Kelley, Paul Fix.

https://www.dia.org/sites/default/files/styles/events_main/public/them-1954-05-g_copy.jpg

Edmund Gwenn -- from Santa in Miracle on 34th St to ... giant ant movie

Ha! Couldn't even remember who was in that aside from the star but figured it would arrive here sooner or later.

Oops! Actually go the two James mixed up.

but isn't the gold standard Marlon Brando as seen here:

https://imagesvc.meredithcorp.io/v3/mm/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fstatic.onecms.io%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2Fsites%2F6%2F2013%2F06%2Fisland-of-dr-moreau_610.jpg

Scatman Crothers in "Deadly Eyes" (AKA "The Rats") (1982)

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BM2JhZjk3YWMtOGFiNC00MjU2LWFiZDctYTcxODZiZDUxYmEwXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMjUyNDk2ODc@._V1_.jpg

Henry Fonda in The Swarm

http://haphazardstuff.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Henry-Fonda-Swarm-1978-disaster-movie-death-scene-300x193.jpg

RLM favourite Cameron Mitchell - started his acting career in the original run of Death Of A Salesman, ended it with Demon Cop.

Just reading his biog, it looks like he made some bad investments and ended up bankrupt by the mid-seventies, hence appearing in anything that would pay for about the last fifteen years of his career.

xpost That was his look when his agent told him about the role

xpost -- would explain how he ended up in MST fave Space Mutiny

Wondering what kind of screen billing Henry Fonda got for that, "special appearance" maybe?

Looks like the corpse from the Bernie movies.

It seems like every actor was in The Swarm (including Cameron Mitchell)

Fonda also appeared in the giant octopus movie Tentacles around the same time.

IMDB sez

The cast featured seven Oscar winners: Michael Caine, Olivia de Havilland, Ben Johnson, José Ferrer, Patty Duke, Lee Grant, and Henry Fonda; and two Oscar nominees: Richard Widmark and Katharine Ross.

Estimates of the numbers of bees used in the production ranged between 15 million and 22 million, including 800,000 bees with their stingers removed to enable the cast to work safely with them. About 100 people were employed in the production to care for and transport the bees during the film shoot. Olivia de Havilland was stung by a bee while filming.[8]

Jack Palance, Martin Landau, and Donald Pleasence are all in "Alone in the Dark."
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/55/Alone_in_the_dark_ver1.jpg

I've never seen it.

Or are we only talking Nature's Revenge movies?

Barbara Hale (of Perry Mason fame) in The Giant Spider Invasion (1975):

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/o3Mc0mgorZc/maxresdefault.jpg

https://c.tenor.com/Z2rsEAfen6wAAAAC/nicolas-cage-not-the-bees.gif

Weirdly, he did "The Ant Bully" the same year. I guess it's not the tail end of his career, but it's still pretty ass.

Westerns mainstay Ben Johnson appeared in Locusts (1974), The Savage Bees (1976) AND The Swarm (1978). Guess a job's a job.

I think the opposite extreme of this thread would be Peter Fonda in "Ulee's Gold." Bedrock Hollywood actor excelling in quality bee movie at the tail end of their career.

British stage stalwart Nigel Davenport was in Phase IV (1974) which is an ant movie

Surprised that Klaus "I will do literally anything for money" Kinski never made a bee movie, unless there's some obscure German entry into the genre no-one's ever heard of.

If we were polling these, Frogs and The Savage Bees (not yet pictured) might be the best actual films of the bunch

― Josefa, Monday, December 13, 2021 8:17 AM

Willard is a personal fave. And it stars Bruce Davison, who went on to do bigger things (the opposite of this thread).

xp
Das Bee

There is a toad in Psychomania

To the tune of Spanish Harlem

I'm guessing the reason the directors of these bee movies et al went for the big names is that they were "actor's actors", true professionals with proven track records who could be relied upon to keep a straight face when running from an oversized tarantula.

Ruth Roman, "Day of the Animals" (1977)

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/e8/2b/e7/e82be75d5991d6bbf6a5fdc41fab6112.png

xp Klaus Kinski never did a bee movie, but he sure as hell did a snake movie:

http://www.californiaherps.com/films/filmimages/xvenom6.jpg

Venom (1981)

Jack Palance, Martin Landau, and Donald Pleasence are all in "Alone in the Dark."

