Empire of the Ants

The old-school style of sci-fi movie did not simply vanish after Star Wars rewrote the paradigm. Indeed, Samuel Z. Arkoff’s American International already had a few old-paradigm projects in production when the New Age began. Empire of the Ants (EoA) follows quickly on the heels of another Arkoff production based on an H.G.Wells story, Island of Dr. Moreau. Unlike Island, EoA is a much looser adaptation, but clearly trying to cash in on Wells’ name recognition. Bert I. Gordon provides his usual “magic” as special effects expert and director. Joan Collins stars as Marilyn, the shrew-ish and shifty real estate developer. Robert Lansing stars as the heroic and taciturn boat captain. The rest of the cast are lesser lights and television actors. Of note, though, Christine is played by Jack Palance’s daughter, Brooke.

Quick Plot Synopsis
Under the credits, we are shown a boat dumping 55 gallon drums of nuclear waste. We know this because it says so on the drums in big red letter. One drum washes ashore and starts leaking. Ants swarm over the silvery ooze. Meanwhile, Marilyn welcomes aboard captain Dan’s boat, a group of would-be buyers for parcels in her Dreamland Shores development in a remote area of Florida and right where the ants are eating the ooze. The group of prospects is the usual social sampling for group-survives-ordeal stories. There is a retired couple, a middle aged couple, a younger couple. There is a middle-aged single woman, a curvaceous blonde and a liesure-suit single guy. Much of the early part of the movie is devoted to character development and drama. Christine and Larry, the younger couple have a weak marriage because he’s a total jerk. Larry tries to maul Coreen, the blonde, but gets kneed for it. The middle-aged single woman has a sad back story and takes a shine to single captain Dan. Liesure suit Joe has a sad back story too, and Coreen takes a shine to him. While touring the parcels, the middle aged couple discover that the development is a scam. They are, however, attacked and killed by giant ants. The ants then attack the rest of the group, who flee. A thunderstorm douses their protective camp fire, so they must flee again. The retired couple hide in a shed and get eaten later. Christine trips but Larry is too big of a wuss to save her. She is killed. The rest make it to a row boat and row up the river. Eventually, the ants jump on them, killing Larry. The rest are herded by the ants towards a small town with a sugar factory. The people in the town act strange and thwart the group’s efforts to leave. It turns out that the queen ant has set up shop in the factory and gasses the residents to bend their wills to hers. Thus, her army of human slaves feed her ants the sugar. The survivors resist indoctrination. Captain Dan uses road flares to set fire to the queen. In the pandemonium, the survivors escape. Heroic Joe opens the valve on a gasoline tanker truck and drives it all around the factory. He jumps from the moving truck, which crashes and explodes into flame, obligingly. The factory and (presumably) all the ants burn. The survivors escape in an outboard motor boat. The End.

Why is this movie fun?
Some may enjoy EoA as one of those so-bad-they’re-good sorts of movies. Much of the fun is nostalgic. EoA is, at it’s heart, a mid-50s big bug movie, dressed up in leisure suits and bellbottoms. If shot in black and white, and the fashions adjusted, EoA would fit right into the 50s. Joan is her usual saucy self. Pamela Shoop (as Coreen) is easy on the eyes. Brooke Palance adds an understated pretty too.

Cultural Connection
Old Bogey Men — The roots of Gordon’s screenplay ring the old alarm bells about nuclear radiation. By the mid-70s, audiences had grown accustomed (weary) to pronouncements of ecological doom. The old bogey man of the dangers of nuclear radiation must have seemed almost quaint to audiences in 1977. As per the old magic, the radioactive waste manages to make the ants grow huge — which radiation was imagined to have the power to do — and it also made them more intelligent.

Notes
Based on the Book — Actually, a short story. H.G.Wells wrote “Empire of the Ants” in 1905 as a multi-chapter short story. James Turley and Bert I. Gordon’s screen adaptation is very loose, but does draw some elements from Wells’ original. In Wells’ story, a Brazillian gunboat is sent up the Amazon to investigate stories of ant infestations. He thinks he’s just being dissed by his superiors, but hears rumors and encounters a derelict boat with dead men aboard. The boarding party are killed by largish (a couple inches) ants which behave oddly organized. The captain burns the derelict. The gunboat comes to a deserted town near a sugar factory. Seeing more ant activity and no human survivors, the captain leaves. The narrator thinks it’s just a matter of years before the ants’ empire reaches civilization and there’s nothing anyone can do. Knowing the original story, various scenes seem less like non sequiturs. The burning boat. The trip up the river, the ant-controlled town. The sugar factory. Wells, however, did not have nuclear waste as his bogey man.

Ant Fest & Body Snatchers — Turley and Gordon’s story is a hybrid of Them! (’54) which has raditation-enlarged ants, and Phase IV which had intelligent ants (though not large) that work at controlling humans. Throw in a dose of Invasion of the Body Snatchers with the mind-controlled townsfolk just for fun.

Bad Bugs -- Director Gordon tried to disguise the modest nature of his "giant" ant puppets by (a) not showing them very much and (b) making sure the camera is wiggling crazily whenever there is an ant attack close up. The technique is a bit overdone, almost to the point of inducing motion sickness in sensitive souls. But, what's a director to do with a low budget?

Touch of Noir — There is a hint of film noir in Turley’s characters. None are “clean”. Marilyn is a catty scam artist. Her helper, Charlie is her resentful “kept man”. Dan is a grumpy misanthrope. Coreen was a gold digger who got dumped. Joe was an out-of work divorcee. Thomas trusted no one. Mary was a nag. Larry was a loser AND a jerk. His wife Christine was milk toast and burdened with daddy's money. The old couple just mooch on tours like that one, for the free vacation angle. Margaret was the lonely, bitter spinster. Unlike classic noir, the misfit toys find future mates and leave the island. Dan and Margaret warm to each other. Coreen gets feelings for Joe. Presumably, things get better for the two couples.

Bottom line? EoA is clearly an old-school low-B grade film. After the high polish of Star Wars, EoA looks especially dowdy and cheap. The acting can be amusing for it’s weakness — such as victim #2, Mary, standing still and screaming a LOT, while the ants slowly crawl up to her. EoA is low quality entertainment, but not entirely a waste. It would make a fun tripe-feature Ant Fest with Them! and Phase IV.

The Giant Spider Invasion

Bill Rebane took another shot at producing and directing a mega-cheap sci-fi film in 1975. Giant Spider Invasion (GSI) is arguably his best film, though this is not saying too much. He is responsible for Monster A-Go-Go (’65) and Invasion from Inner Earth (’74). Both quite poor. GSI is a very 50s style of film, even if made in the mid 70s. The project was built upon a story written by Wisconin native, Richard L. Huff, fleshed out in screenplay form by actor Robert Easton (who plays farmer Dan) Huff and Rebane produced the film. In addition to dozens of ‘extras’ from the residents of Gleason and Merrill, Wisconsin.

