From: hamel@uakari.primate.wisc.edu (Ray Hamel)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies,rec.games.trivia
Subject: Insects on film -- the list
Date: 9 Oct 1992 09:26:45 -0500
Organization: UW-Madison Primate Center
NNTP-Posting-Host: uakari.primate.wisc.edu


INSECT FILMS
     by Ray Hamel (hamel@primate.wisc.edu)
 
     My thanks to the 3 dozen or so respondents to my query for
films about insects.  Here is the information I have compiled
with their help:
 
ABOMINABLE DR PHIBES, THE -- Vincent Price, as the ghoulish Dr.
     Phibes destroys his enemies with recreations of Biblical
     plagues.  Nurse Allan (Susan Travers) is the victim eaten by
     locusts.
 
ALICE IN WONDERLAND (1933 and 1951) -- Alice encounters a hookah-
     smoking caterpillar.  In the 1933 live action film version,
     the Caterpilllar was played by Ned Sparks.
 
APPLEGATES, THE -- When the rain forest habitat of the Cocorado
     beetle is threatened by the deforestation of man, a family
     of the beetles is sent to infiltrate suburbia and blow up a
     nuclear power plant, thereby creating a new homeland for the
     beetles.  Two of the beetles cum human resemble Ed Begley
     Jr. and Stockard Channing.
 
BEAST WITHIN, THE -- Seventeen year-old Michael MacCleary (Paul
     Clemens) discover his true heritage as a cannibalistic half-
     man/half-locust who terrorizes the Mississippi countryside,
     and attempts to reproduce before he expires.
 
BEGINNING OF THE END -- Giant cockroaches wipe out small towns in
     Illinois, and the Illinois militia, until scientist Peter
     Graves leads them to a watery death by playing their mating
     call from loudspeakers on a boat in Lake Michigan.
 
BUG -- Mutated cockroaches that lights fires and hide in the
     tailpipes of cars are released from the center of the Earth
     by an earthquake.  They also develop the manditory taste for
     human flesh devouring Patty McCormack (of THE BAD SEED fame)
     among others, until they are stopped by scientist Bradford
     Dillman.  This was the last production by William Castle.
 
CHEETAH -- When lost in the African wilderness, Morogo (Collin
     Mothupi) tries to convince Americans Ted (Keith Coogan) and
     Susan (Lucy Deakins) to eat termites for sustenance.
 
CREEPSHOW -- Billionaire E.G. Marshall has an insect phobia, but
     wipes up being the host body for thousands of cockroaches.
 
DAMNATION ALLEY -- In a post-holocaust future, one of the hazards
     survivors encounter are armor-plated, flesh-eating, nuclear
     cockroaches, who make a meal of Paul Winfield.  (Winfield
     also had bad luck with an insect-like creature in STAR TREK
     II: THE WRATH OF KHAN.)
 
DEADLY BEES, THE -- Probably the first of several bee films, this
     film was made in 1967 in Britain.
 
DEADLY MANTIS, THE -- Another one of those giant insects made
     famous in B-movies of the 1950s.  This one smashes autos
     along the East Coast until he is trapped in the Holland
     Tunnel and gassed to death.
 
DOCTOR DOOLITTLE -- At the end of this film, Dr. Doolittle (Rex
     Harrison) flies away on a giant lunar moth.
 
DRACULA -- Renfield devours insects -- a feat also performed by
     Arte Johnson in LOVE AT FIRST BITE.
 
EMPIRE OF THE ANTS -- Based on a story by H.G. Wells, this film
     features gigantic atomic ants attacking Joan Collins and
     Robert Lansing vacationing on a remote island.  
 
THE FLY (1958 and 1986) and THE FLY II -- Man and fly exchange
     parts (or genetic material in the newer versions) when a
     scientist experiments with a teleportation device.
 
HELLSTROM CHRONICLE, THE -- This 1971 documentary about man's
     struggles against insects won the Academy Awards for
     Documentary Feature.
 
HONEY, I SHRUNK THE KIDS -- Shrunken kids go for a wild ride on
     the back of a bumblebee.  They also adopt an ant (named
     "Anty") which is killed saving the kids from a giant
     scorpion.
 
INVASION OF THE BEE GIRLS -- Government agent Williams Smith
     discovers a group of women who are being turned into
     sterile, sexually driven bee girls who leave their lovers
     dead.  
 
IT HAPPENED AT LAKEWOOD MANOR/PANIC AT LAKEWOOD MANOR/ANTS --
     Suzanne Somers, Robert Foxworth, Myrna Loy and Lynda Day
     George was overrun with ants at a summer resort when, once
     again, someone tampers with Mother Nature.
 
KILLER BEES -- Gloria Swanson is the matriarch of a vineyard who
     seems to possess power over a colony of bees in this 1974
     tv-movie.
 
MOTHRA -- This famed Japanese monster starts out movie life in
     1962 as a caterpillar that damages Tokyo before spinning a
     cocoon and emerging as the giant moth, Mothra, who causes
     tidal waves and windstorms with his giant wings.  Mothra
     also appears in GHIDRAH, THE THREE HEADED MONSTER and
     GODZILLA VS. THING/GODZILLA VS. MOTHRA.
 
MYSTERIOUS ISLAND -- Shipwreck survivors during the Civil War
     land on an island where they are attacked by gigantic bees,
     bred through experimentation by Captain Nemo.
 
NAKED JUNGLE, THE -- Charlton Heston and Ava Gardner are
     threatened by a 20-mile long troop of soldier ants on their
     South American ranch.
 
ONCE UPON A TIME -- Cary Grant is involved in the promotion of a
     dancing caterpillar.
 
PHASE IV -- A colony of super-intelligent ants turn the tables on
     scientists by capturing them and using them for
     observational study.
 
PINOCCHIO -- Co-starring Jiminy Cricket.  
 
RESCUERS, THE -- Evinrude, a dragonfly who thinks he's an
     outboard motor, assists mice Bernard and Miss Bianca in
     rescuing a little girl named Penny.
 
SAVAGE BEES, THE -- A plague of African killer bees descend upon
     Mardi Gras in this tv-movie.  They return in the 1978 tv-
     movie sequel TERROR OUT OF THE SKY.
 
SWARM, THE -- Bees threaten a horde of Academy Award winners who
     somehow stumbled into this Irwin Allen disaster.
 
THEM! -- Giant nuclear ants come out of the deserts of New Mexico
     flying to Los Angeles, and hiding out in the city's
     underground sewer system.  FBI agent James Arness and police
     sergeant James Whitmore enlist the help of ant expert Edmund
     Gwenn to root out and kill the queen ants.  
 
WASP WOMAN, THE -- Hoping to developed a rejuvenation formula
     using the royal jelly from queen wasps, cosmetics queen
     Susan Cabot soon discovers her invention has a horrific side
     effect.
 
 
Other films that I could not corroborate (yet):
     BARTON FINK (mosquito); NAKED LUNCH (hallucinatory roaches);
     FROGS; FORMICULA (ants); THE NAKED PREY (locust attack); UN
     CHIEN ANDALOU (ants crawling out of a human hand); THE
     COLLECTOR (Terence Stamp is a warped butterfly collector);
     CREEPERS (Dario Argento film about a girl with psychic power
     over insects)
 
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