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Them! (1954)
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Wed Jul 08, 2020 3:42 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

Thinking Outside the "Plot"!
________________________________

~ A Question for the Members: This wonderful movie ends with a perfect setup for a sequel!

The scientists and all the military heroes gaze down at the roasting ants (which all us kids who burned ants with magnifying glasses in the 1950s know what that smells like . . . ) while they voice their concerns about future consequences from atomic testing.

So . . . did we get a direct sequel? No, we didn't. Sad

~ My Theory: More giant ants in the desert would NOT be the way to go. Been there, done that, burned up the damn thing! Rolling Eyes

Ants are the MOST prolific inhabitants of the America Midwest . . . but the aren't the ONLY insect inhabitants. In fact, they aren't even the scariest insects!

Frankly I can deal with a few hundred ants in my kitchen much easier than one lone . . . cockroach! Shocked

Scientist tell us that for every one cockroach we see, there are one thousand more!

Click on the link above and read it for yourself. Or better yet, read this and really get scared! Sad
_______________________________________

Cockroaches are omnivores that eat plants and meat. They have been recorded to eat human flesh of both the living and the dead, although they are more likely to take a bite of fingernails, eyelashes, feet and hands. The bites may cause irritation, lesions and swelling. Some have suffered from minor wound infections.
_______________________________________

So, after Them!, Hollywood could have really freaked out America with a movie about giant cockroaches! Shocked

(I just tossed this out to encourage a discussion. I hope we get one.)

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Krel.
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PostPosted: Wed Jul 08, 2020 11:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Uh-uh, don't touch that dial!

I must offer to you a confession,
I like movies that give me a fright.
If the subject is horror, I got to see more or
I won't be contented all night.
You may call it my ghoulish obsession,
It's a subject on which I get chatty.
But the worst one it seems, haunting all of my dreams
Was the cockroach that ate Cincinnati!

I've seen ghouls and hobgoblins and witches
And some moth-eaten werewolves with fangs.
There were creatures that chattered and others that clattered,
And Japanese monsters with fangs (ah-so).
Frankenstein gives me the shakes,
And Count Dracula's driving me batty.
But they're not on a par with the worst one by far
The cockroach that ate Cincinnati (ha ha ha ha)!

Oh, he must have needed a seltzer.
It's amazing how much he got down!
For lunch, he'd just chew up a suburb or two,
And for dinner, he ate the whole town (Burp!).
Willard just sent me out laughing,
I thought Ben looked a little bit ratty (sorry, sorry about that),
But they're not half as bad as the worst scare I've had -
The Cockroach that ate Cincinnati!

Oh, my heart nearly stopped; he would never be topped -
The cockroach that ate Cincinnati! Ole!

And the song itself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtEpqlrwX5c

David.
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 09, 2020 11:20 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

I loved it as a poem even before I got to the end and found out it was a song!

Thanks, David. Very Happy

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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Thu Dec 03, 2020 6:48 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

TCM aired several classic sci-fi movies today — World With End, Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, Godzilla, Them!, and It Came from Beneath the Sea.

I let them all run on my TV as "background" while posting new comments on All Sci-Fi.

And during Them! it occurred to me (yet again) that with today's technology we could replace the clunky full-sized ants (which I've never been the least bit impressed by) with great CGI versions . . . and create a terrific new version of this movie!

Furthermore, computer colorization has now reached the level at which a b&w movie can be made to look as impressive as the color B movies from the 1950s.

Put these ideas together and you get an enhanced version of this great movie that would make a great Blu-ray box set with loads of special features!

Just for fun, let's also consider the idea of converting the movie into 3D, since it was originally planned to be filmed in three dimensions!

After this spectacular restoration/enhancement has been completed, I'm sure TCM would schedule one their special events at select theaters to present the restored versions of classic films to the movie-loving public.

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Pow
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PostPosted: Thu Dec 03, 2020 9:49 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Author Bill Warren writes in his excellent book covering science-fiction films, "Keep Watching the Skies!" that "Them! is a tight, fast-paced and credible picture.''

"The structure of Them! is simple and intelligent" he further writes.

Reading Warren's book, he can be tough (sometimes too much so in my opinion) on decent sf movies.

However, like all of us, Bill is a huge fan of "Them!"

"Them!" began as a screen treatment by George Worthing Yates. In his original story the mutated giant ants invaded NYC and took over the subway tunnels beneath Manhattan.

Yates wrote an early draft for "Conquest of Space." He would contribute to scripts for "It Came from Beneath the Sea," and "Earth vs. the Flying Saucers."

Side Notes: James Whitmore (Ben Peterson) wore lifts in his shoes due to James Arness (Robert Graham) being 6'6" in height.

Whitmore also employed bits of "business'' during scenes when his character had no dialogue and the focus was on other actors.

Yeah, we call that scene stealing there, Jimbo.

I always admired Whitmore and found him to be a first-rate performer. So I'm surprised he would resort to such cheap movie tricks.