Quick Plot Synopsis
After some flash in deep space, a meteor streaks towards the earth. Some electrical interference is felt, and a B-52 and crew are lost…somewhere. Cut to a country shack in Wisconsin, the home of Dan and Ev. He’s habitually unfaithful. She’s an alcoholic and also sleeps around. Her younger sister, Terry, goes out parking with her boyfriend, David. The meteor crashes near Dan’s farm spectacularly. NASA notes the odd radiation readings and sends crack scientist (and male chauvinist) Dr. Vance to investigate. He seeks out Dr. Langer, who turns out to be a woman. They try to locate the anomaly. Meanwhile, Dan is back from his cavorting. Ev urges him to go see what landed in their pasture. When they do, they find the bones of their cattle scattered around. They also find geodes, so take them home. Dan cracks one open, but does not see the tarantula crawl out. He is interested in the diamonds the encrust the inside of the rocky spider eggs. Suddenly, Ev is quite sweet to him. Dan takes the diamonds to his cousin Billy (who has a rock shop) for authentication. Billy is dismissive in a coy way, so Dan knows they’re genuine. Vance and Langer keep looking. Spiders grow. While Ev is alone, normal-sized tarantulas freak her out such that she runs outside to be eaten by a big spider puppet. Billy has some geodes in his car, which hatch. He freaks out and crashes with a great fireball. Dan, not too worried about Ev’s disappearance, hits on Terry, who is intrigued with having a Sugar Daddy. Later, Dan gets eaten by a big spider puppet while he’s out looking for more geodes. The big spider attacks the house where Terry is in her bikini underwear (naturally). Scream, run, scream. David arrives in the nick of time to drive the spider puppet away with some shots from his 30-30. The townsmen are riled up and form an armed mob. The big spider attacks the town of Gleason. The mob fares badly. Meanwhile, Vance and Langer deduce that a miniature black hole has somehow opened up a hole in the space time continuum, that is allowing these spiders from another dimension to thrive and grow on Earth. The only answer is to use…The Neutrino Initiator — to flood the black hole’s energy with mass and…um…choke it off. Or something. They locate the nearest Neutrino Initiator in Madison. Handy. They have it flown in by helicopter and direct it to the impact crater. After a few dramatic tension developing scenes, the “bomb” is dropped, creating a miniature fireball mushroom cloud. The big spider smokes, then erupts in puss, and maybe explodes too. The black hole is sealed. Earth is safe. Vance and Langer hold hands. The End.

Why is this movie fun?
There is an ample amount of nostalgia in GSI for fans of 50s B-movie science fiction. More on those parallels below. On some levels, GSI is an homage to that simpler time when giant bugs occasionally menace small towns, and a couple of scientist types save the day with some nuclear option.

Cultural Connection
Urban View of The Rural — While both writers (Huff and Easton) were native to Wisconsin, they write about rural Wisconsin life as if they were outsiders. Everyone is sex-obsessed, liquor soaked and greedy. The men of the town are gun-brandishing mob hooligans. The law, Sheriff Jones, is the stereotypic bumbling ineffectual. It’s pretty common for city folks to imagine that proper civilization stops where the pavement ends. Beyond, there be Trash. Indeed, Huff and Easton portray the rural Wisconsin folk more in keeping with the Southern White Trash stereotype — even including banjo picking score. Perhaps neither ventured far from their home cities, so had no idea what people in rural central Wisconsin were like. Or, they figured their audiences would not know anyhow, so let the stereotypes fly!

Notes
Big Bug Redux — The story in GSI was written by Richard L. Huff. This was his one and only movie story. It is set in his home state of Wisconsin and is a medley of 50s tropes. Seeds from Space — Invasion of the Body Snatchers (’56) and Day of the Triffids (’63). Giant spiders — Tarantula (’55) and Earth vs. The Spider (’58). Several of the scenes are reminiscent of the giant ants in Them! (’54).

Parody, Camp or Homage? — GSI is a difficult movie to pigeonhole. On some levels, it appears to be a parody of the 50s Big Bug genre, yet most of the cast act earnestly. On some other levels, the film is campy. Alan Hale’s usual acting style includes side comments to the camera. There are other blatant attempts at humor which suggest that Rebane was aiming for campy. Yet, the spider puppet and giant spider prop were pretty expensive for a parody or camp. Rebane may well have been aspiring to create a typical 50s sci-fi monster movie.

Major Minors — GSI stars two recognizable second-tier names amid a cast of obscure actors and actresses who typically played only bit parts in minor films, or in various television programs. Barbara Hale plays Dr. Jenny Langer. She was best known as “Della Street” in the Perry Mason TV series. Alan Hale Jr. plays the sheriff. He will be forever famous as The Skipper from “Gilligan’s Island.”

T & A. Just ‘Cuz — For no good plot reason, Rebane included some low-brow T and A just to satisfy his anticipated audience. At one point, Dan is trying to recruit Terry to be his personal paid-girl. With diamonds as the payment, she flaunts her credentials by saying that she’s 35-24-35, with the camera zooming in on her cleavage. Later, there is a brief moment of toplessness for Terry. Then, when Terry is in the conventional Helpless Female Victim costume (scanty underwear), the camera zooms in on her bikini panty butt. A giant spider is moving up to the house to attack her, but we’re supposed to be looking at her butt? Rebane had a problem staying on script.

Science Mumbo-Jumbo — One of the fun scenes in GSI comes when Vance and Langer have dueling epiphanies over how the problem of giant spiders happened in the first place end how to end the menace.
Vance: The energy pattern has to feed off the gravitational field of the black hole.
Langer: “Could we soak up the energy?”
Vance: “We could feed it so much extra mass, we could choke it.
Langer: “We could shower it with neutrons.”
Vance: (out of the blue) “Neutron Initiator. It just might work.”
Fortunately for Earth and the plot, Neutron Initiators were fairly common, so not too far away, and wasn’t being used for anything at the moment, so NASA okayed its destruction. All very handy, indeed.

Science Lab To The Rescue! — Note Dr. Langer’s “Lab”, in which she and Vance figure out how to seal up a rip in the time-space continuum with a bomb. It is actually the electronics lab at Nicolette College and Technical Institute, in Rhinelander, WI. How would a dozen identical (and turned off) oscilloscopes help the good doctor? And the giant slide rule hanging on the wall over the rows of black lab tables? Every brilliant rural scientist uses giant slide rules. She did get to use the observatory at U of Wisconsin, Stevens Point as an establishing shot. That’s something.

