Them!
Theatrical release poster
Directed byGordon Douglas
Screenplay byTed Sherdeman
Russell Hughes (adaptation)
Story byGeorge Worthing Yates
Produced byDavid Weisbart
StarringJames Whitmore
Edmund Gwenn
Joan Weldon
James Arness
CinematographySidney Hickox
Edited byThomas Reilly
Music byBronislau Kaper
Production
company
Distributed byWarner Bros.
Release dates
  • June 16, 1954 (1954-06-16) (New York)[1]
  • June 18, 1954 (1954-06-18) (US)
Running time
94 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Box office$2.2 million (rentals)[2]

Them! is a 1954 American black-and-white science fiction monster film from Warner Bros. Pictures, produced by David Weisbart, directed by Gordon Douglas, and starring James Whitmore, Edmund Gwenn, Joan Weldon, and James Arness.[3] The film is based on an original story treatment by George Worthing Yates, which was then developed into a screenplay by Ted Sherdeman and adaptation by Russell Hughes.

Them! is one of the first of the 1950s "nuclear monster" films, and the first "big bug" feature film to use insects as the monster.

A nest of gigantic irradiated ants is discovered in the New Mexico desert; they quickly become a national threat when it is discovered that two young queen ants and their consorts have escaped to establish new nests. The national search that follows finally culminates in a battle with Them in the concrete spillways and storm drain system of Los Angeles.

Plot

New Mexico State Police Sgt. Ben Peterson and his partner, Blackburn, discover a little girl in a catatonic state wandering the desert near Alamogordo. After they summon assistance, an ambulance arrives. While inside, the girl reacts to a pulsating high-pitched sound coming from the desert by sitting upright, eyes open -- and then she lies back as the noise ceases. Later at a rural general store, the officers stumble upon the owner's dead body. Peterson leaves Blackburn behind to secure the crime scene. Later, on hearing a strange, pulsating sound outside, Blackburn goes to investigate. Gunshots are heard, then screams. Days later, FBI Agent Robert Graham arrives to investigate. Additionally, the Department of Agriculture sends myrmecologists Drs. Harold Medford and daughter Pat to lend assistance. Medford exposes the little girl to formic acid fumes, characteristic of ants. The odor releases her from her catatonia. In panic, she cries, "Them! Them!"

Peterson accompanies Graham and the Medfords to the location where the girl was first discovered. There, Pat encounters a giant foraging ant. Following Medford's orders, Peterson and Graham shoot off the ant's antennae, blinding and killing it with a submachine gun. Medford theorizes that giant ants, mutated by radiation from the first atomic bomb test near Alamogordo, are responsible for the area's deaths. A helicopter search ensues, and the giant ants' nest is found. Cyanide gas bombs are tossed inside before Graham, Peterson, and Pat check for survivors. Inside, Pat finds evidence that two queens have hatched and escaped to establish new colonies. A worldwide search is begun. One queen and its offspring are discovered aboard a freighter sailing from Acapulco, with no survivors among the crew. The freighter is subsequently sunk by the Navy.

Graham and Pat then travel to Brownsville, Texas, to interrogate a civilian pilot, committed to a mental hospital after claiming he was forced down by UFOs shaped like giant ants. A later report sends the investigators west to a Los Angeles hospital, where one patient claims he has seen giant ants in the drainage system outside his window. The mutilated body of a father is found, but his two young sons are missing. With help from Graham and the Medfords, along with a contingent of Marines, Peterson searches inside the drain system for the two boys. He finds them trapped by the ants near their nest. He calls for reinforcements and lifts the boys to safety, just before being attacked and killed by a giant ant. Graham arrives with Marines and kills the ant. Later, they find the remaining queen and her hatchlings. The Medfords sanction their destruction and the ants are dispatched via flamethrowers, as Pat considers the possible consequences of all the other atomic tests in the 9 years since Trinity.

Cast

Cast notes

Production

Opening title card with the background in black and white and Them! in red and blue

When Them! began production in the fall of 1953, it was originally conceived to be in 3D and Warner Color. During pre-production, test shots in color and 3D were made. A few color tests of the large-scale ant models were also made, but when it was time to shoot the 3D test, Warner Bros.' "All Media" 3D camera rig malfunctioned and no footage could be filmed. The next day a memo was sent out that the color and 3D aspects of the production were to be scrapped; widescreen black-and-white would now be the film's presentation format. Warner Bros. hoped to emulate the "effective shock treatment" effect of its previous science fiction thriller The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms; ultimately, however, the film was never made in widescreen. Because of the preparation of certain scenes, many of the camera set-ups for 3D remain in the film, like the opening titles and the flamethrowers shots aimed directly at the camera.[6]

Although Warner Bros. was dissatisfied with the color results, the film's titles were printed in vivid red and blue against a black-and-white background to give the film's opening a dramatic "punch". This effect was achieved by an Eastman Color section spliced into each release print.[4] The 1985 VHS tape release, the subsequent LaserDisc and later DVD release have retained this black-and-white-with-two-color title effect.

