Them! (1954)

The earliest atomic tests in New Mexico cause common ants to mutate into giant man-eating monsters that threaten civilization.

Director:

Gordon Douglas

Writers:

Ted Sherdeman (screenplay), Russell S. Hughes (adaptation) (as Russell Hughes)

Stars:

James Whitmore, Edmund Gwenn, Joan Weldon

Nominated for 1 Oscar. Another 1 win & 2 nominations.

Cast

Complete credited cast:
James Whitmore	...	Police Sgt. Ben Peterson
Edmund Gwenn	...	Dr. Harold Medford
Joan Weldon	...	Dr. Patricia Medford
James Arness	...	Robert Graham
Onslow Stevens	...	Brig. Gen. Robert O'Brien
Sean McClory	...	Maj. Kibbee
Chris Drake	...	Trooper Ed Blackburn
Sandy Descher	...	The Ellinson Girl
Mary Alan Hokanson	...	Mrs. Lodge (as Mary Ann Hokanson)
Don Shelton	...	Trooper Capt. Fred Edwards
Fess Parker	...	Alan Crotty
Olin Howland	...	Jensen (as Olin Howlin)

Storyline

In the New Mexico desert, Police Sgt. Ben Peterson and his partner find a child wandering in the desert and sooner they discover that giant ants are attacking the locals. FBI agent Robert Graham teams up with Ben and with the support of Dr. Harold Medford and his daughter Dr. Patricia 'Pat' Medford, they destroy the colony of ants in the middle of the desert. Dr. Harold Medford explains that the atomic testing in 1945 developed the dangerous mutant ants. But they also discover that two queen ants have flown away to Los Angeles and they are starting a huge colony in the underground of the city. When a mother reports that her two children are missing, the team and the army have a lead to follow. Will they arrive in time to save the children and destroy the colony?

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Plot Keywords:

formicary | woman wearing a gas mask | new mexico desert | ant | desert | 

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Taglines:

An Endless Terror! A Nameless Horror!

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Genres:

Horror | Sci-Fi

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

19 June 1954 (USA)

Also Known As:

Them

Filming Locations:

6th Street Viaduct, Los Angeles, California, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Warner Bros.

Technical Specs

Runtime:

94 min

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound System)

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.75 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The viewer never sees more than three giant ants at any one time. That is all that were constructed.

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Goofs

An ant nest hatched aboard a ship at sea. Could that many giant ants really have escaped the notice of the crew for that long, and what food did these ants consume while in the hold, to grow from birth size to giant size?

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Quotes

Dr. Harold Medford: We may be witnesses to a Biblical prophecy come true - 'And there shall be destruction and darkness come upon creation, and the beasts shall reign over the earth.'

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Connections

Referenced in It's Alive (1974)

User Reviews

B-Grade but a real "Lord of the Things"!

As has been my habit of late, I'm catching-up on old movies I remember from my youth seen on the screen at the time of release or remembered from '60s-'80s replays on late-night television. Watching them on a widescreen TV in DVD format with surround sound and, of course, with the benefit of hindsight, it becomes a whole new experience.

THEM! is a wonderful Cold-War era movie which manages, without trying, to prove that modern SF blockbusters owe much to their (especially) '50s progenitors. Given the limited budget of B-Grade movies they manage to thrill across the generations - even while remakes and plagiaristic sequences abound and dazzle contemporary audiences.

The 'storm-drain' sequence in T2 is a prime example, as is the 'egg burning' scenario in ALIEN, complete with flamethrowers. You saw them first in THEM!, folks. The 'isolated and mysteriously-wrecked gas station/general store' is another stolen moment from THEM! and has appeared in many movies - even the X-FILES. Wearing the flame-retardant suits and the breathing-apparatuses to attack 'the nest' pops up in EVOLUTION. And so it goes.

There are some excellent actors in this film - most of whom are B-Grade stalwarts (James Whitmore and James Arness for example) - and they play it straight. No 'camping-it-up' for these heroes! I even spotted a young Leonard Nimoy as an Airforce sergeant. Fess Parker as the confused witness of the 'ant-shaped UFOs' offers both light-hearted humour and the prototype for the innocent caught in a cover-up: he's left in the mental hospital as a deranged psychotic as per the suggestion put to his doctor. How many times have we seen this since? Even the little girl, a traumatised survivor of the attack on her parents' trailer-home, has resonances in the character of a similar survivor in ALIENS.

OK, the irradiated monsters/ants are pretty hokey, but see my remark re small budgets. CGI didn't exist then.

I'd place this production alongside such classics as INVADERS FROM MARS and the British QUATERMASS (trilogy?) which also terrorised my generation. We were children in a time when the world seemed doomed to nuclear destruction and our homes ripe for invasion by THEM!, regardless of who (yes, I know, the Communists) or what (monsters created by our cavalier use of technology) would be invading. And, strangely, nothing has changed, except that postmodern children seem to have lost their innocence in a demonstrably violent and insane milieu. As I stated before, these movies, in hindsight have lost none of their power. The themes remain the same.