Bottom line? GSI is a cheap local indie film that really wanted to be more, but just didn’t have it. GSI is almost a remake of the classic 50s big-bug formula films, though with enough tangental plot threads (over-sexed yokels). GSI is not great (or even good) movie making. It is, however, entertaining as long as one turns off one’s inner movie-snob. GSI has its fans. The tropes are thoroughly 50s. Enjoy it as an homage to the Golden Era. —

Monster From Green Hell

This movie is a hybrid of two B-film sub-genre. It's 80% jungle safari movie and 20% giant bug film. It covers no new ground in either. Them ('54) opened the big bug sub-genre. Judging from the poster art, the producers tried to position the movie as another big-bug tale. On the other hand, the jungle safari sub-genre (more prevalent in the 40s) must have still had some audience appeal. Since Monster from Green Hell (MFGH) is only partially a big-bug movie, it's place in the sci-fi genre is a bit tenuous. Still, it deserves at least some mention as part of the 50s sci-fi family. One of its writers, Louis Vittes, wrote the screenplay for I Married a Monster from Outer Space ('58), which was better than its title suggests. Producer Al Zimbalist gave us Catwomen of the Moon ('53). Near the end, MFGH shares the location shooting of Bronson Canyon with Robot Monster ('53). That's enough peripheral connections to merit at least one viewing.

Quick Plot Synopsis
Dr. Quent Brady and Dan Morgan are sending V2 rockets up into space with various animals aboard, to test their reaction to "cosmic radiation." These are our old friends, the checker-painted V2s, by the way. One rocket had too much thrust. Instead of exposing its animals to 40 seconds of radiation before coming back down, it stayed up for 40 hours. This rocket happened to have aboard it, some wasps, including a queen. This rocket then came down on the African coast, near the Congo. There, in an area around an active volcano the natives call "Green Hell", all animals are fleeing and natives are being killed. A local missionary, Dr. Lorrentz treks into the jungle to solve the mystery, but is himself killed by "monsters". Brady and Morgan arrive to check out the reports. They suspect the radiated wasps are the cause. After a great deal of trudging through jungle, they come upon the volcano and the nest. Sure enough, giant irradiated wasps. The explosives they brought with them do not kill the monster-wasps. The safari escape to a cave but are trapped in there for awhile. The volcano erupts. Lava pours down its sides. The lava kills the giant wasps. The safari folk are saved. The end.

Why is this movie fun?
Even though the "monsters" don't get much on-camera time (as is typical), they're actually pretty well done (for B monsters). There is a combination of large, articulated models and small-scale stop animation model work. By modern standards, quite cheesy, but in 1958, still above average. They came off better than the superimposed real bug type of films.

Cold War Angle
There isn't much of the Cold War angst here. Instead, we have a tepid example of the radiation cautionary tale. Radiation turns nature into monsters. Beware.

Notes
Radiation Angst -- MFGH caters to 50s audiences' built in anxiety about the effects of radiation. It was often the catalyst of choice in the 50s for introducing dangerous change. Surgery, chemistry and electricity each had their vogue periods. For the 50s, it was radiation. The only twist here, is that it's "natural" cosmic radiation from space, not man-made atomic radiation. Space was still a scary place in the late 50s. Many a film hinged on exposure to "space" causing bad things to happen. Riders to the Stars ('54) tried to make a serious plot of this. The Quatermass Experiment ('55) played up this angst. Later movies would too. People worried about radiation then.

Stereotyped Africa -- An amusing sidelight to MFGH is seeing the mishmash of african footage glommed together. Even in the later 50s, Africa was still stereotyped as wild place, with every corner filled with natural dangers. Elephants, pythons, lions and lava all existed side-by-side with fierce tribes of generic war-like natives. This generic vision was typical enough in the 30s and 40s, but apparently hadn't improved by the late 50s. Anything african was imagined to exist everywhere in Africa. Each sector contained both tropical jungle, arid savannah, swamp, desert canyon AND active volcanos. The only thing missing was the dinosaurs of Lost World.

For Love of Trudging -- A trait of many a jungle B-movie, is the obligatory marching through the jungle scene. MFGH had far too many of them. Dr. Lorrentz (an Albert Schweitzer copy) has his safari trudge through to get at the cause of the native chief's death. Much trudging. Brady's safari from Libreville to Dr. Lorrenz's camp went through yet many more minutes of trudging. Then they have to mount yet another safari to find the monsters that killed Dr. Lorrentz. The movie could have been perhaps 20 minutes shorter if all that trekking had been edited out. The fact that it wasn't suggests that the producers (who had made prior jungle films) must have expected their audiences still liked the vision of white men leading black porters through the jungle. It should be noted that the typical porters-deserting-white-leaders scene happened twice.

Stock Footage Fare --For fans of stock footage, there are numerous examples to spot. The V2 footage had become almost one of the four food groups by this point in the decade. Stock natives, stock wildlife clips and recycled footage from Stanley and Livingstone ('39) This helps explain why Dr. Brady gets decked out in the classic 19th century British pith helmet, khakis and tall boots. It helped him blend in with the '39 footage better.

Weak Ending -- Where most cautionary tales end with a moralizing moment, MFGH did not. For a brief moment, Dr. Lorrentz's daughter, Lorna, blamed science for the trouble, but Brady quickly corrects her that science is wonderful. Still, there were monsters out there. In the end, they're stopped, but unlike in other tales, man did not get wiser and stop the danger. Good did not triumph over evil. Instead, the wasps are killed by the lava. Since they were said to "not like fire," it's a bit incongruous that they made their nest on the side of a volcano. In the end, nature kills the monsters. As the Morgan character says at the end, "Nature has a way of correcting its own mistakes." Yes, nature killed the monsters, but its a bit odd that they gave nature the "credit" for making the monsters. Who shot the wasps into space? This may be a vestige of an old fear-of-nature theme.

Bottom line? At the end, MFGH may be a movie that only 50s sci-fi collectors will tolerate, or perhaps fans of jungle movies. Big bug movie fans will enjoy the big bugs, though they get only a little screen-time near the end.

Cosmic Monsters

Originally, this movie was titled "The Strange World" or "The Strange World of Planet X" when it was released in the UK in 1957. When it was released in America in late 1958, it was marketed with the title "Cosmic Monsters" (CM). Since the British film industry did not use promotional posters as actively as the American film industry did, it's the American poster shown at left. By whichever title, the film itself is a nice example of British B sci-fi. CM is yet another recasting of the Klaatu trope, but with a British entry into the big bug sub-genre. In some areas, (England, perhaps?) The Strange World of Planet X double billed with another British sci-fi starring Forrest Tucker, The Trollenberg Terror.

