Is it exploitative junk or a radical feminist manifesto?  Or just an out-of-control genre mashup between Sci-fi and a skin flick?  It’s Denis Sanders’ final feature and Nicholas Meyer’s first script, but the real auteur may be the producer who put voyeurism above all other concerns. Scores of males in Peckham are dying in the act of sex … are those weird entomology experiments involved?  Could Bee…  William Smith, Victoria Vetri and Anitra Ford don’t know whether to Bee or not to Bee. Okay I’ll stop.

Invasion of the Bee Girls
Blu-ray
Kino Cult
1973 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 86 min. / Graveyard Tramps, The Honey Factor / Street Date January 21, 2025 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring: William Smith, Anitra Ford, Victoria Vetri, Cliff Osmond, Wright King, Ben Hammer, Anna Aries, Andre Philippe, Sid Kaiser, Katie A. Saylor, Beverly Powers, Tom Pittman, Bill Keller, Cliff Emmich, Al Bordighi, Jack Perkins, Colleen Brennan.
Cinematography: Gary Graver
Art Director: Elayne Cedar
Costumes: Ann McCarthy
Special Effects: Joe Lombardi
Assistant Director: Marty Hornstein
Original Music: Charles Bernstein
Written by Nicholas Meyer
Executive Producer: Fred Weintraub
Directed by Denis Sanders

Everything about the ad campaign for  Invasion of the Bee Girls shouted T&A exploitation, so even though it was Science Fiction, it wasn’t taken very seriously. It had few TV screenings, because trimming for broadcast cut out most of its key content. But we always wanted to see what the accomplished writer Nicholas Meyer came up with for his first film credit, and how well director Denis Sanders, an interesting talent, managed with the material. Is the tale of the ‘Bee Girls’ disposable softcore junk, or does it make something clever of its theme of monstrous, murderous females?

With the Ratings System in place and previously forbidden film content now being exploited everywhere, what was the next step beyond Roger Corman’s  The Wasp Woman?  In the early ’70s parts of Hollywood thought that X-rated movies might be the Next Big Thing. A softcore movie called  The Harrad Experiment, about a school that encouraged sex experimentation among minors, got a wide release and was a substantial mainstream hit. Executive Producer Fred Weintraub had two bets down on the movieland roulette wheel for 1973. This one had a fairly brief theatrical life, but his other became a sensation: the Bruce Lee Kung-fu thriller Enter the Dragon played ’round the clock at its premiere engagement at Grauman’s Chinese.

At first glance Invasion of the Bee Girls — ‘B’ Girls, get it? – is a riff on Sci-fi classics like its obvious  ‘Invasion of ‘– predecessor about an alien takeover of a small town. Here we have Peckham, California, where the Brandt Research Center is carrying on sensitive scientific work under government contracts. A top scientist dies of a massive heart attack, apparently during sex; local police captain Jim Peters (Cliff Osmond of  Kiss Me, Stupid) decides to report to the Feds after a second person dies in more or less the same way. Security agent Neil Agar (William Smith) arrives to investigate, and is impressed by the casual sex activities of the various male scientists — seeing co-workers outside of their marriages, etc. The men gossip about the ‘frigid’ entomologist Dr. Susan Harris (Anitra Ford of  Messiah of Evil). Neil first focuses on the first victim’s research assistant, Julie Zorn (Victoria Vetri of  Rosemary’s Baby and  When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth). He accepts her alibi and her offer to help him investigate.

There’s little mystery as to what’s going on — the men are being screwed to death by a seductive female conspiracy. Dr. Harris slinks and skulks around wearing fashionable dark glasses to hide eyes that sometimes become black compound orbs; ‘Bees-Eye-View’ POV shots fill the screen with multi-image shots that we remember as classic  Andre Delambre-Vision.

Neil and Julie learn more about the Research Center’s after-hours culture. One dead scientist was thought by his colleagues not to be a swinger; Neil discovers an ornate ‘sex nest’ hidden in his house, but gets no closer to solving the mystery. As we suspect, Dr. Harris is the ringleader of a group of killer females transformed into ‘bee women,’ via a sketchily-explained genetic process. They voraciously mate with all available males because … we’re not sure why. The males all die from heart failure during sex because … we’re not sure about that either.

