Them!
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Them! is a 1954 American black-and-white science fiction monster film from Warner Bros. Pictures, produced by David Weisbart, directed by Gordon Douglas, and starring James Whitmore, Edmund Gwenn, Joan Weldon, and James Arness. The film is based on an original story treatment by George Worthing Yates, which was then developed into a screenplay by Ted Sherdeman and adaptation by Russell Hughes.
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 gigantic irradiated ants is discovered in the New Mexico desert; they quickly become a national threat when it is discovered that two young queen ants and their consorts have escaped to establish new nests. The national search that follows finally culminates in a battle with Them in the concrete spillways and storm drain system of Los Angeles.
Plot
New Mexico State Police Sgt. Ben Peterson and Trooper Ed Blackburn discover a little girl in shock and a catatonic state wandering the desert near Alamogordo. They take her to a nearby vacation trailer, located by a police spotter plane, where they find evidence that she had been there when the trailer was attacked and nearly destroyed. It is later discovered that the trailer was owned by an FBI Special Agent named Ellinson, on vacation with his wife, son, and daughter; the other members of the little girl's family remain missing. Now in an ambulance, she briefly reacts to a pulsating high-pitched sound coming from the desert by sitting upright, eyes open, on the stretcher, but no one else notices her reaction, and she lies back down when the noise stops.
At a general store owned by "Gramps" Johnson, Peterson and Blackburn find his dead body and a wall of the store partially torn out. After a quick look-around, Peterson leaves Blackburn behind to secure the crime scene. Blackburn later goes outside to investigate a strange, pulsating sound. Gunshots are heard, the sound becomes faster and louder, and Blackburn goes missing. Peterson's captain later points out that both Johnson and Blackburn had fired their weapons at their attacker. More puzzling is the coroner's report on Johnson's brutal death: a huge amount of formic acid was found in his body.
The FBI sends Special Agent Robert Graham to New Mexico to investigate because one of the missing persons is an FBI Agent. After a strange impression is found in the sand near the Ellisons' trailer, the Department of Agriculture sends myrmecologists Dr. Harold Medford and his daughter, Dr. Pat Medford, to assist with the investigation. The elder Medford exposes the Ellinson girl to formic acid fumes, which releases her from her catatonic state; she screams in panic and yells "Them!". Medford's suspicions of Camponotus vicinus are validated by her reaction, but he will not reveal his theory prematurely.
At the Ellinson campsite, Pat encounters a giant, eight-foot-long foraging ant. Following instructions from the elder Medford, Peterson and Graham shoot off the ant's antennae, blinding it, and kill it using a Thompson submachine gun. Medford finally reveals his theory: a colony of giant ants, mutated by radiation from the first atomic bomb test near Alamogordo, is responsible for the area's deaths. General O'Brien orders an Army helicopter search, and the giant ants' nest is found. Cyanide gas bombs are tossed inside, and Graham, Peterson, and Pat descend into the nest to check for survivors. Deep inside, Pat finds evidence that two queens have hatched and escaped to establish new colonies.
Peterson, Graham, and the Medfords join a government task force that covertly begins to investigate reports of unusual activity. In one, a civilian pilot has been committed to a Texas mental hospital after claiming that he was forced down by UFOs shaped like giant ants. Next, the Coast Guard receives a report of a giant queen hatching her brood in the hold of a freighter at sea in the Pacific; giant ants attack the ship's crew, and there are few survivors. The freighter is later sunk by gunfire from a U.S. Navy cruiser.
A third report of a large sugar theft at a rail yard leads Peterson, Graham, and Major Kibbee to Los Angeles. An alcoholic in a hospital "drunk tank" claims he has seen giant ants outside his window. The mutilated body of a father is recovered, but his two young sons are missing. Peterson, Graham, and Kibbee find evidence that they were flying a model airplane in the Los Angeles River drainage channel near the hospital. Martial law is declared in Los Angeles. California Army National Guard troops of the 40th Infantry Division and U.S. Marines from the 1st Marine Division at Camp Pendleton are assigned to find the ants in the vast storm drain system under the city and wipe them out.
Peterson finds the two missing boys alive, trapped by the ants near their nest. He calls for reinforcements and lifts both boys to safety, just before being attacked and grabbed by a giant ant in its mandibles. Graham arrives with reinforcements and kills the ant, but Peterson dies from his injuries as the ants swarm to protect the nest. Graham and the soldiers fight them off, but a tunnel collapse traps Graham. Several ants charge, but he holds them off with his submachine gun just long enough for troops to break through and save him. The queen and her hatchlings are discovered and quickly dispatched with flamethrowers. As they burn, Dr. Medford offers a philosophic observation: "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".
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)