Quick Plot Synopsis
The opening narrator sets the tone of the cautionary tale. Man has advanced in many areas, but there is so much that remains unknown. At a country laboratory, men fire up a room-sized machine. It overloads, sparks, and injures one of them. The overload blows out TVs in the area and stops clocks. Wilson, a government man, sends a Cartwright to check on Dr. Laird's work because it has national defense implications. Wilson gives the Cartwright two bars of metal for Laird to experiment upon. Gil and Cartwright privately discuss the potential of a projected beam weapon. Laird is prickly about doing only 'pure research' in high-energy magnetic fields. The injured worker is replaced with a pretty French woman scientist. They fire up the machine again, with one of Cartwright's bars in the 'oven'. At full power, Cartwright's briefcase flies across the room. Gil shuts down the machine to save Michele. The metal bar now crumbles. The machine's overload also caused lightning storms and caused a 'meteor' to fall. A tramp in the woods sits up with a burned face. Turns out that Laird's magnetic field machine warped the earth's magnetic field, allowing deadly cosmic rays to get through. The tramp becomes a deranged killer. Local insects have mutated into giants. A mysterious stranger eventually explains that he came to warn us not to continue the experiments. The giant bugs eventually attack, killing some individuals. Soldiers arrive and attack the bugs. Gil and the stranger rescue Michele from a giant spider's web. Laird is about to fire up his machine again. With the earthmen's permission, the stranger summons a flying saucer which blows up the lab. The earth is saved. The End.

Why is this movie fun?
The blend of a typically British Klaatu-like alien, and the big-bug sub-genre, can't help but be fun. The pacing is good. The big bug shots are not Bert I. Gordon's work, but interesting in their own right.

Cold War Angle
The Cold War is a background element, in that the British government wants Dr. Laird's research to become a projected beam weapon for neutralizing hostile aircraft. Late 50s audiences knew who that was. The bulk of the movie, however, is more the typical cautionary tale about the dangers of science.

Notes
Klaatu Returns -- The trope of the benevolent messenger had "legs", as they say. It is best remembered in Klaatu of The Day The Earth Stood Still, but reappeared many times. We saw it reworked in an earlier British B film, Stranger From Venus ('54), and will see it again in early 1959 in Cosmic Man. Mr. Smith in CM is much like the man from Venus in '54 and Rennie's Klaatu in being the model of benign civility.

Mad Scientist Redux -- Another trope within CM, almost a parallel plot line, is the selfish obsession of Dr. Laird to continue his work, even to the point of killing Wilson for trying to stop him. In this, there is a typically British understated message about the dangers of hubris in science.

Snow On Their Boots -- There is a great cultural "tip of the iceberg" line in CM. It may have been totally lost on American audiences. Early in the movie, Murray, the security man, is talking with Wilson, the government man, about all the hoopla (flying saucer stories) in the press about Laird's work. Wilson says, "You may have to find some chaps with snow on their boots, if you know what I mean." Do you? It would be easy to blow by that line, but it's actually full of meaning.
In the early days of World War One, British public opinion rankled at the lack of any British attack on Germany. Rumors arose about Russian soldiers traveling in closed trains from sea ports in Scotland to the channel coast. "Eyewitnesses" said they figured they were Russian soldiers because they saw snow on their boots. The implication was that Britain was actually "doing something" to stop Germany by transporting Russians (who were allies) to the front lines. The rumors were false, of course. It was suspected that the government and press cooked up the stories (or fed them) to deflect criticism over government inaction. Hence, the notion that Murray might need to use the flying saucer stories to cover up the real defense project truth. How many Americans would have gotten that?

Bottom line? CM is breaks no new ground in sci-fi, but is a very watchable remake of the TDESS plot, with some interesting variations. It is also a rare British example of the big-bug sub-genre. For fans of 50s sci-fi, it is well worth the time.

Earth vs. The Spider

Bert I. Gordon did not rest after his giant man trilogy. The last, War of the Colossal Beast was in theaters in June of 1958. By September, Gordon was back with his own version of Jack Arnold's Tarantulal. The big bug sub-genre had pretty well run its course by this point in the decade. Gordon's garage-tech special effects are a bit better by this point. There's little that makes Earth vs. The Spider (EvS) a science fiction tale. The script offers no science explanation for the existence of the giant spider. It simply was. This makes Gordon's film more of a monster movie than sci-fi, but it is usually classified as sci-fi. It ran as the "A" feature, actually, over The Brain Eaters.

Quick Plot Synopsis
Carol's dad is returning one night with a birthday gift. His pickup hits a rope stretched across the highway. The next day, Carol and her boyfriend Mike go looking for him. They find the wrecked truck and go looking in a cave for him. They find a giant spider web and a 30 foot spider (tarantula). They escape, but no one believes their story except their science teacher. He prods the sheriff into investigating. They find the dad dead, all fluids sucked out of him. The spider attacks, but they spray it with DDT. It "dies". Science teacher has it hauled up to the school auditorium. The University is to come get it the next day. That night, however, the teen's rock and roll band practices in the auditorium. The loud rock wakes up the spider. It begins rampaging around the town. Death and destruction. Spider then heads back to its cave. Trouble is, Mike and Carol went back in the cave to look for her present. She dropped it. The find the bracelet, but must flee the returning spider. The townsfolk arrive at the cave and blow it up to seal in the spider. When everyone finds out Mike and Carol are still in there, a rescue tunnel is dug. The spider chases Mike and Carol onto a dead end ledge. Just as it's lowering itself for the kill, Mr. Kingman arrives on the other side with two lightning rods, each wired to a heavy cable. He throws one (and rubber gloves) to Mike. The utility worker throws the switch. Huge arcs leap between the lightning rods, through the spider. It screeches and drops dead. The kids are safe. The rescue tunnel is blown up too. The final shot is of the spider impaled on a tall stalagmite. The End.

Why is this movie fun?
Arnold's Tarantula was fun, so a second episode is fun for the same reasons. Gordon's usual special effects tricks work better than usual.

Cold War Angle
It would be a bit of a strain to find Cold War symbolism in the giant spider. The script suggests no parallels. Any symbolism draws from the same well as traditional monsters.

Notes
More Big Bug -- Even though the big bug sub-genre had pretty much run its course by 1958, it still had enough draw for one more installment. Many of the big bug scenes are (by this point) customary -- such as the rampage down the city street.

Bugs and Photos -- Gordon repeats his trick of having regular bugs crawl on photos of buildings, as he did in The Beginning of the End ('57). Here, it works better. If you can, stop the movie where the spider is in town, about to "get" the sheriff. Note the split screen with the sidewalk tree in the center. Live action on the left, tarantula crawling past a photo of storefronts on the right. It works pretty well for a low-budget effect. Notice, too, in the later cave scenes, that Gordon had photos of the Carlsbad Caverns columns cut out and set in front of a full photo, so the tarantula could walk between them. Viola! Giant spider in a cave.

Dang Rock Music -- An interesting bit of social commentary is that the teenagers' loud rock and roll music (practicing for the big dance) awakens the stunned (not dead) spider being stored in the school auditorium. Rock music awakens the demon within, they always said. Here's proof!

Hot Rod -- An fun bit of 50s atmosphere is hot rod belonging to Joe (the 30-year-old high school senior). It's a black highboy Model A convertible with chopped windshield and bobbed fenders. Quite a sweet ride to be loaning out so freely.

