Them! (1954)

[frogmarch]

I was in grade school when this movie played in my hometown movie theater on the Saturday before Christmas. It scared the bejeebies out of me. I remember sitting by my bedroom window for most of the night on Christmas Eve, peering up at the sky. I didn’t believe in Santa, or in baby Jesus either, so I wasn’t on the lookout for reindeer or the Christmas star. I was watching for giant flying ants.

James Arness is in the movie. This was before he started dying his blond hair brown for Gunsmoke. Fess Parker is too, and so is Leonard Nimoy (uncredited).

Wiki:

Them! was released in June 1954[4] and by the end of that year had accrued US $2,000,000 in distributors' domestic (U.S. and Canada) rentals, making it the year's 51st biggest earner.[5] The New York Times review noted " . . . from the moment James Whitmore, playing a New Mexico state trooper, discovers a six-year-old moppet wandering around the desert in a state of shock, to the time when the cause of that mental trauma is traced and destroyed, Them! is taut science-fiction."[6] "Brog" in Variety opined it was a "top-notch science fiction shocker. It has a well-plotted story, expertly directed and acted in a matter-of-fact style to rate a chiller payoff and thoroughly satisfy the fans of hackle-raising melodrama."[7]

Since its original release, Them! has become generally regarded as one of the very best science-fiction films of the 1950s. Bill Warren described the film as “… tight, fast-paced and credible…(T)he picture is suspenseful."[4] Phil Hardy’s The Aurum Film Encyclopedia: Science Fiction noted, "Directed by [Gordon] Douglas in semi-documentary fashion, Them! is one of the best American science-fiction films of the fifties."[8] Danny Peary believed the film "Ranks with The Thing and Invasion of the Body Snatchers as the best of the countless fifties science fiction films."[9] Of the 24 reviewers included in a Rotten Tomatoes survey of critics regarding the title, 100% reflect a positive reaction.[10]

You can watch Them! for free here:

http://archive.org/details/PhantasmagoriaTheater-Them1954176

[Graybeard]

1. I can watch it again and again.

It's so well done it's one of those films that I will stop and watch again if I come across it on the Tee Vee machine. And I agree that it ranks along with the originals of The Thing and Invasion of the Body Snatchers as the best of the Sci-Fi genre.

[frogmarch]

2. It sure is. Most of the

so-called sci fi movies from the 50s were silly, even by 50s standards. I watched some of them yesterday on You Tube for laughs.

I've never forgotten Them!, even though until today I hadn't seen it for about 60 years.

[raccoon]

3. I like to watch old sci-fi or horror movies from the 1950's and 1960's. Thanks for posting. nt