The Deadly Bees
| The Deadly Bees | |
|---|---|
A promotional poster for The Deadly Bees
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| Directed by | Freddie Francis |
| Produced by | Max J. Rosenberg Milton Subotsky |
| Screenplay by |
Robert Bloch Anthony Marriott |
| Based on |
A Taste for Honey by Gerald Heard |
| Starring |
Suzanna Leigh Guy Doleman Frank Finlay |
| Music by | Wilfred Josephs |
| Cinematography | John Wilcox |
| Edited by | Oswald Hafenrichter |
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Production
company |
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| Distributed by | Paramount Pictures (1966, original) Olive Films (under license from Paramount) (2015, Blu-Ray DVD) |
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Release date
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19 May 1967 (NYC) |
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Running time
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83 minutes |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
The Deadly Bees is a 1966 British horror–thriller film based on H.F. Heard's 1941 novel A Taste for Honey. It was directed by Freddie Francis, and stars Suzanna Leigh, Guy Doleman, and Frank Finlay. It was released theatrically in the United States in 1967 and was featured in a 1998 episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000.
Heard's novel, which was a sort of Sherlock Holmes pastiche, had been previously adapted for television as a 60-minute drama episode of The Elgin Hour: Season 1, Episode 11 under the title "Sting of Death" (22 February 1955), starring Boris Karloff as the detective character from Heard's novel, Mr Mycroft. According to H.F. Heard's official website, kinescopes of this TV dramatization survive, and, in 2014, it was made commercially available for home video as one of several features in a DVD, released by Synergy Entertainment, titled Sherlock Holmes - The Archive Collection - Volume One.
The film opens with two men from an unnamed ministry commenting on a spate of letters from a beekeeper claiming to have developed a strain of killer bees. They dismiss him as a lunatic, though his letters claim he will start killing people if he is not taken seriously.
Meanwhile, pop singer Vicki Robbins (Suzanna Leigh) collapses from exhaustion on television, and is sent to recuperate in a cottage on Seagull Island. The reason for this is that her doctor knows Ralph Hargrove. The proprietors of the "rest home" are a depressed and disgruntled couple, Ralph and Mary Hargrove (Guy Doleman and Catherine Finn). Ralph is a beekeeper, as is his neighbor, H.W. Manfred (Frank Finlay).
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