THE BEES

d. Alfredo Zacarias (1978)

'You have to listen to what the bees have to say!'

Mankind has a contradictory attitude towards bees, being both completely dependent on them for the continuation of human life on this planet, and simultaneously determined on eradicating them completely in pursuit of short term profit. As a child, I was once chased by a swarm of bees and stung dozens of times, but I don't hold a grudge: they were just doing their job and, after some brief discomfort, I was perfectly fine, although somewhat reluctant to cross them again.

The Bees is a brilliant, chaotic film. Totally cobbled together, it's difficult to know what is more awkward, the mismatched stock footage of plane and helicopter crashes and social panic (at one point, despite the film being set in the modern day and in Mexico and USA, we see obviously British people from the 1960s running past the Ilford Curzon) or  the dodgy optical effects, including what looks like green soot smeared on the negative to represent huge clouds of deadly bees. Every scene is scored with unsuitable music: people die in agony accompanied by ragtime piano, or atonal jazz. There's an appearance from ex-president Gerald Ford (in news footage) and then president Jimmy Carter (played by an impersonator). The elderly John Carradine does a silly German accent, and is taken out by hitmen. 

The Bees in question are imbued with an almost mystical quality, directed from a glowing, throbbing mega-hive in a cave. The upshot is that the bees aren't just killing people because they can, but because they are the vanguard of the defence of mother nature. Sick of having her natural resources used and abused by man, she has sent '20 trillion' bees to teach them a lesson, culminating in a swarm of bees holding the United Nations to ransom. 

Stars John Saxon and Angel Tompkins do the only thing they can and enjoy themselves, providing the film with a basic core of grace, good nature and fun. It's a film that is hilariously funny, not in a sneering way, but just because it is silly and ridiculous and doesn't take itself at all seriously. The funniest thing of all is that Paramount paid the producers a million dollars not to release the film before their own big budget take on the theme, The Swarm. They needn't have bothered, The Swarm was a massive flop, notable only for Michael Caine's immortal words (read aloud, using 'the voice'): 'I never dreamed it would turn out to be the bees. They've always been our friends'. 

CHAMPIONS OF JUSTICE

d. Federico Curiel (1971)

I never thought I'd ever think there were too many wrestlers in a film, but this mayhem filled Mexican melange presents us with seemingly dozens of Luchadors, all masked, and pretty much interchangeable. Blue Demon (the star of 20 such films and, after Santos, the biggest name in Mexican wrestling at the time) is easy to identify, as is the Killer Doctor (he wears whites), but the rest are all much of a muchness: swarthy, beefy, semi-naked masked men sucking in their tummies and hitting people with their thick forearms. I was most drawn to the Man of a 1,000 Masks, who had great but sadly unfulfilled potential, but, as you might expect, he kept changing masks all the time, so that was confusing, too. Luckily, the story is as easy as paella, and just as tasty.

A super villain / evil scientist (I didn’t even catch his name, doesn’t matter) has iimbued a bunch of wrestling midgets with super strength, and is using them to try and take over the world. Nobody stands in his way, except twenty motor bike riding, big fisted full size wrestlers, of course, and they are more than up for a scrap – they’re champions of justice, after all.

In terms of sheer silliness it's hard to top, but they certainly do string things out - as an example, we see the alchemic process that turns 'just pathetic midgets' (their words, not mine) into human dynamos in great detail - not once, not twice, but thrice. It's just padding, which is disappointing given the amount of characters they have to play with. 

The finale, however, makes up for the sometimes languid pace by being a glorious and fast moving free for all which is excruciatingly entertaining, although you can’t help but cringe every time a little person gets booted in the air or thrown through a window.  There's also something wonderful about the expository scenes: a load of men standing around in their underpants talking very seriously about tactics. When you chuck in incidental details like the Luchadors all having sexy young 'god daughters' who are competing against each other in a beauty contest, it all becomes a little delirious.