Them!
Them! | |
---|---|
Bronislau Kaper | |
Production company | |
Distributed by | Warner Bros. |
Release dates |
|
Running time | 94 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Box office | $2.2 million (rentals)[2] |
Them! is a 1954 American
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
Plot
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, the Medfords, and the armed forces, 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 the military 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's father considers the possible consequences of all the other atomic tests in the 9 years since Trinity.
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 General O'Brien
- Sean McClory as Major Kibbee
- Chris Drake as Trooper Ed Blackburn
- Sandy Descher as Ellinson girl
- Mary Alan Hokanson as Mrs. Lodge (credited Mary Ann Hokanson)
- Don Shelton as Captain Fred Edwards
- Fess Parker as Alan Crotty
- Olin Howland as Jensen, the "alcoholic patient" (credited Olin Howlin)
Cast notes
- Leonard Nimoy has a small, uncredited part as a U.S. Army staff sergeant in the communications room.[4]
- Other actors who appear in small parts include .
- When casting his planned Disneyland television series, Walt Disney viewed the film to see James Arness, who had been recommended for the role. Disney, however, was more impressed by a scene with Fess Parker as an inmate in the mental ward of the Texas hospital. Watching Parker's performance, Disney realized he had found his Davy Crockett.[5] John Wayne saw the film and, impressed with Arness' performance, recommended him for the role of Marshal Matt Dillon in the new Gunsmoke TV series, a role that Arness went on to play from 1955 to 1975.[4]
Production
When Them! began production in the fall of 1953, it was originally conceived to be in
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
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.[citation needed]
The film poster shows a gigantic ant with menacing cat-like eyes rather than the normal compound eyes of an ant.
The stridulations (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
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.[citation needed]
From contemporary reviews, the
Since its original release, Them! has become generally regarded as one of the best science fiction films of the 1950s.
Them! was nominated for an
In popular culture
- Them! heavily inspired the 1956 Japanese kaiju film Rodan.[20]
- Van Morrison's band Them was named after this film[21] though the band member that came up with the name was not Van Morrison but Eric Wrixon.[22]
- The video game series It Came from the Desert was inspired by Them![23]
- Fallout 3, which takes place in a post-apocalyptic irradiated wasteland, has a side-quest involving giant mutated fire ants titled "Those!" in homage to the film.[24]
- The scene where Pat is attacked by the foraging ant appears as a replay in the 2018 Marvel film Ant-Man and the Wasp.[25]
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
- It Came From the Desert (film) - a film of the Amiga game
Notes
- ^ "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
- ^ "Them! - Details". AFI Catalog of Feature Films. Retrieved June 23, 2018.
- ^ "The Top Box-Office Hits of 1954". Variety Weekly, January 5, 1955.
- ^ "Them!". Turner Classic Movies. Retrieved October 27, 2022.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Warren 1982, pp. 188–195.
- ^ Smith 2012, p. 167.
- ^ Herzberg 2007, p. 176.
- ^ "Hyla avivoca: Bird-voiced Treefrog - Hylidae - Early wildlife recordings - Environment and nature | British Library". Sounds. April 11, 1947. Retrieved May 6, 2018.
- ^ ISBN 0-668-05308-9.
- ^ 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.
- ^ Monthly Film Bulletin. Vol. 21, no. 240. British Film Institute. 1954. p. 131.
- ^ Weiler, A. H. (A.W.). "Them (1954); Warner Brothers chiller at Paramount." The New York Times, June 17, 1954. p. 36.
- ISBN 0-8240-6263-9.
- ^ "Them! (1954)." Variety, April 14, 1954.
- ^ McCarten, John (June 26, 1954). "The Current Screen". The New Yorker. p. 61.
- ISBN 0-87951-626-7.
- ISBN 0-671-61081-3.
- ISBN 0-14-014592-3.
- ^ "Them! (1954)." Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved: September 28, 2021.
- ^ "The 27th Academy Awards, 1955". Oscars.org. Retrieved January 9, 2015.
- ^ "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.
- ISBN 978-0-8264-2976-6.
- ^ "RIP Eric Wrixon".
- ^ Greenberg, Allen (April 1990). "It Came from Out of the Disk Drive" (PDF). Computer Gaming World. No. 70. Retrieved February 16, 2019.
- ISBN 9781443868037.
- Den of Geek!. Retrieved July 12, 2018.
- ^ 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.
- ISBN 0-89950-032-3.
External links
- Them! at IMDb
- Them! at the TCM Movie Database
- Them! at AllMovie
- Them! at the American Film Institute Catalog
- Rerecording of Them! soundtrack