Them! (1954)

[4.5] A Metaphorical Version of Charlie Wilson's War. DVD features below.

I make the comparison to Charlie Wilson's War (Widescreen) only conceptually. The Gov. experiments with the A-bomb have led to giant radiation mutated ants and now they have to fix a problem they created. This isn't The Blob - Criterion Collection or The Thing from Another World that is threatening man kind but man. It's our bad basically.
Them is a horror film that's basic premise could have been the influence for countless others in the genre, for example Wes Craven's The Hills Have Eyes (2-Disc Edition).
Ranking 72nd on Bravo's Scariest Movie Moments list (good special, the 30 scarier movie moments not so much) and mentioned in Stephen King's Stephen King's Danse Macabre as one of the best horror films between 1950-1980. Them is a must see for Sci-Fi horror fans. Besides searching for deeper meanings and making a mountain out of an ant hill Them is an all around fun time which doesn't hesitate to push the limits for it's time. Also worth mentioning is Edmund Gwenn who won an Oscar for his role as Kris Kringle in Miracle on 34th Street (Special Edition). Gwenn provides the Sci Fi angle and some humor as Dr. Harold Medford while stealing the scenes he is in.
[4.5]

DVD FEATURES:
Has a great old school horror/ comic dvd menu worth noting.
Behind the scenes archive footage montage on the design and operation of giant ants
Interactive menus - case film highlights - theatrical trailer - scene access June 22, 2008

A Great Classic

Films of this quality should never die, and I hope they will always be available. I only wish I could see this film in a theater, although the DVD provides many extras the theater can't. Even though many viewers may consider it a B movie, it was and still is a great Sci Fi story with good solid acting. The sound effects are definitely chilling. I've only ever had a problem with the artwork in the "movie poster" used on the cover. The scenes depicted by the artist actually never happen. There isn't any scantily clad woman snatched up by any of the ants. May 29, 2008

Very disappointing DVD

I am very surprised about the many positive reviews here.

Of course: the movie itself is a classic, and should not be missed in any "best of" ranking.

But we should rather assess, what the buyer of the product - the DVD - get's for their money. And this is from my point of view extremely disappointing. We are withheld a mere 24 % of the cinema movie - with no explanation or apology at all!

According to IMBD the original cinema film format was 1.75 : 1. This is quite the same as a modern TV-screen with it's 16:9 format.

On the DVD however the film comes in good old 4:3 format. That means, they have cut on each side 12 % of the original picture, leaving us just three quarters of what was shown in the cinemas!

Thus the judgment can only be: one star for Warner Home Video!
March 30, 2008

Best Icky Bug Of All Time!

I remember seeing this movie as a little kid and it scared the devil out of me, especially because it was partially filmed in Victorville, CA and I lived in nearby Palmdale at the time. This movie was a turning point for me as I used to be scared to death of monster movies but after being initially scared, this became one of my all time favorites.

I don't know if they've ever colorized it, but I don't think it needs to be in color and would probably ruin my experience with it. This film should stay black and white. After all, that's part of the charm.

For the technology of the time, the ants are very well done and especially for a little kid, totally believable. No strings, and no puppeteer's hand flashing on camera. The story is classic too, just the way I like my icky bug. The pseudo-chauvinist pig comments are typical for the era and don't detract from the story. In fact, I believe the director didn't want any romance and the actress playing the woman scientist was kind of disappointed there was no substantial love sub-plot.

The plot is typical atomic-mutation-creates-monster-bugs, but it is also one of the first, and surely the best done. The anti-nuke message is clear.

This movie hit home in so many ways, especially because of the Joshua trees. It also hit home because of the scenes in the flood control channels in downtown LA, some of which I used to play in when I was a littler kid living in Lakewood and Playa Del Rey before we moved to Palmdale.

This is the ultimate in great icky bug. Highly recommended.

March 27, 2008

With a great script you can do anything. . .

The menacing insects in this fine sci-fi from 1954 can't hold a candle to what they would look like with the benefit of today's sophisiticated special effects. But with a script this tight (thanks to Ted Sherdeman and Russell Hughes), sharp, no-nonsense direction by Gordon Douglas, plenty of atmosphere, and characters this engaging, the old-fashioned look of the terrorizing mutants doesn't matter.

THEM! was based on a story by George Worthing Yates, and made in the apocalyptic mode of the atomic post-war era, when the memory of Hiroshima and the birth of the atomic age was very much to the fore. THEM! is the best of a group of films made during this period, in which humanity is warned, through the rise of mutant species resulting from atomic radiation, of the dangers lurking behind the door that science has just opened.