Earth vs The Spider? -- Originally, the title was to have simply been "The Spider". This was changed in production to "Earth vs. The Spider" for a clearer sci-fi draw. To coattail on the success of The Fly, released just a few months earlier, the movie was promoted as simply "The Spider" (as in the posters). The longer title was already produced in the credits footage, and no time or budget to redo them. Hence the two titles. But "The Earth"? At best, it's a big spider vs a dozen people in a remote small town. Kingman wants to study the spider's genetics to see why it got so big. Why? Because a batch of such huge bugs could devastate the "whole earth", he said. Scientists needed to understand to mount a defense.

Product Placement -- Gordon was fond of promoting his own work in his movies. In EvS, Mike works at his father's theater. The full size poster is for The Amazing Colossal Man. Mike is reluctant to take Carol to the cave because his father just got in a new movie that he wanted to see -- "something about Puppet People."

Star Gazing -- June Kenney stars as Carol. She starred as Sally in Gordon's Puppet People, which makes MIke's desire to see that movie an amusing detail. Also look for Gene Roth as the bombastic sheriff. He was the villain Vultura in the early 50s serial Captain Video.

Bottom line? Fans of the big bug sub-genre won't find anything particularly new in EvS. There is more of what made the big bugs famous -- a giant creepy bug menaces people and tears up a town.

The Black Scorpion

Warner Brothers was an A-level studio, but could also produce very B-grade films too. The Black Scorpion (TBS) would be just another in big-bug sub-genre. The acting varies between vapid and passible. The plot follows a well trodden path with adventurer scientists, a pretty love interest, a monster menacing a town and a showdown between monster and military. What sets TBS apart, however is the evident animation skills of Willis O'Brien (launched into fame by King Kong in 1933, and mentor to the brilliant Ray Harryhausen). This animation skill allows the story to feature more monster scenes which actually carry the movie.

Quick Plot Synopsis
Two scientists, one American (Richard Denning) and one Mexican (Carlos Rivas) come to explore a newly erupted volcano in Mexico. Even as they arrive, there are mysterious disappearances of people and peculiar damage to houses, which the volcano did not cause. Villagers talk of a demon. Hank and Artur meet a pretty rancher named Teresa (Mara Corday), and the usual love interest develops. Soon, a giant scorpion emerges from near the volcano and attacks some telephone linemen. It later attacks Teresa's ranch too. The army and scientists search the area and find a large deep hole. Scorpion sounds verify that it's the source. Hank and Artur descend via a crane, in gas suits and with poison gas. At the bottom of the shaft is a large cavern. Many large scorpions, a couple of giant armed inchworms and a woodtick-like spider thing live down there. A black scorpion, larger than the rest, battles the others over an inchworm carcass. This allows our heros to escape. The army blows up the hillside, burying the shaft in tons of rocks. All is assumed well, but an official in Mexico City worries that some of the scorpions might have escaped into the labyrinth of caves and might re-emerge. They do just that. A passenger train is derailed by a scorpion. Others begin a feeding frenzy on the wreck victims. The black scorpion arrives and kills all the others to claim the train for itself. After this, the black scorpion heads to Mexico City. Panic in the streets. They lure the scorpion into a soccer stadium. There, it battles tanks and helicopters. It is ultimately done in by a harpoon shot into its throat, hooked to high voltage wires. It's dead. Cue happy romantic ending for Hank and Teresa. The End.

Why is this movie fun?
After a slowish start, the action picks up and stays pretty brisk up to the climactic battle. The stop-motion animation is quite good and makes it easier to gloss over the poor acting moments. Seeing Willis O'Brien's "lost" creatures is worth it alone.

Cold War Angle
There is little of the Cold War in TBS. Even the creatures themselves have no link to radiation. Nor do they stand in (well) as personifications of nuclear danger. They're simply huge natural monsters.

Notes
Skilled Hand -- Willis O'Brien was a very talented stop-motion animator, but had a spotty career. In TBS, his title is "Supervisor of special effects." Peter Peterson may have done the bulk of the physical work under O'Brien's direction. The animation moves show O'Brien's attention to detail. He may have gotten the superior title as compensation for bringing along two models he created for King Kong. The inchworm beasts and the wood-tick-spider were shot for Kong, but their footage deleted and eventually lost altogether. These creatures and the skilled animation of the scorpions make TBS worth watching. TBS was one of O'Brien's last films.

Another Big Bug -- TBS joined the ranks of the big-bug sub-genre begin by the giant ants in Them! ('54). Up to this point, we've had ants, a tarantula, grasshoppers and a mantis. We could include the "mollusk" things in The Monster That Challenged The World ('57) and the crabs in Attack of the Crab Monsters ('57). TBS is a worthy member of the sub-genre. Viewers will note that giant creatures have been more successful when they are insect-like. Fur and feathers have been much less successful (as witness, The Giant Claw ('57))

Budget Strain -- Many features of TBS bespeak of budget pressures. One, is the setting: Mexico. Much is done in the western-mode, outdoors. Many mexican actors (of varying skill) no doubt helped trim the payroll. Near the end of the movie, you can see where even O'Brien's animations give way to simple (and poorly done) matte shots. There are also repeated bits of footage to save on shooting fresh, but similar, material.

Star Watch -- Richard Denning was a regular in 50s B-sci-fi. He was Rick in Day the World Ended ('55) and Frank in Target Earth ('54), as well as Mark in Creature from the Black Lagoon ('54). Mara Corday was the love interest Stephanie in Tarantula ('55), and Sally in The Giant Claw ('57).

Ad Hype -- The posters for TBS tried to tantalize without revealing any details. "Note: The management reserves the right to put up the lights any time the audience becomes too emotionally disturbed!" and "We urge you not to panic or bolt from your seats!" Since big-bug movies had been around for three years, there was little TBS could add to live up to such hype. But, in B-movie tradition, it really did not have to deliver. The posters only had to get some tickets sold.

Bottom line? TBS is worth watching for O'Brien's animation skills and especially for his bizarre cave creatures "lost" from King Kong. Fans of big-bug movies will find the usual. All in all, it's not really very "sci-fi", but parts of it have appeal.

The Beginning of the End

This is the sort of film that producer/director Bert I. Gordon would become famous (or infamous) for. B.I.G. liked playing with relative size, making his antagonist(s) larger than life. The Beginning of the End (BotE) is an obvious rehash of Them! ('54) with radiation-induced giant bugs, but substituting grasshoppers for ants. Instead of menacing Los Angeles, these giant bugs go for Chicago. BotE is a cheaper copy in many ways, but still found a ready audience in the mid 50s. Some better-than-B actors helped keep BotE from foundering completely. Peter Graves is the male lead. He saved Killers from Space ('53) and It Conquered The World ('56) from total loser-dom. Peggie Castle was the female lead in Invasion USA. Morris Ankrum, veteran B-sci-fi actor, once again plays the stern military man as he had in Rocketship XM ('50), Invaders From Mars ('53) and others yet to come.

