was nominated for an Oscar for its special effects[19] (but the award went to 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea) and won a Golden Reel Award for best sound editing.
It was released 60 years ago but actually still is scary… Spoiler-free Movie Review of Them! The atmosphere evoked by the dark, black & white scenes, particularly in the desert is magical and adds so much atmosphere that you excuse any eye-rolling dialogue. By the time this film was released, nuclear power had been providing energy in the United States for approximately three years, and a few months later the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 would provide instruction and regulation for civilian and military uses of nuclear power. The queen and her hatchlings are discovered and quickly destroyed with flamethrowers. The driving force is that they want to protect human life from the mutations, but are also thrust into situations outside of their comfort or knowledge. 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. Nickname For Baby Who Smiles A Lot, The atomic tests near Alamogordo nearly a decade before have yielded a mutated strain of ant, grown to enormous size by the radiation. [4] Phil Hardy's The Aurum Film Encyclopedia: Science Fiction noted, "Directed by [Gordon] Douglas in semi-documentary fashion, Them! Peterson, Graham, and the Medfords join a government task force which covertly begins to investigate reports of unusual activity. A third report about a large sugar theft at a rail yard leads Peterson, Graham, and Major Kibbee to Los Angeles. What we’ll eventually find in that new world, nobody can predict.” – Dr. Harold Medford. is the birthplace of the giant nature and the irradiated animal sub genre of the sci-fi film, and probably no other sub-genre defined the 50s as much as the giant mutated animal film. New Mexico State Police Sgt. ... Also most of the Laurel and Hardy films have been colorized which I have most of them recorded off of AMC years before they started having commericals.
The black & white border shown is not part of the photo and is used to show what this | Rating: 4.5/5 This movie is probably the acorn that major blockbusters grew out of over time though, the way the movie plays out, the scenarios, the way its shot, the action etc...definitely a one-off back in the 50's. Tel. (1954) The writers George Worthing Yates, Russell S. Hughes and Ted Sherdeman hit upon a great mix of sci-fi, suspense and horror in creating a film about giant insects terrorizing the southwest. Fun fact #2: Has a number of Wilhelm screams from back before it was an inside joke.
Whitmore also employed bits of "business" (hand gestures and motions) during scenes in which he appeared in order to draw more attention to his character when not speaking. Memories Remember Me Mobile Game, 1 Maja 30A And whether the invasion of Los Angeles by the ants was done as an homage to films such as The War of The Worlds, or as suspected, more for budgetary concerns, Them! At the Ellinson campsite, Pat encounters a giant, eight-foot-long foraging ant. Keep your little bookworms engaged outside of the classroom with our selection of the very best literary adaptations. View All Photos (6) | Rating: 4/5 Them!
Upon finding it, the four heroes blast the mound with thermite and then toss cyanide gas inside. [3] 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. The queen and her hatchlings are discovered and quickly destroyed with flamethrowers. By 1960 many of these films had run their course. '"[14], Since its original release, Them! It was recorded at Indian Island, Georgia, on April 11, 1947 by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. The four of them take a trip to the desert after questioning the girl, which the elder Medford is able to pull from her catatonic state using the smell of formic acid. We haven’t seen the end of them. Them! But fears in Hollywood always present themselves in strange ways. is naive enough to only ask the question “what has man unleashed on itself?” It doesn’t go so far as to place any blame for the creation of the the giant ants. In the year 1957 alone, there were no less than seven of these types of films, all centering around giant creatures like spiders, crabs, wasps, grasshoppers and even mollusks!