Movies - Them!

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	Movies - Them!

Them! is a 1954 science fiction film about humanity's battle with a nest of giant mutant ants.

One of the first of the "nuclear monster" movies, Them! was the biggest moneymaker for Warner Bros. pictures in the year of its release. Originally conceived to be in 3D and Technicolor, these expensive propositions were scrapped due to Jack Warner's insecurity regarding its box-office potential. The film still featured higher production values than most of the genre-mates which followed it.

Cast

James Whitmore
– as Sgt. Ben Peterson
Edmund Gwenn
– as Dr. Harold Medford
Joan Weldon – as Dr. Pat Medford
James Arness
– as FBI Agent Robert Graham
Onslow Stevens
– as Gen. O'Brien
Sean McClory – as Maj. Kibbee
Chris Drake – as Ed Blackburn
Sandy Descher – as the Ellinson girl
Mary Ann Hokanson – as Mrs. Lodge
Fess Parker
– as Alan Crotty
Olin Howlin – as Jensen

Plot

The film begins with Peterson (Whitmore) investigating a string of mysterious attacks and killings in the New Mexico desert. The death of a vacationing FBI agent and his family brings in Graham (Arness), and the discovery of a strange set of tracks attracts the attention of the Medfords (Gwenn and Weldon), a father/daughter team of entomologists from Washington D.C., who theorize and then prove that the culprits are a nest of giant ants, mutated by nearby atomic testing. The authorities attack the nest with poison and kill the inhabitants, but not before two young queens hatch out and fly away to establish new nests. One ends up onboard a ocean-going freighter, which is overrun by the ants, then sunk by the military. The other sets up her nest in the Los Angeles sewer system, forcing the US Army to declare martial law and launch a major assault. Peterson rescues two young boys from the nest, at the cost of his own life. The nest's queen and egg chamber are destroyed with flamethrowers, but the senior Dr. Medford issues a grim warning that the atomic genie has been let out of the bottle, and further horrors may await mankind.

Trivia

A young Leonard Nimoy
has a small, uncredited role as an Army sergeant, while future Davy Crockett portrayer Fess Parker has a cameo as a witness to one of the queen ants' flight.
It later inspired a classic computer game called It Came From the Desert.
The 1993 movie Matinee, starring John Goodman
parodies both "Them!" and the lifestyle of horror movie director William Castle. Elaborate and deliberately hokey special effects are shown.
In Sweden, the movie title was translated to "spindlarna", which means The Spiders in Swedish.

Category:1954 films Category:Science fiction films Category:Fictional ants

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