Quick Plot Synopsis
People in rural Illinois are starting to disappear. Then a whole town of 150 is wiped out. Audrey (Castle) is a reporter who pushes for the story. Radiation might be the culprit, but no one has any nuclear material. She interviews Ed, an agricultural scientist (Graves), who has been growing giant tomatoes with the help of radiation. The isotopes are safely locked up, however. They travel to the site of a wiped out warehouse which stored tons of wheat. There, a giant grasshopper eats one of the scientists. Ordinary grasshoppers had munched on the giant tomatoes and so grew giant too. Hundreds of them mass in the woods. A National Guard unit's small arms can't stop them. They march towards Chicago, destroying Peoria and a couple others en route. The army's best tanks can't stop them. Panic ensues. Chicago is evacuated. The giant grasshoppers infest the Chicago area, but go semi-dormant during a cool night. Top brass in Washington plan bomb Chicago with an a-bomb to kill them while they're in one place. Ed and Audrey think they can find a sound that will attract the giants. If they could lure them into Lake Michigan, they'd all drown. They capture a live giant and bring it to the lab for tests. None of the sounds affect it. Time is almost out when they do find a frequency that works. Speakers are set up on one of Chicago's towers, to attract all the outlying bugs to downtown. Then a boat in the lake with a speaker will attract them to their doom. The plan works, though with a protracted fighting scene. In the end, they all drown. Chicago is saved. The End.

Why is this movie fun?
The giant bug (or other critter) sub-genre was only just getting started. We had ants in Them! and a spider in Tarantula. There will be many more to come, but this was an early one yet. The first half of the film, with it's mystery, is much better than the latter half. The relentless threat to a major city harkens to HG Wells' War of the Worlds. After that, it gets lame, but Graves and Ankrum don't disappoint.

Cold War Angle
While mostly an atomic radiation cautionary tale, there is the basic story line of a relentless force moving upon an American city. Panic, evacuation, a-bombs. It's all familiar Cold War material.

Notes
Don't Fool With Mother Nature -- Popular Science magazines were bright with the prospect of what radiation-mutated crops might do for mankind. This is exactly what Ed was trying to do. As with all good naive scientists, he failed to see the bigger picture. Pests eat crops. Giant crops can create giant pests. The moral behind the film is that messing around with radiation can go horribly wrong.

Strong Woman -- Peggie Castle plays an obviously tough and independent reporter. She'd covered the destruction in WWII and Korea, written respected books and never once screamed like a girl. (she did scream when Frank was eaten, but it was more shock and a call for help than silly panic). Towards the end of the movie, she has less to do, and does lean in the chest of hero Ed (Graves), but she's on screen as more of an equal than a date.

Unsafe Sex? -- A teen couple are necking on Lover's Lane. They get eaten. A pretty woman in only a towel is primping in her hotel room (back to the window). She gets eaten. Such scenes suggest to some viewers that Bert was giving subtle messages that being sexual is dangerous -- avoid it! This seems too flat. Instead, you could see the necking couple and the sexy woman as representing a very personal and vulnerable aspect of mankind. Intimate moments feel very vulnerable. Our outward mask of civilization is off. Like the lady in the hotel room, we're dressed in only a towel (not full battle gear). Attacks at those moments enhance the mood of vulnerability. It's not a subtle "don't neck" message (like anyone would ever listen to such a message anyhow).

Picture of Doom -- One of the most memorable "special effects" of BotE is how regular grasshoppers (albeit big ones) are set loose to walk among or climb on photos of Chicago. As cheap as it is, this works pretty well. Note how they had cutouts of a line of busses from the same photo, set in front of the building plane, so grasshoppers could walk between them. Also note one scene where the set-back of the building is cut separately, so the grasshoppers can hang their legs over the parapet. Cheap as they are, these effects work better than the poorly done superimposition (green screen), which gets overused.

Stock Footage Galore -- If you're a stock footage fan, you'll find a lot to love in BotE. Tanks on the road, Troops, crowds panicking. In fact, if you watch closely, you'll see one scene lifted from The Day The Earth Stood Still ('51).

Give Me a B...Any B -- The General Hanson character says the Air Force is sending a B-52 (then America's new super plane) with an A-bomb. When they show a clip of footage, it's actually a propeller-powered B-36, the old-tech behemoth the B-52 were designed to replace. Perhaps stock footage of the B-52, America's high-tech nuclear bomber, then operational for only a couple years, was not yet available, or deemed too sensitive to inclusion in B-movies.

Object of Fear -- One of the things that help a big bug movie work, is that the critter is somewhat fearful even when small. Ants are relentless (fire ants, army ants), many people are afraid of spiders, and later movies' scorpions and a mantis -- which are creepy looking, will have their traits magnified. But grasshoppers? They just don't inspire fear. BotE fights an uphill battle in trying to make them fearsome.

Off Screen Action -- BotE makes good use of off-screen events. We are told the town of Ludlow was wiped out. All we see are stock clips of tornado damage. We only read of Peoria's destruction in a telegram. When anyone is 'eaten' by a giant grasshopper, we only see the giant lunge, the victim cower, then cut away. Good for budgets, but also kinder to audiences.

They're NOT After Our Women -- Despite the poster (in which the grasshoppers have curious teeth and fangs), they do not pick up anyone. In fact, they eat everyone quite fairly. One is implied to have eaten the lady in the towel, however, so there is at least a tiny delivery on what the poster promises.

Bottom line? BotE is another in the big bug sub-genre. If you like that sort, you'll likely gloss over the low budget short cuts. As a story, it's pretty conventional and doesn't break any new ground.

The Deadly Mantis

This movie is more in line with the stereotype of low-budget 50s sci-fi. It has a good deal of stock footage, modest special effects for a rampaging monster, mediocre acting and a formulaic plot. Universal, which usually produced above-average sci-fi movies, had a less impressive offering in The Deadly Mantis (DM). Nonetheless, DM is the next in line in the notorious "big bug" sub-genre begun by Them! and the giant ants in 1954.

Quick Plot Synopsis
Seismic activity dislodges a giant praying mantis, frozen in arctic ice since pre-historic times. A mystery builds (though the viewer knows) as to what could have destroyed an arctic radar outpost, crashes a cargo plane and terrorizes an eskimo village. A paleontologist is called in by the Air Force to explain a 5 foot long claw tip found at a wreck site. He eventually identifies it as coming from a gigantic praying mantis which he theorizes was prehistoric -- like the mammoth -- which got quick frozen. The mantis is flying south to find the tropics. Along the way it leaves destruction as it eats people. It arrives in Washington DC. I proves invulnerable to ordinary weapons fire, but flies away to the north east. Before it can reach New York City, a jet fighter collides with it in flight. The pilot bails out. The mantis, hurt, flies down and crawls into the Manhattan Tunnel on the Newark side. The army fills the tunnel with smoke to, perhaps, sedate the monster (like bees) and as visual cover for the team going in. Colonel Parkman leads a team in, wearing full body gas suits. They have small arms and three nerve gas grenades. The find the mantis, still plenty strong. The first grenade doesn't stop it. The second slows it down, and eventually causes it to collapse onto the wrecked cars. It's dead. A closing of it's giant arms towards the female lead provides a last bit of suspense, but it's still dead. Cue trite romantic ending. The End.

