1954’s Them! gave us film’s first nuclear-mutated monster run amok while also delivering a strong sci fi entry with a message that still resonates today.
What Is It?
Two policemen find a young girl wandering alone in the New Mexico desert in a state of shock. They search for her family and find the camper, but it has been ripped apart and they find no other people there. FBI agent Robert Graham (James Arness) arrives to help with the investigation, and they discover a strange animal track near the camper which they take an impression of. This prompts two entomologists to join the investigation, the senior Dr. Harold Medford (Edmund Gwenn) and his daughter Dr. Pat Medford (Joan Weldon). The elder scientist has a theory that the nuclear testing done in the area may have caused ants to mutate to incredibly large sizes, and this proves itself true as several large ants attack them when they go to investigate the site of the camper. They must then deal with these giant insects before they spread across the country and the world and bring about the extinction of humankind.
Cast: James Arness, James Whitmore, Edmund Gwenn, Joan Weldon
Crew: Gordon Douglas (Director), David Weisbart (Producer), George Worthing Yates (Story) Ted Sherdeman (Screenplay), Russell Hughes (Screenplay)
Original Release: 1954
Legacy:
Them! transcended its B-Movie trappings and delivered a first-rate science fiction film that tapped into the underlying nuclear paranoia of the time while also delivering a well-written cautionary tale.
A Closer Look:
1954 gave us two of the first and most influential movies to feature monsters mutated from radiation. In Japan, Godzilla assaulted the theaters (and Tokyo) and in the United States we had the giant ants of Them! And while these films presented two very different sides of the same coin, they both offered cautionary tales dealing with the consequences of the nuclear age. That struck a nerve with audiences of their day and the message still resonates today.
While Godzilla gave us a more straightforward tale of a monster run amok in the countryside and the big city, Them! took a slightly different approach. The movie starts as a mystery, with the local police officers, Ben Peterson and Ed Blackburn, finding the girl wandering in the desert, then finding her family’s gutted camper which defies any normal explanation. From that point, mystery upon mystery follows and we feel the ominous presence of some unseen threat (enhanced by the eerie, unexplained sounds emitted by the off-screen ants that come and go). It’s well one-third into the movie before we actually see one of the arthropods, but by that time the audience is already sitting at the edge of their seats because of the build-up that has preceded the arrival of the movie’s main attraction.
And while this approach may have had some budgetary dictates driving it, it was still a masterful way to draw the audience into the movie and set the foreboding, pre-apocalyptic tone that would carry the film to its end. This movie definitely struck a nerve with its contemporary audience, in part because of the nuclear fears that were part of the nation’s Zeitgeist at that time. But it did not act on the subconscious level as much as another classic from that era, The Invasion of the Body Snatchers. It succeeded more because it was a very well-written, tightly-directed science fiction thriller; something very rare at that time when the genre was considered mostly kiddie matinee fodder.
Of course, you have to take into account the excellent performance of the cast as well. A young James Arness (between his roles as a walking veggie monster in The Thing and his iconic run as Matt Dillon in Gunsmoke) delivered a standout performance as the FBI agent Robert Graham. He offers the film its central, strong lead and the rest of the cast mostly revolve around him. But in an unexpected move for the time, he had a strong female lead next to him who nearly stole the show. Joan Weldon plays the younger Dr. Medford with a tangible presence felt the moment she first appears onscreen. Far from the helpless female role so common in genre films and offering much more than simple eye candy, Weldon made her mark in what was considered a man’s world at the time and her performance has unfortunately gone mostly unsung for her strong representation of women in early sci fi films. The rest of the main cast held their own as well with James Whitmore complementing Arness’ lead role and Edmund Gwenn giving us some good–though less manic–Walter Bishop moments as the elder Dr. Medford. And also watch for a brief appearance by Leonard Nimoy as an army sergeant and Fess Parker as a pilot who had a close encounter with the ants.
And speaking of those six-legged insects, no commentary would be complete without a mention of their appearance in the film. Special effects were still pretty rudimentary at the time, but the production crew succeeded in creating some of the most memorable movie monsters of all time on the limited budget offered them. They could have gone the stop-motion route or used film of real ants against the blue screen. But instead, they created life-size mechanical ants that could interact directly with the actors with no additional visual trickery needed. They built one full-sized ant and had several partial mockups as well. And while the CGI-gorged audiences of today may look at these as quaint examples of the special effects industry in its infancy, I still recall being terrified by them as a child and even today look upon them as first-rate movie monsters. Sure, any modern-day remake of Them! (more on that below) would give us thousands if not millions of the arthropods running across the screen. But director Gordon Douglas’ decision to keep them mostly offscreen as an ominous, unseen threat with a few brief glimpses emphasizes their menace that much more.
Them! gave us a superior Science Fiction movie, and not just because of its special effects which were top-notch for its time. It delivered a good, riveting story that carried a cautionary tale along with it, which the elder Dr. Medford stated explicitly in his closing monologue. And though that moment may have been somewhat preachy and melodramatic, a sci fi film could still pull it off at that time. What would now sound pretentious and pedantic came off as foreboding and prophetic in a black-and-white movie from the 50s. And while many more movies would try to follow the example of Them!, very few would come anywhere close to this early film that tackled with style the many hazards of our nuclear ambitions.
Why Was There No Sequel?
Them! pulled in over $2 million in theater rentals at the time, and while I have not been able to find any budget info for the film, that should have counted it as a success. Many may wonder why it never had a follow-up in theaters, but that was a different era when sequels were not as common. Other monster films did generate multiple entries at that time like Creature from the Black Lagoon and of course Godzilla had multiple sequels that still continue today. But Them! was on the more costly side to produce, and it was left as a one-and-done film in the genre. And that may have been for the best because it was a classic for its time and did not need to be watered down by ersatz sequels.
Should It Be Rebooted?
I would say no, but Hollywood is moving forward with a reboot of the film anyway. I understand the desire to update Them! for the modern audience and it could work if done properly. But the minimalist approach of the original film is what made it so successful, building tension throughout and keeping the audience glued to the screen in anticipation. In the CGI era, the temptation will be to have millions of ants filling the screen, and the special effects can easily overwhelm the story as we see with many of today’s bloated blockbusters. Film composer Michael Giacchino has been pegged as the director of the reboot, and he previously helmed the promising MCU Werewolf by Night special (filmed mostly in black-and-white). So perhaps he will be a good choice and respect the source material while also revising the movie for modern audiences. But I fear that Hollywood execs will push this one to CGI overload and fail to capture the spirit of the original.
Interesting Facts:
Them! was originally planned as a 3D color film. But after a few test shots were completed, the 3D camera rig broke down and the decision was made to proceed with filming in black-and-white.
Them! hit theaters in June of 1954 so it actually preceded Godzilla as the first of the nuclear monster films as the Japanese production debuted in October of 1954.
Where Can You Watch It?
The movie has been released on DVD and Blu-ray and it is also available for purchase VOD. It is not currently streaming on any of the major services, but you can find it on YouTube from time to time.
