Killer Bees ** (1974, Gloria Swanson, Edward Albert, Kate Jackson, Roger Davis, Craig Stevens) – Classic Movie Review 3101

‘She controls the bees. They’ll kill for her — and die for her. She’s their queen… and she’ll live forever.’

Director Curtis Harrington’s enjoyably daft 1974 horror thriller stars the great silent movie actress Gloria Swanson as the strong-willed California wine-growing family matriarch Madame Maria van Bohlen, who dominates her grandsons Edward (Edward Albert), Helmut (Roger Davis) and Mathias (Don McGovern) and her son Rudolf (Craig Stevens), and also has a weird hold over the bees on her estate.

Kate Jackson also stars as San Francisco college boy Edward’s girlfriend, Victoria Wells, who talks him bringing her to visit his mysterious family estate. But she finds the Van Bohlens don’t like visitors and are cultivating attacker bees that kill a trespasser on the estate on the day of the couple’s arrival.

Written by John William Corrington and Joyce Hooper Corrington, Killer Bees follows in the great tradition of bee movies as silly but still quite amusing, and, to be fair, has some decent performances and suspenseful moments.

Also in the cast of actors relatively down on their luck are John S. Ragin, Heather Ann Bostain, Don Gentry and Liam Dunn.

Kate Jackson and Edward Albert paired up again in No Regrets (2004).

Edward Albert cared for his actor father Eddie Albert for ten years till his death in 2005, then discovered he too was seriously ill with lung cancer. He died surrounded by his family on September 22 2006 at 55.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 3101

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com