Stars: James Whitmore, Edmund Gwenn, Joan Weldon, James Arness
Director: Gordon Douglas
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Special Effects)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars
(Spoilers Ahead) The film starts on an absolutely chilling desert scene where a young girl is found wandering the desert, vacant-eyed but clearly fearful of what she had just seen. Honestly, it's the sort of beginning to a film you'd expect from The Twilight Zone (I would imagine that Rod Serling LOVED this movie), and since one of the men is James Whitmore and the other man is a random character actor, you know exactly where this scene is headed. We see the random dude (Sheena, Queen of the Jungle's Chris Drake) go off into the night, hear a strange pulsing sound, and then he screams, and the body count begins.
The film proceeds fairly typically, with us eventually learning that the ants are gigantic and irradiated as a result of nuclear explosions nearby, and have started to spread and colonize. We go on a bit of a giant goose chase until we learn that the last living queen ant is residing in the sewers of of Los Angeles, ready to pounce on the city which is largely defenseless to stop the ants if they continue to multiply.
Thankfully for the planet, though not before James Whitmore's Peterson dies in an ant attack, they get there just in time and stop more queens from creating colonies. The film ends with a warning from Edmund Gwenn's Dr. Medford, "when man entered the Atomic Age, he opened the door to a new world. What we may eventually find in that new world, nobody can predict." Only in the movies can you be so poetic while in an LA sewer drain.
It's the sort of heavy-handed ending you'd expect from such a picture, but it's worth noting a few things about the film. For starters, there is a bizarrely grand tradition in blockbuster films like Them! to say something meaningful to your enormous audience (this was Warner Brothers biggest hit of 1954). This film, clearly a commentary on the dangers of the Cold War (critical of nuclear attacks not just because it could cause our imminent destruction through obvious means, but through ways we may not fully understand yet), is succeeded by films that worry about everything from absolute power (Star Wars) to climate change (Avatar) to the need for further exploration (Gravity, Life of Pi). I love the idea that cinema is trying to teach us a lesson, while still being vastly entertaining.
I also think that this film creates a real sense of urgency and tension that several films of this era lack. The opening few scenes are excellent, recalling something like King Kong in many aspects in the way that they tease the ants (visually), and then eventually give them to us full throttle. If you're worried about an effects film not feeling modern enough, trust that if Them! were made today they would have used most of the first thirty minutes of the picture.
The film received one Oscar nomination, for Best Special Effects, and while we've got to judge on a bit of a curve (almost all effects from this era look cheesy in hindsight), I have to admit that I enjoyed them, though they don't quite have the same "wow" that some other movies of this era (like Forbidden Planet, for example) have on me. Still, though, the scenes where the ants aren't with the people (and the initial scene where Joan Weldon actually sees the ants) are really good, and I quite enjoyed them.
Those were my thoughts on this Sci Fi classic-what about you? Have you seen Them, and if not, what are you waiting for? Which giant bug movie should I catch next? And should it have won the Best Special Effects Oscar? Share in the comments!
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