For feminist horror content we get ‘normal’ women transformed into alluring Bee Girls with shimmering black eyeballs, an effect predating by a few seasons the popular  The Stepford Wives. With so much sex activity, mostly predatory females coming on to ‘aren’t I lucky’ males, there’s a sex scene in every reel, most of which feature nudes, the voyeuristic kind meant to entertain viewers having no interest in other aspects of the show.

The core Sci-fi material is a transformation scene … in a lab with lots of flashing lights, a widowed housewive is placed inside a geodesic cage that looks like a child’s jungle gym … the production can’t construct much, but they do try to incorporate hive-like hexagonal shapes here and there. The topless nudity shows the entranced inductee being slathered with something that might be Royal Jelly. She’s then shoved into a transformation chamber, where thousands of bees swarm over her. It’s the film’s one truly impressive effect.

We’re told that Nicholas Meyer wanted nothing to do with the finished film, claiming that it was greatly changed from what he wrote. It includes a gratuitous exploitative rape scene. Was Meyer’s version not such a soft-core strip show?  Accounts of his career sometimes skip Bee Girls altogether. We are of course big fans of Meyer’s later  Sherlock Holmes movie, his  time travel movie, his  Star Trek rescue, his  Thugee cult movie and his  atom war classic for TV. But everybody has to start somewhere. Invasion of the Bee Girls is to Meyer the way  The Lady in Red or  Alligator is to the illustrious writer-director John Sayles.

We don’t know if Nicholas Meyer came up with the core concept or wrote the movie to fit someone else’s idea. In one scene Neil and Julie ‘learn important info’ from a 16mm educational film about bees, the big bug cliché begun in the classic  Them! and lampooned in  Matinee. It’s the weakest part of the movie — which isn’t really functioning as a genre spoof.

Could Meyer’s have had more of a loaded feminist angle?  Or was its Bee Sisterhood meant to be critical of assertive females, the kind with an agenda that rejects male control?  As finished, the clutch of Bee-ified women come off as auto-erotic lesbians taking what they want from foolish ‘drones’ and killing them with sexual excitement. Gullible scientist Herb Kline (Ben Hammer) is baffled by his sex encounter with Susan — she crawls all over him yet restrains him from touching or embracing her …. as the Queen Bee, would that be disrespectful?

It’s not like Ford or Vetri are given special status, and lower-billed talent is doing the heavy lifting in the nude scenes. Both are pretty much starkers (softcore starkers), and Vetri receives some serious groping … although it’s possible those shots are with a body double. At one point Bee Girls reminded us of Roger Vadim’s unapologetically exploitative  Pretty Maids All in a Row, which promises much but eventually boils down to an excuse to ogle its female cast. The Real Agenda is right in the ad tag lines:

With Subject A the softcore content, any coherent sex politics is something the viewer provides. There is a sharply-defined contrast of gender goals: Queen Bee Susan and Co. have needs completely opposed to the scientists’ bedroom fantasies. The male researchers seem open to hook up with whatever female comes their way, which makes them easy prey. The eroticism in the Sisterhood is communal — they’re not into those idiotic men, and instead freak out over their own enhanced sexual potency. Yet we are told that the Bee Sisters are all sterile …

Most of the jokes are little flat. A press conference with frightened locals has some potential, when the police chief recommends abstinence. The one funny joke is a wife’s reaction to hearing that her husband’s colleagues are dying during the sex act. She says that if she thought it would really kill him, she’d have sex with her husband right away.

Perhaps the perfect auteur for Invasion of the Bee Girls would have been Joe Sarno. The new neighborhoods of Peckham are described as a hive (cough) of free sex, wife-swapping, etcetera. As the show was filmed in L.A.’a’ new satellite cities of Newhall and Valencia, I’m reminded of the ‘swinger’ apartment complexes that flourished at the same time, in places like Canoga Park. Fancy new constructions with cheap rent attracted singles. Casual pickups seemed a daily occurrence.

