By JOE WINTERS

A little girl wandering aimlessly in the New Mexico desert. A trail of destruction and death. The theft of massive amounts of sugar! All the evidence points to some kind of maniac, but for a strange high pitched chirping sound echoing across the desert winds. A whiff of formic acid (the type found in ants) later revives the child, who screams "Them! Them!"

Local police sergeant Ben Peterson, F.B.I. agent Robert Graham, entomologist Harold Medford and his daughter Patricia encounter the first of Them about 30 minutes into the picture. Giant ants, ranging up to 12 feet in length, mutated by atomic radiation, the result of nuclear testing which itself was a real life fact of the previous ten years.

"We may be witnesses to a Biblical prophecy come true," says Professor Medford, "and there shall be destruction and darkness come over the creation…and the beast shall reign over the Earth." Cyanide gas dropped into the nest, followed by a tour of that nest lead to the discovery of two empty eggs and no winged ants. Two queens and their consorts have moved on.

"We haven’t seen the end of Them," declares the Professor. "We’ve only had a close view of the beginning of what may be the end of us."

Later, a pilot claims he saw three ant-shaped flying saucers headed west. Next, the S.S.Viking is infested by giant ants and sunk. A trail of dead male ants, a 40-ton sugar theft and a talkative drunk point our heroes toward 700 miles of tunnels under Los Angeles. Martial law is declared.

Ben rescues two boys trapped by ants, but at the cost of his own life. The military moves in and destroys the remaining ants and eggs. The humans seem to have spoiled the ants’ picnic for good, but the question is raised, "If these monsters got started as a result of the first atomic bomb in 1945, what about all the others that have been exploded since then?"

On the heels of their 1953 monster hit The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms (also released by an atomic blast), Warner Brothers gave us Them the following year. Originally planned for color and 3-D, the film was shot in black and white with only the title appearing in huge 3-D-like red and blue letters. Regardless, Them, directed by Gordon Douglas, was the studio’s biggest moneymaker released in 1954.

Before long, other studios were jumping on the big bug bandwagon with Tarantula (Universal, 1955), The Deadly Mantis (Universal, 1957), giant grasshoppers in Beginning Of The End (Republic, 1957), and The Black Scorpion (Warner Brothers, 1957), to name a few. None could match the power of Them, which besides being the first of the big bug brigade, generated mystery and suspense and benefited from careful casting.

James Whitmore played the heroic, down-to-earth cop. Edmund Gwenn, an Academy Award winner for his role as Kris Kringle in Miracle On 34^th Street (1947), was nice old Dr. Medford with Joan Weldon as his lovely daughter. James Arness, who had the title role in The Thing (1951), had more to say this time around and displayed the likeable traits that would serve him well for years as Marshall Matt Dillon on TV’s Gunsmoke. Sandy Descher, who later appeared in Jack Arnold’s The Space Children (1958), played the little girl who cried "Them!"

In small parts were familiar faces such as Fess Parker (soon to be Disney’s Davy Crockett) as the pilot under psychiatric observation, Richard Deacon as a reporter, and Dub Taylor as a night watchman. Also on hand, Onslow Stevens (House Of Dracula), a young Leonard Nimoy and William Schallert, a veteran of many a sci-fi classic, in one of his doctor roles.

The large scale mechanical ants themselves were the creation of the studio’s effects team, and while not of the stop-motion variety of many other monsters, still created quite a stir.

Ants are a model of organization, strength, and ferocity. They wage war, make slaves of other ants, and, of course, mate. Most male ants are winged for life. Queen ants lose their wings after mating, while the males lose their lives. Other females, wingless and mostly barren from the outset, make up the workforce and care for the young.

Big or small, ants can be a handful as Charlton Heston found out shortly before Them in Paramount’s The Naked Jungle (1954) with its horde of South American soldier ants on the march and chewing on everything and anybody in their path.

Movie ants more or less bided their time until Phase IV (Paramount, 1974). The result of pollution, these hypnotic (and regular size) insects wage war on scientists at an Arizona desert outpost (filmed in England) with some surprising results. Directed by renowned film title designer Saul Bass, PHASE IV emerges as one of the more intelligent ant thrillers.

Not as intelligent, but more fun, was Empire Of The Ants (American International, 1977). But what would you expect from producer/director/ screenwriter Bert I. Gordon? B.I.G. monster movies, such as The Amazing Colossal Man, The Spider, Food Of The Gods, and the aforementioned Beginning Of The End, were an endearing staple of 50’s sci-fi.

Based on H.G. Wells’s short story, the movie begins with a bit of background on how ants forage, build, herd aphids, communicate and give orders with the aid of a mind-bending chemical. Radioactive waste dumped into the sea sets the plot in motion as a bitchy entrepreneur (Joan Collins) and a cynical skipper (Robert Lansing) take prospective investors to an island resort to be taken. As one workman puts it, "She’ll bring a boatload of slobs down here and convince ‘em its paradise."

We get the occasional ant’s-eye view (accompanied by the familiar sound from Them) as stereotype tourists fumble about until about a half-hour into the film when one couple is killed, followed by the discovery of the remains of an island worker. The giant ants are of the Gordon superimposed variety, except for close-ups. The ants blow up the boat, stranding the humans. Jaws-type music heralds the danger as some folks are killed, while others are herded and enslaved at the sugar refinery where the mayor, the sheriff and others are under the ants’ control and producing the sweet stuff at full blast.

At times the ants appear to climb on the sky behind the refinery just as the grasshoppers did on the photo of Chicago’s Wrigley Building in Beginning Of The End twenty years earlier. The queen ant screams as Lansing attacks with a flare. The human slaves snap out of it, while queen ant and queen bee (Joan) die together in the burning refinery.

That same year, a TV movie called It Happened At Lakewood Manor served up another course on another resort with a cast including Three’s Company star Suzanne Somers. Later re-titled Ants, the film lacked the bite of other entomological efforts.

Ants made a comeback of sorts in director Joe Dante’s comedy Matinee (1993) where a William Castle-type producer (played by John Goodman) unveils his latest film in a Florida town in 1962.

The film within the film is called MANT, and features Fifties sci-fi faves Kevin McCarthy (Invasion Of The Body Snatchers), Robert Cornthwaite (the head scientist from The Thing) and William Schallert as the doctor. Matinee is a fun and loving tribute to big bug movies and to movie-going itself.

Ants, on the other hand remain no laughing matter, but, as with bees, don’t bother them and they won’t bother you…we hope.

Thanks, Joe!  You know, Them is not only a great monster movie, it's just a great movie, period.   Even folks who don't like big bug flicks like Them.  It's a true classic sci-fi monster film and, in its own right, has never been topped.  We'd invite Them to any HORROR-WOOD company picnic.  Pass the potato salad, please.

Article copyright © Joe Winters.

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"Regardless, Them, directed by Gordon Douglas, was the studio’s biggest moneymaker released in 1954..."