We had the great pleasure to do an interview with John Roger Barrie, literary executor of H. F. Heard, whose 1941 novel A Taste for Honey was adapted into The Deadly Bees. Barrie runs the official Heard website at www.geraldheard.com.
AP: Have you seen The Deadly Bees on DVD?
JRB: Yes. Legend Films did a superb restoration job.
AP: The movie is based on the novel A Taste for Honey by H. F. Heard. I’ve read the book, which is a very smart, taut murder mystery.
JRB: A Taste for Honey sold more copies than any of Heard’s 38 major books, about half a million, which was a huge amount for its day. Christopher Morley and Boris Karloff praised it, among others.
AP: I understand the book will soon be reissued.
JRB: We’re aiming for this fall.
AP: The book’s main character is Mr. Mycroft. Is he intended to be Mycroft Holmes, Sherlock’s brother?
JRB: That remains a mystery. Heard never said. By the same token, he never refuted those who claimed it was Sherlock.
AP: Didn’t Heard write some other Mr. Mycroft novels?
JRB: There were two more, which we’ll eventually be reissuing. Heard wrote other fiction as well. His collection of eight short stories The Great Fog was just reissued last June.
AP: The Mr. Mycroft character does not appear in The Deadly Bees.
JRB: We’re careful to state that The Deadly Bees in very loosely adapted from A Taste for Honey. In many instances the setting, plot, and characters have been changed, so that the movie often bears little or no semblance to the book. Mycroft the investigator becomes Manfred the villain. The narrator Sydney Silchester morphs into Vicki Robbins. The rural countryside of Ashton Clearwater turns into Seagull Island. The wife and dog are stung to death onscreen, whereas in the book the wife’s death is related after the fact, while the dog—a mastiff, not cuddly little Tess—succumbed to only one bee. And so forth.
AP: Do you think Amicus Productions massacred the novel?
JRB: I would say the novel inspired the movie. But the movie they made is decidedly different from the book. Those who purchase the book should not expect to read about pop singer Vicki Robbins or Ralph Hargrove’s favorite pub.
AP: In the June 2008 issue of Little Shoppe of Horrors, Philip Nutman’s The Uncensored History of Amicus Productions reveals that the novel had been changed by Milton Subotsky of Amicus, then by Paramount, and then scripted by Robert Bloch. Then director Freddie Francis had a comedy writer rewrite Bloch’s script.
JRB: Well, that pretty much explains why the movie is not a strict adaptation of the book.
AP: How did the production come about?
JRB: Amicus’ Max Rosenberg first contacted the publisher of A Taste for Honey in May 1963 about obtaining motion-picture rights to the novel. Max stated that in about 1948 his partner Milton Subotsky had discussed with Heard the possibility of making a play from his novel. After all, Christopher Morley glowingly wrote in 1946, “A Taste for Honey is one of the greatest undramatized plays that has ever been written.”
AP: And so negotiations proceeded smoothly?
JRB: The extensive correspondence over negotiations indicates a fairly smooth ride, punctuated with a few bumps in the road. In October 1965, Heard and Amicus reached an agreement. By February 7, 1966 the principal photography had been completed. By then it was titled The Deadly Bees. It’s further documented that the picture went over budget due primarily to its being shot in Techniscope.
AP: What did Heard think of the movie?
JRB: Unfortunately Heard suffered a major, incapacitating stroke in October 1966 so, for better or for worse, he never saw the movie. For that matter, he never saw the February 22, 1955 ABC-TV adaptation of A Taste for Honey that was titled The Sting of Death, and which starred Boris Karloff.
AP: Many reviewers have trounced the film.
JRB: Not you. Not George Reis of DVD Drive-In. Sure, it has some hokey moments, and it’s a bit slow at times. But for what it is—the first-ever killer bees flick—it’s really not that bad. It’s grossed $3M since its release in April 1967. It served as a platform for Ron Wood’s first rock group.
I think that it was miscast in its genre. It’s billed as a horror film, but it’s not. If one views it as a mystery-suspense story set in a claustrophobic English hamlet, populated with characters who range from semi-neurotic to sociopathic, and featuring a few crazed bees, I think it holds its own.
AP: Anything you would like to say in closing?
JRB: When I spoke with Max in 2002, he referred to the book as “a splendid novel.” He’s right. I believe it’s time to rethink the movie. As you write in your review, “I think that the film deserves another look.”
Interview with John Roger Barrie