THEM! opens in the deserts of New Mexico (not too far from White Sands, where the first atomic test bombs were exploded), as Sergeant Ben Peterson, a state trooper (James Whitmore, in an affecting portrayal of what could have been a stock character) picks up a little girl wandering through the scrub in shock, clutching a doll with a broken head. She is unable to speak and tell Ben and his partner, Ed Blackburn, who she is or where she came from, but they quickly come upon a trailer where they find the other piece of the doll's head on the floor. The trailer has been badly damaged and there is no sign of the child's family. They also find an unidentifiable print in the sand not far from the trailer, and make a cast of it. When Ben and Ed visit the nearby store of a local old-timer, Gramps Johnson, to find out if he has seen anything unusual, they find the store pulled apart in the same way as the trailer, and Gramps dead at the bottom of his cellar. Ben leaves Ed at the store to explore further - but when he returns, Ed has also disappeared.

As it turns out, the trailer belongs to an FBI agent on vacation with his family, and, assuming that his and his family's disappearance is a violent crime, the FBI sends agent Bob Graham (James Arness, in the second of his classic sci-fi appearances, only this time he's recognizable) to investigate. Ben is distraught, as he feels responsible for leaving Ed alone in Gramps's store. As he and Bob are introduced, the coroner comes in with the report on Gramps's body, and tells them that there was "enough formic acid in him to kill twenty men." Nonplussed and with no leads, Bob sends the cast of the strange print off to his FBI office in Washington, in case anyone there can identify it.

Someone does: Dr. Medford, a specialist in myrmicology (the study of ants, the term taken, for the classically-minded out there, from the Greek "myrmidos": in Homer's "Iliad", Achilles's troops were called the "Myrmidons" because out on the field they looked like a swarm of black ants). Unable to believe their eyes, Dr. Medford and his daughter, Pat, who has followed her father into his scientific specialty, catch the first plane out to New Mexico to find out whether the print is real or a hoax.

Of course, it's not a hoax, as the doctors Medford, Bob, and Ben quickly find out. As the four search the desert the same day for more prints, in a rising sandstorm, they meet their first specimen of the new breed of giant ant that has evolved in the desert in the aftermath of the atomic tests. The team barely escapes from the encounter, and as they do so, the two myrmicologists remind Ben and Bob that ants live in colonies, and that their problems are just beginning.

From then on, the film follows the team as it tries to locate the nests of the giant ants, and discover whether queen ants have hatched from these, flown away, and established new nests in other locations. The government and the military are brought in, and, with the four main characters spearheading the search and destroy mission, this first-class sci-fi races to its finish in the underground sewer tunnels of Los Angeles.

The crisp pace of the film is due to a terrific script that moves forward with locomotive speed, and that provides its characters with snappy, adult, engaging dialogue. The scenes inside the ants' nests, where the characters must go in order to find out whether queen ants have hatched and left, are genuinely frightening. There are also some touching human moments, as the haggard mother of two children trapped inside the tunnels waits outside, her husband already killed by the ants, as Ben battles inside to save the children's lives.

The actors give colorful yet believable performances, not least Edmund Gwenn (Mr. Claus from "Miracle on 34th Street") as the eccentric senior Dr. Medford, James Arness as the stalwart Agent Graham, James Whitmore as the gruff yet tender-hearted Sgt. Ben Peterson, and stage actress Joan Weldon as the junior Dr. Medford. The attractive Weldon was not happy in Hollywood and returned to the stage after this film. Her height, unusual for the era, makes her a nice match for the rangy, 6'6" Arness, and they both do a creditable job navigating some 1950s moments surrounding the unusual scenario of a brainy career woman as the romantic interest of a not-that-brainy hero. Arness to Weldon soon after they meet: "Look, Miss, um, Dr., er . . ."; Weldon to Arness: "Well, if the "doctor" bothers you, why don't you just call me Pat?". In a similar echt-1950s moment, Weldon gets off the plane in southern New Mexico, in the 110-degree heat, in a wool suit, hat, gloves, and high heels - the same outfit she wears later to visit the desert in a sandstorm. A small cameo by Fess Parker as a Texas pilot who encounters the ants while airborne, and gets sent to a mental institution when he reports it, won Parker the role of Davy Crockett after Walt Disney saw the movie. Also, viewers of a certain age should see if they can identify the actor playing a junior naval officer who appears onscreen only for a few seconds, as he hands a "top secret report" to a typist. This was Arness's second foray into this genre - his first was as the giant blood-drinking vegetable/man in Howard Hawks's original (and far superior to John Carpenter's overblown remake), "The Thing". The future Marshall Matt Dillon is to be congratulated on wandering into not one, but two of the best early science fiction films ever made.

Mention must also go to Bronislau Kapers' eerie, tingly score, with its now famous whistling signature sound for the ants, and the excellent black and white production. Note the overlay of color, though, faintly visible on the opening titles, the only remnant of the initial efforts to shoot the film in color. Looking at it today, it is hard to imagine that the clean, black and white look of the film could have been improved upon.

THEM! shows its age in a couple of places, but for the most part holds up wonderfully, and deserves its high rank in the canons of this particular science-fiction genre.

March 20, 2008

More reviews at Amazon.com ...