Donald Pleasance doesn't really belong here because he was in a bunch of these types of films, including The Freakmaker, which involved cross-breeding people with plants

https://bloody-disgusting.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/The-Freakmaker-1.jpg

Besides a bunch of Halloween sequels, he was in such promising titles as: Phantom of Death, Computercide and The Pumaman

if any of y'all have seen Computercide or Pumaman, please share

There must be warehouses full of outtakes/bloopers from these films - I don't see how any of these actors could have delivered more than 3 lines without breaking character, either by bursting out in laughter or wondering aloud what the hell the dialogue is supposed to be about.

lol I can't imagine much was left on the cutting room floor, given the takes that made it into the films.

Tom D. got to the Ray Milland film I was going to mention first, The Thing with Two Heads. Greatest line ever (Milland wakes up, looks at Rosy Grier's head attached to his body): "What is this, some kind of joke?"

I can’t remember if I ever actually saw that one but certainly remember the images of the two of them. Was it meant as some sport of spiritual heir to The Defiant Ones?

Not gonna lie - I saw a fair share of these at the theater when they came out. And loved them! And the ones I haven't seen I am at least familiar with the plot synopses via the Psychotronic Video Guide (aka the best bathroom reading book ever.)

xp The Thing With Two Heads was more of a racially-charged update on The Incredible Two-Headed Transplant, which came out the year prior.

Milland was a virulent racist, if I'm remembering correctly across 45 years.

Pumaman was an MST3K movie back in the day. IIRC it's a pretty entertaining episode, but I can recall nothing of Pleasance's involvement. My brain just keeps in filling in footage from his other MST role, the Italian Mad Max ripoff Warriors of the Lost World (also featuring Persis Khambatta, but no bees).

Rosey Grier is still alive (89) #onethread

Oops--I thought "bee" meant "B"!

Yes, Milland is a racist in the film. The scene where they/it (the Two Headed Thing) ride a motorcycle is unforgettable.

who is that beautiful boy in that Roman picture

Andrew Stevens, later on ‘Dallas’

Oops--I thought "bee" meant "B"!

Andrew Stevens is not exactly aging poorly (which probably cannot also be said of his films):

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BYjE2YjY0YjQtMWJjYS00MzQ1LTgxNjctOGE3ZDFiODNlZGJlXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMzczODYyNTc@._V1_.jpg

Btw to throw one back to the parent thread, Andrew Stevens was married to Kate Jackson for a few years in the Charlie’s Angels era

oh, right -- he was in The Fury! I knew I'd seen him before.

btw I want to watch this movie, like, now.

Paul Jenson (Leslie Nielsen), an advertising executive and psychopath with an angry, derisive sense of humor;

Nielsen really stole the show - it was the role he was born to play!

A relative spring chicken, Dame Joan Collins in Empire of the Ants

https://flxt.tmsimg.com/assets/p2216_i_h9_aa.jpg

Both it and Food of the Gods directed by Bert I. Gordon -- still alive at 99.

Here he is with Orson Welles #onethread

Lol!

Quick mention here of the appearance in 1959's "The Killer Shrews" of Sidney Lumet's father, Baruch.

https://dkanut5j171nq.cloudfront.net/catalogue-images/ti117552.jpg

George Sanders last film was the very entertaining Brit biker exploitation movie ‘Psychomania’ in 1973. Legend is that he killed himself after watching it.

I saw another one of his last films recently, "Doomwatch", a dull, ecological disaster movie where, frankly, he looks drunk.

Quick mention here of the appearance in 1959's "The Killer Shrews" of Sidney Lumet's father, Baruch.

just hit the donald pleasance cameo in the bee gees sgt pepper OST* and it belongs here sorry those are just the rules

*i am educating myself with an open mind and so should you betimes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6g1iZytBwhk

Mentioned previously here: Maxwell's in New Jersey is closing

just hit the donald pleasance cameo in the bee gees sgt pepper OST* and it belongs here sorry those are just the rules

*i am educating myself with an open mind and so should you betimes

― mark s, Tuesday, December 14, 2021 7:10 AM (fifty-three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I just watched the film for the first time several weeks ago (spoiler: it is equal parts shitty and completely insane) and it took me half the movie before I realized I was looking at Donald Pleasence.

https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7Iw2Qy1EAxA/XEeREaUiKjI/AAAAAAAAbJw/BRk9pIgorfc7ChKYlKMdpFUhOGSvH7LEQCLcBGAs/s1600/Sgt-Peppers-Lonely-Hearts-Club-Band-Donald-Pleasenece-1978.JPG

Lance Henriksen in Stung (2015)

https://media-prod.fangoria.com/images/stung_2.width-800.jpg

he looks like what's-his-face from Breaking Bad.