Why is this movie fun?
Despite it's low budget and almost oppressive documentary overlays, DM is a good example of the classic "big bug" sub-genre. See more in the Notes Section. Another small joy is hearing Paul Frees as the uncredited narrator of the documentary sections. Such a great classic narrator voice.

Cold War Angle
For a change, the big bug is not the result of careless nuclear tests. Instead, the giant mantis is a surrogate for soviet bombers. You'll even hear the General telling the public that the Mantis's flight sounds like a group of bombers. Note how much of the film trumpets America's three lines of radar defenses in the north, all the scrambled jet fighters and in-flight footage. Note too, the lauding of the Civilian Observer Corps with private citizens manning their rooftops to scan the skies for enemy planes. Almost the whole movie is a big pep rally for how ready America is to detect and intercept any hostile bombers coming from over the north pole (i.e. the U.S.S.R.) Whether the film was intended to make Americans feel safe, or to impress the Soviets, it still amounts to a long infomercial on American air defense.

Notes
Fourth Big Bug -- The giant mantis is fourth in the line of the big bug sub-genre. First were the giant ants of Them! ('54). Second was the giant spider in Tarantula ('55). Third were the giant grasshoppers in Beginning of the End ('57). Our giant mantis was definitely more suited to villainy than the grasshoppers. She would be followed by scorpions, another spider, slugs and leeches -- not technically insects, but in the same vein.

Brought to you by... -- Much of DM reads as in infomercial for the Strategic Air Command. They brag for many long minutes of stock footage about the three lines of defensive radar and all the work men and women went through to build it. They're clearly selling the radar defense lines. DM is almost more about how great our radar is, than it is about a giant bug. (see next item too)

Civilian Observation Corps -- Much is made of the COC and even more stock footage was supplied showing the noble citizens scanning the skies from the beaches (very Churchillian), and rooftop balconies. One shot clearly shows WWII aircraft profiles on the wall. This was the origin of the COC. In the years before radar, human eyes and ears were needed to form the defensive sensory network. The COC remained active after WWII, as the Cold War geared up. But, truth be told, human eyes were not as much help with high flying jets. DM may be the last hurrah for the COC. A chance to spot the surrogate commie bomber (the Mantis) and help save the nation.

Model Monster -- The actual monster in DM is reasonably well done for a low budget movie. You'll note that most of the shots of the articulated model are in so close that you can't see the whole thing. Actuators and strings are out of sight. This works well. The articulated head, with it's pointed mouth is kept on camera for only short bursts. This helps too.

Sappy Romance -- As with many sci-fi monster movies, the producers interject a story thread of romance between two main characters. Perhaps the rule in movie-making back then was that audiences demanded some romantic flavor, no matter what the story. "The End of the World: A love story." Predictably, there is a beautiful unattached woman (Ned's photographer) and the brave Colonel Parkman who commanded the arctic radar base, and then gets to command a squadron of Saber Jets to attack the mantis, then gets to lead the gas grenade squad into the tunnel. That guy had obvious pull with the brass. He was everywhere. As usual, the romantic thread got in the way more than anything.

Bottom line? If you're marathoning big-bug movies, you must watch DM. If you'd like to see a Cold War era movie about soviet bomber metaphor played out, you must watch DM. If you're looking for great acting, or good romance, DM is not for you.

Tarantula

Here we have another installment of the giant bug sub-genre begun by Them! the year before. Tarantula is solidly B material, but is fairly well done nonetheless. Jack Arnold, of Creature from the Black Lagoon fame co-wrote and directed it. Leo Carroll does a good job playing the mad scientist, professor Deemer. The special effects, which are mostly clever camera work, are actually rather well done for the pre-CGI era. Actually, with the deformed scientists subplot, Tarantula is almost two movies in one! One is the usual rampaging monster movie. The other is the detective/murder-mystery movie. The overall result is a very watchable example of classic 50s B sci-fi.

Quick Plot Synopsis
A deformed man wanders out of the southwest desert and dies. The local doctor (Agar) identifies the cause of death as a rare, slow-acting pituitary disease, but the reclusive Professor Deemer (Carroll) says the dead man is his associate, who was fine four days ago. Back in his lab, professor Deemer is giving injections of a nutrient solution to various animals who are very large. One of them is a tarantula in a glass case. Another deformed associate attacks the professor. In the ensuing struggle, the glass case is broken and the huge tarantula escapes out a door. A fire in the lab destroys the other giant animals. Before he dies, the deformed assistant injects the unconscious professor with the nutrient.
A pretty young grad student (Mara Corday) arrives to assist the professor. Doc Hastings (Agar) is predictably keen on her. A budding romance is put on hold as a mystery interrupts. Something has been eating a nearby rancher's cows, and then the rancher himself. A pool of white liquid near the skeltons is analyzed. It's tarantula venom -- gallons of it. Finally, the giant spider (now as big as a house) is seen and rampages around, making women scream and eating state troopers. The good guys try to blow it up with dynamite, but that fails. All seems lost as the now even larger spider approaches the town. Just in time, the Air Force flies in to the rescue. A squadron of P-80s arrive. Missiles do nothing, but they brought napalm bombs too. Now yer talkin'. The giant spider goes up in flames and the town is saved. The end.

Why is this movie fun?
For one of the giant bug flicks, Tarantula is pretty well done. The mad scientist subplot adds distraction, almost upstaging the giant spider story. The pacing is pretty good (except for a lull in the middle) and keeps interest. Later examples of the giant bug category would get much worse. This one is, by comparison, a gem.

Cold War Angle
There's not much Cold War in Tarantula. A thin connection is the "highly unstable" nature of the solution (to the world's problems) based on radioactive isotopes, but this isn't played up at all. The giant spider isn't cast as a personification of nuclear power, as Godzilla was. He's just a huge natural danger to be stopped by American military might.

Notes
End World Hunger -- What made the spider gigantic? Professor Deemer's synthetic nutrient solution. He worked on to solve world hunger. In his little speech, he noted that the world of 1955 had 2 million people. By 2000, he said there'd be 3.6 million. He says this gravely, as if the world could not support that many. In reality, by 2000 there were 6 billion of us. Deemer's idea was to create a synthetic nutrient that people could live on in lieu of dirt-grown food.

Ironic Justice -- Professor Deemer plays the common archetypal role of the misguided scientist who thinks he knows the best way to tweak nature. Of course, his synthetic nutrient solution creates monsters of animals and disfigured mutants of people. He, himself, falls prey to his own creation -- a fairly typical demise for B-movie impudent scientists. He is disfigured by his own concoction and killed by one of his monsters. In this, the frequent moral is made. Don't mess with nature.