The entrance to the ants' final nest was filmed along the concrete spillways of the Los Angeles River, between the First and Seventh Street Bridges, east of downtown. The depiction of the Chihuahuan Desert of southern New Mexico is actually the Mojave Desert near Palmdale, California. Mercy Hospital was a real institution and is now Brownsville Medical Center.[4]

James Whitmore wore "lifts" in his shoes to compensate for the height difference between himself and James Arness. Whitmore also employed bits of "business" (hand gestures and motions) during scenes in which he appeared to draw more attention to his character when not speaking.[4]

The Wilhelm scream, created three years earlier for the film Distant Drums, is used during the action sequences: when a sailor aboard the freighter is grabbed by an ant, when James Whitmore's character is caught in an ant's mandibles, and when an overhead wooden beam falls on a soldier in the Los Angeles storm drain sequence.[4]

The giant ants, painted a purplish-green color, were constructed and operated by unseen technicians supervised by Ralph Ayers. During the climactic battle sequence in the Los Angeles sewers, there is a brief shot of one ant moving in the foreground with its side removed, revealing its mechanical interior.[4] This filming error was obscured on the DVD and Blu-ray releases of the film.

The film poster shows a gigantic ant with menacing cat-like eyes rather than the normal compound eyes of an ant.

The sounds the giant ants emit on the soundtrack were the calls of bird-voiced tree frogs mixed together with the calls of a wood thrush, hooded warbler, and red-bellied woodpecker. These were recorded at Indian Island, Georgia, on April 11, 1947, by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.[7]

Reception

Drive-in advertisement from 1954.

Them! was released in June 1954,[4] and by the end of that year had accrued $2 million (US) in distributors' domestic (U.S. and Canada) rentals, making it the year's 51st biggest earner.[8][Note 1] According to an article in Slate, this was Warner Bros. highest-grossing film that year.[9] However, 1954 In Film lists two other films from Warner Bros. that earned more in gross.

From contemporary reviews, the Monthly Film Bulletin stated that despite the science fiction film genre being new it had developed several sub-divisions including "the other-worldly, the primeval-monstrous, the neo-monstrous, the planetary-visitant, etc." and that "Them! is a "well-built example of the neo-monstrous", "less absurdly sensational than most"[10] Discussing the ant monsters in the film, the review referred to them as "reasonably horrible--they do not entirely avoid the impression of mock-up that is almost inevitable when over-lifesize creatures have to be constructed and moved" while noting that they were "considerably more conceivable than those prehistoric remnants that have recently been emerging from bog and iceberg".[10] The review commented on the cast as "like most science-fiction, [the film] is on the whole serviceably rather than excitingly cast" and the crew was noted, stating the direction was "smoothly machined" and the film has "decent writing" though "more short cuts might have been [taken]", finding that the start of the film was too slow.[10] A. H. Weiler's review in The New York Times noted "... from the moment James Whitmore, playing a New Mexico state trooper, discovers a six-year-old moppet wandering around the desert in a state of shock, to the time when the cause of that mental trauma is traced and destroyed, Them! is taut science fiction".[11] The reviewer in Variety opined it was a "top-notch science fiction shocker. It has a well-plotted story, expertly directed and acted in a matter-of-fact style to rate a chiller payoff and thoroughly satisfy the fans of hackle-raising melodrama".[12][13] John McCarten of The New Yorker wrote, "If you're willing to let your imagination off its leash, you may have a fairly good time at 'Them!'"[14]

Since its original release, Them! has become generally regarded as one of the best science fiction films of the 1950s. Bill Warren described it as " ... tight, fast-paced and credible ... [T]he picture is suspenseful".[4] Phil Hardy's The Aurum Film Encyclopedia: Science Fiction noted, "Directed by [Gordon] Douglas in semi-documentary fashion, Them! is one of the best American science fiction films of the fifties".[15] Danny Peary believed the film "Ranks with The Thing and Invasion of the Body Snatchers as the best of the countless '50s science fiction films".[16] In the Time Out Film Guide, David Pirie wrote, "By far the best of the 50s cycle of 'creature features' ... retains a good part of its power today".[17] The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 93% approval rating with an average rating of 7.6/10, based on 57 reviews. The website's consensus reads, "One of the best creature features of the early atomic age, Them! features effectively menacing special effects and avoids the self-parody that would taint later monster movies".[18]

Them! was nominated for an Oscar for its special effects[19] (but the award went to 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea) and won a Golden Reel Award for best sound editing.