The dialogue is okay, even though we must wait through a lot of rote investigation, interviews, crime scenes, etc., before the movie catches up with what we already knew from the film’s title. William Smith must have welcomed the opportunity to play something other than a brutal villain. He’s okay as Neil Agar, but the characterization just reinforces the same sexist setup: another macho guy given approval because he’s a thoughtful gentleman.

Victoria Vetri, aka Andrea Dorian, carries her role well and retains our respect. Her Julie Zorn is not part of the local sex games. It’s a little depressing when she runs to Neil for protection when things get tough. He rescues her like Popeye rescues Olive Oyl … although we can’t picture Olive Oyl in a trance, covered with Royal Jelly. When it’s time for a fadeout, Neil and Julie hop off to bed like happy bunnies. Who will carry on all that essential government research at Brandt?

Anitra Ford is almost too provocative and sultry as Dr. Susan Harris, especially when her colleagues describe her as frigid. She plays the part of the commanding Queen well enough, at least until the big transformation scene in the lab. Her goal as the ringleader of the Bee ladies’ is a blur — do they just want to keep killing males and creating more monstrous Bee Sisters?  The only conclusion we reach is that women are indeed seen as some kind of suspect ‘other’: mess with their hormones and genetics, and they will become even more irrationally fixated on their sensual, erotic needs. Well, we’re just guessing, as the movie doesn’t really state what its Bee Babes are after. We read one lazy reviewer that seems to think they’ve invaded from outer space.

The supporting cast seem to be capable players with lots of TV credits. Cliff Osmond plays his police captain straight and without irony. The tone is almost as earnest as Michael Laughlin’s quirky New Zealand effort  Dead Kids / Strange Behavior. Some of the ten or so actresses billed as Bee Ladies are experienced showgirls with mostly ‘decorative’ credits. But we admire their commitment. We’re always impressed to see anybody wear those oversized contact lenses to play aliens or folk with  X-ray vision. Scary stuff.

USC wunderkind Denis Sanders got noticed with an excellent school film, but was ten years too early for the student filmmaker revolution. His first efforts helping  Charles Laughton didn’t pan out yet he made several Hollywood pictures worth seeing, and a number of good documentaries. Invasion of the Bee Girls looks rushed and often underfunded, but is decently directed. Special attention is given key scenes, and others are simply tossed off — an autopsy lab is just two featureless walls and an actor holding a bloody sheet. A box of mice is all we see of another lab. Gary Graver’s cinematography is ‘whatever’ in some setups and quite precise in others. A lot of effort was put into the Bee transformation scene, especially whoever wrangled all those bees.

The audience for Bee Girls is probably after something sexy and funny and maybe with a satirical idea or two. It delivers on the sex angle, at least in terms of attractive nudity, but despite some interesting ideas doesn’t get its premise into high gear. The Camp qualities are only in the title puns, and esoteric things like the last name chosen for William Smith’s hero. It was good to finally see it as an intact ‘R.’

Roger Ebert may have liked Bee Girls because its fleshy exuberance has much the same aims as the films of his friend  Russ Meyer.

The Kino Cult Blu-ray of Invasion of the Bee Girls is a good-looking encoding of a film said to be in the Public Domain. It may be the exact same transfer seen on an earlier Shout Factory disc from 2017. It carries an MGM logo.

We’re told that it was mastered from a release print; if that’s true it’s an excellent effort. Most scenes have good contrast and color values. The soundtrack also does not feel compromised. The slightly psychedelic score comes through well, as does that buzzing noise that tells us that Sexy Bee Sisters are feeling, ah, stimulated.

Kino’s extras offer an audio commentary by Alexandra-Heller Nicholas and Josh Nelson. Like some of their other tracks, it aims to amuse while giving the known facts about Bee Girls a light going-over. She loves the film in a profound way, he reports that it makes him Buzz all Over.

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Invasion of the Bee Girls
Blu-ray rates:
Movie: Good
Video: Very Good
Sound: Very Good
Supplements:
Trailers, radio spots
Audio commentary by Alexandra Heller-Nicholas and Josh Nelson.
Deaf and Hearing Impaired Friendly? YES; Subtitles: English (feature only)
Packaging: One Blu-ray in Keep case
Reviewed: February 9, 2025
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