Is he fighting bees with a shovel? Are these gigantic bees? Murder hornets? Otherwise, choice of weapon is none too efficient.

Giant murder hornets, from the looks of it.

Bedrock actors should definitely carry flamethrowers, just in case.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5haMVR5my-s

Michael J. Pollard, "Skeeter" (1993)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DdDUDNzb5s

Nice. Another star of the other thread.

Is he fighting bees with a shovel?

This reminds me, in The Savage Bees a man tries to fight off attacking bees with a SWORD. (Because it's set in New Orleans during Mardi Gras and this guy happens to be dressed up as a pirate).

Do current celebs doing blumhouse joints count?

I dunno - it feels a little different when the movie is tongue-in-cheek. But slumming is as slumming does.

The "tail end of their careers" part is important too.

The Swarm is quite the inventive awful movie. There's a half hour section in the middle that focuses on a small town occupied by all the old stars. By the end of the section, every character in the town is dead. The rest of the movie ignores that section.

It was the movie Irwin Allen made right after The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno.

*gestures sadly at vince vaughn*

Ah yes, subtext

https://prowlerneedsajump.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/bee-disclaimer.jpg

I'm not familiar with his early work, but Bradford Dillman had been in moderately big movies since the '50s and then in the '70s starred in Bug! (about firestarting cockroaches), Chosen Survivors (about killer vampire bats), The Swarm, and Piranha. He must certainly have received some sort of award for his service to the killer animal genre.

I urge y'all to read the Wikipedia synopsis of The Swarm.

Meanwhile, in the countryside, the Durant family is attacked by a swarm of the bees. The mother and father die from the bee stings, but Paul, their teenaged son, escapes in a Mustang. Although he is also stung, Paul manages to make it into town and crashes into the Marysville town square, where the citizens are preparing for the annual flower festival. The boy is brought into the hands of military personnel, where he hallucinates a vision of giant bees attacking him, due to the aftereffects of the bee sting. Wheelchair bound Dr. Walter Krim confirms to Crane that the very war they have feared for a long time has started against the bees. At the gates of the base, Slater confronts angry county engineer Jed Hawkins, who demands to see the dead body of his son, who was killed by the bees. Hawkins takes the body bag and departs, leaving the entire watching crowd silent over the loss. Slater suggests airdropping poison on the swarm, but Crane considers the ecological possibilities of the situation.

Recovering from his earlier bee attack, Paul and some friends go in search of the hive to firebomb it in revenge for his family's deaths, which results only in angering the bees, who make their way to Marysville and kill hundreds, including some children at the local school. Crane and Helena take shelter at the local diner, with pregnant café waitress Rita. Reporter Anne McGregor watches from the safety of her news van, hoping to get some exciting footage about the siege. After this most recent attack, Slater suggests evacuating many of the townsfolk in a train. However, the bees manage to besiege the train as well, killing several evacuees, including a love triangle made up of schoolteacher Maureen Scheuster, retiree Felix Austin, and town mayor Clarence Tuttle, who also runs the drug store.

I could poll every sentence.

Oliva De Havilland is part of that love triangle.

It's a beautiful thing, Alfred.

Wheelchair bound Dr. Walter Krim confirms to Crane that the very war they have feared for a long time has started against the bees

Recovering from his earlier bee attack, Paul and some friends go in search of the hive to firebomb it in revenge for his family's deaths, which results only in angering the bees

Reporter Anne McGregor watches from the safety of her news van, hoping to get some exciting footage about the siege.

At London Airport, reporter Anne Butler had her gloved hand kissed repeatedly by youngsters who saw it accidentally brush against the back of a Beatle.

Olivia de Havilland as Ringo

Sylvia Sidney in Roger Corman's I Never Promised You a Rose Garden:

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51GFS2oKW9L._AC_.jpg

(Of course, she was later in... Beetlejuice!)