Remake

On January 4, 2023, it was revealed that Academy Award winning film composer Michael Giacchino would make his feature directorial debut with a remake of Them! for Warner Bros. Pictures.[26]

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ "Rentals" refers to the distributor/studio's share of the box office gross, which, according to Gebert, is roughly half of the money generated by ticket sales.[8]

References

  1. ↑ "Them! - Details". AFI Catalog of Feature Films. Retrieved June 23, 2018.
  2. ↑ "The Top Box-Office Hits of 1954". Variety Weekly, January 5, 1955.
  3. ↑ "Them!". Turner Classic Movies. Retrieved October 27, 2022.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Warren 1982, pp. 188–195.
  5. ↑ Smith 2012, p. 167.
  6. ↑ Herzberg 2007, p. 176.
  7. ↑ "Hyla avivoca: Bird-voiced Treefrog - Hylidae - Early wildlife recordings - Environment and nature | British Library". Sounds. April 11, 1947. Retrieved May 6, 2018.
  8. 1 2 Gebert, Michael. The Encyclopedia of Movie Awards (listing of "Box Office (Domestic Rentals)" for 1954, taken from Variety magazine). New York: St. Martin's Paperbacks, 1996. ISBN 0-668-05308-9.
  9. ↑ Waldman, Katy (January 31, 2013). "The Nuclear Monsters That Terrorized the 1950s". slate.com. Retrieved October 22, 2015. Them!, a cautionary tale about giant irradiated ants, was Warner Bros.' highest-grossing film in 1954.
  10. 1 2 3 "Them! U.S.A., 1954". Monthly Film Bulletin. Vol. 21, no. 240. British Film Institute. 1954. p. 131.
  11. ↑ Weiler, A. H. (A.W.). "Them (1954); Warner Brothers chiller at Paramount." The New York Times, June 17, 1954. p. 36.
  12. ↑ "Brog". Review from Variety dated April 14, 1954, taken from Variety's Complete Science Fiction Reviews, edited by Don Willis, Garland Publishing, Inc., 1985, ISBN 0-8240-6263-9.
  13. ↑ "Them! (1954)." Variety, April 14, 1954.
  14. ↑ McCarten, John (June 26, 1954). "The Current Screen". The New Yorker. p. 61.
  15. ↑ Hardy, Phil, ed. The Aurum Film Encyclopedia: Science Fiction. London: Aurum Press, 1984. Reprinted as The Overlook Film Encyclopedia: Science Fiction. London: Overlook Press, 1995. ISBN 0-87951-626-7.
  16. ↑ Peary, Danny. Guide for the Film Fanatic. London: Fireside, 1986. ISBN 0-671-61081-3.
  17. ↑ Pirie, David, ed. "Them!" The Time Out Film Guide, 2nd Edition. London: Penguin Books, 1991. ISBN 0-14-014592-3.
  18. ↑ "Them! (1954)." Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved: September 28, 2021.
  19. ↑ "The 27th Academy Awards, 1955". Oscars.org. Retrieved January 9, 2015.
  20. ↑ "ギャラリー1： 怪獣映画、過去から現代まで：写真ギャラリー". WIRED.jp (in Japanese). May 20, 2010. Retrieved July 10, 2023.
  21. ↑ Mills, Peter (2010). Hymns to the Silence: Inside the Words and Music of Van Morrison. London: A&C Black. p. 205. ISBN 978-0-8264-2976-6.
  22. ↑ "RIP Eric Wrixon".
  23. ↑ Greenberg, Allen (April 1990). "It Came from Out of the Disk Drive" (PDF). Computer Gaming World. No. 70. Retrieved February 16, 2019.
  24. ↑ The Silence of Fallout: Nuclear Criticism in a Post-Cold War World. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. September 26, 2014. p. 135. ISBN 9781443868037.
  25. ↑ Jasper, Gavin (August 4, 2018). "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Complete Marvel Universe Easter Eggs and Reference Guide". Den of Geek!. Retrieved July 12, 2018.
  26. ↑ D'Alessandro, Anthony (January 4, 2023). "Michael Giacchino To Make Feature Directorial Debut With Fresh Take On 'Them!' At Warner Bros". Deadline. Retrieved January 4, 2023.

Bibliography

  • Herzberg, Bob (2007). The FBI and the Movies. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company. ISBN 978-0-78642-755-0.
  • Parish, James Robert; Pitts, Michael R. (1977). The Great Science Fiction Pictures. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company. ISBN 978-0-81081-029-7.
  • Smith, Dave (2012). Disney Trivia from the Vault: Secrets Revealed and Questions Answered. New York: Disney Press. ISBN 978-1-4231-7857-6.
  • Strick, Philip (1976). Science Fiction Movies. London: Octopus Books Limited. ISBN 0-7064-0470-X.
  • Warren, Bill (1982). Keep Watching the Skies! American Science Fiction Movies of the Fifties, Vol. 1: 1950-1957. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company. ISBN 0-89950-032-3.
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