Home Sweet Home -- Deemer's desert home (cum lab) is the "Dabney House" on Universal's back lot. It was featured in several films, such as being Exeter's house in This Island Earth earlier this year ('55). It will be used in the third Creature film, The Creature Walks Among Us ('56). Watch for it.

What Are You Smilin' At? -- One odd feature of the acting, is how often John Agar is smiling when he says his lines. The smiles don't fit the action. It's as if he can't get into character and is too conscious that he's making a monster movie. Since everyone else is able to stay in character, the dopy grin stands out as odd.

They're After Our Women -- Not. The poster art shows the spider with the usual beautiful, swooning woman clutched in his fangs. No such scene appears in the film. The spider eats cows, horses and men. There is, however, one scene which doespush the traditional buttons of "they're-after-our-women". Stephanie is in her room at Deemer's house, in her silky robe, getting for bed. The giant spider is a mega-peeping-tom outside her window, his huge compound eye watching her through the big window. He does start smashing the house, but doesn't seem to be after her. He does get Deemer, but no writhing leggy/buxom woman in the fangs.

Creature Theme -- Perhaps it's because Tarantula has the same director as the first two Creature films, but you'll note several times that when the spider is attacking, a familiar discordant three-note theme is used in the music. It's almost identical to the Creature from the Black Lagoon's special music theme. Perhaps Jack Arnold got to feeling that all monsters needed it, so instructed them to put it in.

Future Star Spotting -- This is pure movie trivia. Clint Eastwood gets a small uncredited part. It's easy to miss unless you're looking for it. He is the squadron leader of the Air Force jets coming to bomb the spider. He's wearing the full helmet, so you can't see his face. His voice is distinctive, though, as he orders his jets in to attack. Trivial, but fun.

Bottom line? Tarantula is not high cinematic art, but an entertaining example of the big bug sci-fi subgenre.

Them!

This is the movie that started the giant bug sub-genre within sci-fi. Sure, cheap B-grade sci- fi would later become typified by radiation-spawned giant tarantulas, grasshoppers, praying mantises, wasps, etc. But when Warner Brothers released Them!, it was the first time audiences had faced giant carnivorous insects. Others would repeat the premise, but never matched the power of Them! and the giant ants. It pays to be first.

Them! is in black and white, but not because it was done by one of the usual B-grade studios. Warner Brothers, an "A" studio" got cold feet just prior to shooting and scaled back the budget. Plans to shoot color were scrapped. In many ways, this not only didn't hurt Them!, but actually helped. Them! was Warner Bros. top grossing movie of 1954, which included Alfred Hitchcock's Dial M for Murder, a variant of the Edgar Allan Poe story, Phantom of the Rue Morgue, and a Doris Day / Frank Sinatra romance, Young at Heart. Given the context, Them! was more of a solid successful A film than B-cheapy.

Quick Plot Synopsis
State Police troopers find a little girl walking through the New Mexico desert. She's in shock. Her parents are missing and their travel trailer is wrecked. A few miles away, a local store owner is found dead in his wrecked store. A trooper is also missing and presumed dead. A father-daughter pair of scientists join trooper Ben Peterson (James Whitmore) and FBI agent Robert Graham (James Arness) in looking for the answer. They find a giant nest out in the desert. Even though they kill all the ants within, three young queens have hatched and flown away to establish new nests. Two of the new nests ultimately fail, but one succeeds in the sewer tunnels beneath Los Angelos. Strange sights and bizarre deaths alert the authorities that the ants have a new home. Ben, Robert, the two Doctors and good ol' US Army troops comb the storm drain tunnels for the ants and two lost boys. Ben finds the boys, rescues them, but is crushed by the jaws of a giant ant. Robert leads the army in to killed the ants in the egg chamber before three new queens can fly and spread new nests. The world is saved.

Why is this movie fun?
There's much to enjoy in Them!. The acting is A-level, neither wooden nor over-the-top. The format is part murder mystery, part monster film. The direction is tight, with a variety of shots employed, (long shots, close-ups, cuts, etc.) that keep the pace brisk. The director and cinematographer showed great skill in getting rich tones and textures out of black and white. Note, especially, the night scene in the floodway basin.

Oh sure, the giant ants are just big articulated props and look a little silly after decades of special effects refinements and CGI. They do, however, benefit from being "full size" rather than superimposed (close-up) real bugs or stop-motion models laced in via green-screen. The actors have the benefit of actually seeing a giant ant head to react to.

Cold War Angle
Them! is mostly the radiation fear sub-genre, giant critter variant. Atomic testing, imprudent introduction of radiation, caused the humble ants to mutate. To paraphrase Ishiro Honda (creator of Godzilla) the giant ants become radiation made flesh. They kill innocents. They spread far and wide on the wind to bring new destruction far from the original site.

Notes
Actor Spotting -- Look for William Schallert as the ambulance driver. Young Leonard Nemoy gets a bit part with a couple lines, as a sergeant in the intelligence office. Fess Parker, who would become Disney's TV Daniel Boone, gets the small role as the Texas pilot institutionalized for crazy talk about ant-shaped UFOs.

Pseudo-biblical -- At one point, Dr. Medford worries aloud about mankind's chances against giant ants. "We may be witnesses to a biblical prophesy come true. 'And there shall be destruction and darkness come over creation, and the beasts shall reign over the earth.' " That sounds biblical, but there is no such prophecy in the Bible. Movies today can spout fake verses and get away with it because most viewers are biblically clueless. But, back in the 50s, the general public had much more Bible awareness.
To give the writers the benefit of the doubt, it could be a paraphrase of Jerimiah's prophecy about the destruction of Jerusalem at Nebucanezzer's hands. Or, perhaps it's conflation of events in the Book of Revelation. The trouble with both, is that the beasts never rule. They just move in because God removed the people. This doesn't resolve Dr. Medford's non-verse, however, so it remains a bit of movie mystery.

Flattering Imitators -- Many of the scenes in Them! were so strong that they were repeated in later movies. These were sci-fi "firsts" in Them!. Look for the searching-through-sewers scenes. You'll see it again in the 50s, but even as late as T2. The egg chamber and burning the eggs shows up again in Alien and others. The big critter head popping into the scene will get copied almost ad nauseum. The images from Them! made a big impression on the sci-fi movie culture. Watch for the repeats in later films.

They're NOT After Our Women -- Despite the movie poster, which shows a giant ant clutching a scantily clad screaming beauty in its mandibles, no such scene ever happens in Them. In fact, the only people the ants kill are men (excluding Mrs. Ellinson, whom we never see a trace of). There's only one brief scene in which the lone scout ant startles Pat. She scrambles away and the men loose a hail of gunfire on the beast, killing it. It is interesting that no attempt is made to evoke the tribal abduction angst. The ants were never after our women. Refreshing.