John Huston AND Henry Fonda in... TENTACLES, distributed by AIP:

https://andyoucallyourselfascientist.files.wordpress.com/2020/04/t77-poster1b.jpg

Most copies of The Swarm you can find are actually an extended cut with more love triangle scenes that don't matter.

imdb:
The UK "12" certificate video release is the 155m version of this film (also shown on US TV) which was released in cinemas at 116m (with a "PG" certificate). Some of the additional footage is as follows:
more of the 3 way courtship between DeHavilland, Johnson & MacMurray
a hilarious scene in which the military inspect the attacked picnic site and Michael Caine comments on the bees' biting abilities
several additional scenes of Caine and Katharine Ross driving back and forth between the military bunker and the town and chatting about developments as they do
the death scene of the little boy whose parents were killed and who subsequently firebombed the swarm - in the short version he is in hospital and you assume he's survived although he's not seen again. he has a relapse and dies in the long version.
various extra footage of Caine and Ross going to the HQ in Houston
when Henry Fonda is killed there is an additional shot of a huge superimposed bee which he sees at the moment of death
an additional subplot near the end of the film in which Ross has a relapse and nearly dies from her earlier bee sting. This is why she's lying in a bed when Caine rescues her from the burning building. This sub-plot has several short scenes including one when Bradford Dillman and Richard Widmark see Caine praying by her bed - once he sees that Caine believes in God Widmark knows he's a good chap and instructs Dillman to "Close that dossier" (the dossier has been constantly referred to by Widmark but was left as an unresolved plot hole in the theatrical cut).

you've done God's work.

when Henry Fonda is killed there is an additional shot of a huge superimposed bee which he sees at the moment of death

Awesome.

I wonder whether there were any "bedrock Hollywood actors" who absolutely refused to do this kind of stuff in the 70s.

All of this amazing information y'all are sharing clashes hardcore with the received wisdom that The Swarm is a shitty movie

I'm struck again by how much younger my parents look. A life of bad food and smokes sure ages even the Apollonian likes of Ernest Borgnine!

I wish there was a blog where someone posted a screenshot of every instance when an actor in an old movie or TV show mentions their age.

'Well, I turn 37 next month. Why do you ask?'
https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/nightcourt/images/c/c7/Elisha_Cook_Magnum_PI.jpg

I kinda think this all started with Helen Hayes in Airport, which wasn't a disaster movie per se but helped birth the genre (and the killer bug movie, by extension) with its ubiquitous "all-star cast", which had to feature at least one oldie from the golden era (Jimmy Stewart, Gloria Swanson, etc.)

xp I was shocked to realize that Art Carney was in his mid-50's when he did Harry and Tonto.

I love Irwin Allen movies for their star-studded epic corny terribleness. However. The Swarm is sooooooooo insanely boring. Rivals only Earthquake! for boredom. The runtime is truly criminal.

Yeah most of the film is men standing around in rooms arguing about what the hell they're gonna do about these bees

Earthquake is the least boring!

Is that the one where they kill the earthquake with flammable chemicals

Henry Fonda is also in Meteor (1979) where he's the wheelchair-bound president who nukes a meteor which then destroys the world trade center. A long way from his Fail-Safe days.

The modern equivalent is probably old stars in comic book movies to add gravitas, like Redford in The Winter Soldier and Michael Douglas as Antman.

or Max Von Sydow as some kind of shadowy elder

can we poll the movies where Henry Fonda plays a crusty but benign pol?

Daniel Stern did an iama a few years ago and mentioned he and John Hughes had been working on a script called The Bee -- "a hysterical comedy about a man trapped in his house with a bee" -- while filming Home Alone 2

100% would watch

Strother Martin, "Sssssss" (1973)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOkQ_-XtwlA

the saddest Henry Fonda role in this mode has to be City On Fire (1979) where he informs us in his very first scene that he is but one day away from retirement as the City's Fire Chief.

just hit the donald pleasance cameo in the bee gees sgt pepper OST* and it belongs here sorry those are just the rules

*i am educating myself with an open mind and so should you betimes

― mark s, Tuesday, December 14, 2021 7:10 AM (fifty-three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

The movie belongs to that puzzling mini-canon of disco cash-in films that also are stridently about how disco is bad and we need to go back to the purity of old school Americana (cf: The Apple).

I wish there was a blog where someone posted a screenshot of every instance when an actor in an old movie or TV show mentions their age.

https://silverscreenings.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/celia-johnson-in-the-holly-and-the-ivy-19521.jpg
The Holly and the Ivy, 31 and 34

This really probably needs a dedicated thread.

Fire it up.

Michael Caine has the best attitude when it comes to appearing in terrible movies. pic.twitter.com/59OpmtzKMq

— Oliver Jia (オリバー・ジア) (@OliverJia1014) December 26, 2021

Think we already had that one, but a link and not a tweet and maybe on the parent thread anyway, so thanks.