Skip Surguine

That Irwin Allan’s movie, The Swarm, was a ”disaster of a disaster movie” is rarely doubted by anyone these days. I am particularly aware of its failings (I guess it really was truly a “B” movie! Ha!) partly because I worked on it as the 2nd assistant director and was able to witness the attempts to make this movie from beginning to near the end. I was actually hired before the first assistant director (I suppose this was because of my friendship with the Unit Manager, Norman Cook, who I had worked with on the old Wonder Woman TV series just a few months earlier, and because I was willing to sit around in an office on the lot and do breakdown boards, not just for “The Swarm” but including other projects Irwin was thinking about doing.) I would say that Irwin - a likeable enough guy who knew very well how to raise money and make deals needed to make motion pictures (itself a formidable skill), got himself in over his head when he decided to direct this epic. He simply did not have the expertise needed to make this movie. And I really do not think he knew he did not have it! Add to that the fact that the industry was on the cusp of having radically new techniques available to filmmaking - digital methods that were still a few months away from becoming reality - and he was at a disadvantage from the start. The critics are thus largely correct though not 100%. Someone referred to the “miniature trains” as HO scale models which is simply not true. Our trains were massive compared to any traditional model train. Big enough, I would say, to more like the sort of model trains children ride at parks and zoos. But as far as the movie is concerned it was, at the very least, out of phase with the technology needed to make such a film. More important, it wasn’t a good script to start with. And he - Irwin- didn’t have anyone to tell him that he was in over his head, assuming he would listen to anyone in the first place. Sort of reminds me of Donald Trump thinking he can run a country without really understanding how to do so. Sure he can put on a convincing show for those who will back him. In Irwin Allan’s case, I still think he genuinely thought he could pull it off. I don’t think he was trying to deceive anyone. He simply was not set to do this movie. Donald Trump? He has unimaginable resources available to him but, frankly, I don’t think he gives a darn, one way or another. Sorry. Off track again! But the thought just hit me and I think I am just going to leave it in. Skip Surguine