Them! (1954) review

6. Them! (1954)

Directed by: Gordon Douglas

Produced by: David Weisbart

Screenplay by: Ted Sherdeman, Russell Hughes

Starring: James Whitmore, Edmund Gwenn, Joan Weldon, James Arness

In the 1950s, one of the most popular horror genres in cinema included monsters born from nuclear radiation, specifically giant bugs that go on a rampage. It’s a weird idea, but there is this odd fear that people share with insects, and we’re talking those of normal size; so let’s make them 20-feet big, that’ll knock their socks off. There was “Tarantula,” “The Black Scorpion,” “Earth vs. the Spider,” but the one that started it all is “Them!” from 1954. It’s about giant ants in the New Mexico desert, and the efforts of the police and scientists to hunt down the active queen ants before they nest and create mass hoards all over the country. Boasting fantastic special effects for the time and an impressive sense of scale, this makes the concept of gigantic attacking insects feel surprisingly valid.

The movie begins with state Sgt. Ben Peterson (James Whitmore) and Trooper Ed Blackburn (Chris Drake) finding a little girl (Sandy Descher) wandering the desert in a catatonic state. They take her to her family’s vacation trailer, which is nearly destroyed, and discover her family missing, and a nearby store owner dead; soon after, Blackburn disappears when he goes outside the store after hearing a strange noise. Searching for answers, the FBI—whose Agent Ellinson owned the trailer—send in Special Agent Robert Graham (James Arness) to investigate, while the Department of Agriculture sends in myrmecologists Dr. Harold Medford (Edmund Gwenn) and his daughter Pat (Joan Weldon). Eventually, they discover a colony of giant ants mutated by radiation from the first atomic bomb test that are responsible for the devastation. They send cyanide gas into the nest and kill most of them, but two queens have escaped; so the film becomes a race to find them, otherwise they’ll establish many more colonies and potentially overrun the entire human race.

For a plot as ludicrous as this, it obviously helps to get actors who can really sell it, which the movie does, especially with Edmund Gwenn in one of his final roles as Harold. This is a guy who had Natalie Wood believing he was really Santa Claus in “Miracle on 34th Street,” so of course we’re going to believe him when he refers to the ants in a biblical sense as “the beasts” that “shall reign over the earth.” He just brings that much class to the role, and shares some entertaining dialogue with James Whitmore, who’s also very believable as Peterson. Joan Weldon is decent as Pat, the first character to encounter the ants on screen, even though there are quite a few exchanges between her and some of the men that come across as really sexist. But anyway, the majority of the characters have plenty of personality, even the ones that only pop up briefly, like a drunk tank alcoholic named Jensen (Olin Howland) and a woman (Mary Alan Hokanson) who loses her husband and whose two sons go missing. There’s also Leonard Nimoy in one of his earliest film roles; he gets a brief scene as an Army Staff Sergeant.

The ants themselves look really impressive; I like how patient the film is in revealing them, just kind of building up the mystery when Peterson and Blackburn survey the destruction, surrounded by the whistling desert wind and strange clicking noises. They were constructed and operated by technicians supervised by Ralph Ayers, who earned the movie an Oscar nomination for Best Special Effects; the use of camera angles and miniatures with these things makes for a pretty harrowing watch, and the actual science regarding their culture is honestly fascinating. When the film began production, it was going to be in 3D and color, but Warner Bros.’ 3D camera rig malfunctioned during testing, so both plans were scrapped, although the opening title card is presented in color for some reason. It’s also worth mentioning that the flamethrowers used on the ants were standard World War II weapons, on loan from the U.S. Army, and the actors handling them were combat veterans who had used them in battle.

I think there are minor issues with the overall story that prevent me from placing “Them!” into a higher echelon of sci-fi horror, like introducing the boys that need rescuing so late in the run time, or Graham feeling somewhat extraneous. But this is still probably one of the better movies of its kind, and proved very influential in James Cameron’s “Aliens,” right down to the plot line of a traumatized little girl and the climactic scenes with the queen ant and her spawn in the nest. This also features one of the earliest uses of the Los Angeles River in film, which has been featured in dozens of TV shows and movies like “Grease,” “Terminator 2” and “The Dark Knight Rises.” Overall, if you go into this movie accepting the premise, I think you’ll find a lot to enjoy with its set pieces, dialogue and imagination.

My rating: 8.5/10