The ants' chirping sound was a mix of tree frogs, calls from wood thrush hooded warbler, and a red-bellied woodpecker. They were recorded on Indian Island, Georgia on April 11, 1947.

"Them!" was nominated for an Oscar in 1954 for Best Special Effects.

The winner that year was Walt Disney's "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea." "Them!" did not stand a chance against such awesome competition. That Oscar went to the right movie.

Dick York (Darren Stephens on "Bewitched") is uncredited as a teenager in a Police Station.

Little Sandy Descher who plays the Ellinson girl wandering in the desert at the beginning of the movie was in the Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis film "3 Ring Circus" from 1954.

Sandy has a notable moment at the end of that film as a sad handicapped girl that Jerry attempts to make laugh.

Harry Wilson who appears in the scene in the alcoholic ward (Please, my nerves.) had acromegaly. This was the same disease that Rondo Hatton also had.

Wilson played the Frankenstein monster in the movie "Frankenstein's Daughter."

Love your ideas for a reboot of Them!, Bud.

I was trying to recall just how many of the classic sf films from the 1950s were remade, rebooted, or had a sequel.

John Carpenter's "The Thing," of which I am a fan.

"The Day the Earth Stood Still," with Keanu Reeves, of which I am not a fan. Although, it did have some interesting elements.

"Invasion of the Body Snatchers." I enjoy the original as well as the Donald Sutherland iteration.

"Forbidden Planet" they've wisely left alone...so far.

So yeah, let's bring back "Them!" as a possible sequel. It hasn't been done since the original movie came out. We're waaay overdue.
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 04, 2020 11:59 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Pow wrote:
Whitmore also employed bits of "business'' during scenes when his character had no dialogue and the focus was on other actors.

Yeah, we call that scene stealing there, Jimbo.

I always admired Whitmore and found him to be a first-rate performer. So I'm surprised he would resort to such cheap movie tricks.

Oh dear, I'm afraid I must strongly disagree. I especially love the character touches that Whitmore added to his role. You see him "thinking like a cop" even when he wasn't talking.

The scene which shows Whitmore matching the fragment of the dolls head and the scrap of clothe from Sandy Dresher's robe is a good example of what I mean — although he did that in a close up while we hear his partner talking on the radio, so I realize that wouldn't be the "scene stealing" you referred to.

Perhaps you could describe a few scenes that would qualify as scene stealing. I suspect that even those scenes won't seem quite as objectionable to me, for the reason I mentioned above
. Very Happy
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Krel
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 04, 2020 2:05 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Pow wrote:
"Forbidden Planet" they've wisely left alone...so far.

They remade "Forbidden Planet" as a low budget movie back in 1995/96. They finished the live-action portion, but ran out of money for the special effects. Laughing A few years back they sold the costumes and other items on eBay.

Information on this remake is practically nonexistent. There is no listing on the IMDB, or information on the cast.

I believe we have a thread on the remake. Or was that on the old board?

David.
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 04, 2020 3:32 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Krel wrote:
I believe we have a thread on the remake. Or was that on the old board?

It was either on the old board or its somewhere in 128 pages of the current Forbidden Planet thread.
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Pow
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 04, 2020 4:04 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

It depends upon just what "business" James Whitmore added to the script, Bud.

Now if he was doing something relevant to the plot in a particular scene, that would be going for a realistic approach and that's fine.

However, if it is merely classic upstaging then that is a cheap trick and unfair to both the story and whoever he is attempting to steal the scene from. Not to mention the audience.

It has been said that there are two types of actors.

One will read and a script and immediately ask themselves how can they serve the scene?

The other reads a script and asks how can the script serve them?

In England, British performers generally subscribe to the first. They find most American actors prefer the second approach whenever they work with them on a production.
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Pow
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PostPosted: Mon Jan 17, 2022 10:35 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

More from Bill Warren's book.

This would be one of the best-known and respected science fiction films of the 1950s if it weren't for a flood of imitations that followed. Them!, which was partly derived from earlier films, was so vivid and so popular that similar films imitated its structure even when there was no need at all to do so.

The basis of Them!---giant ants---was hidden during production. All that was leaked was that it was an SF film. So secretive was Warner Bros. that most people who heard of Them! when it was released knew only that it was about monsters---they were briefly glimpsed in the previews and on the posters---and even many reviewers tended to avoid giving away the secret of the film.

Sidebar: Producers today still attempt to sometimes conceal critical information about a film project they are working on. Sadly, they are up against an all encompassing and intrusive media almost impossible to escape. And I highly doubt any reviewers today would even think to keep a secret of any kind in their reviews.
You also have unsavory individuals that are working on the production who happily will leak unauthorized details to the media.
A very different world now folks.

The plot proceeds by logic and from the behavior of the giant ants, not from the behavior of the characters, who are dragged along by their efforts at destroying the creatures. The structure of Them! is simple and intelligent (some of the details are less so), once the premise has been granted.

Them! opens with a cool, ambiguous shot of the desert. In the original prints, the titles, which come zooming out of the desert air, were printed in a vivid red and blue, the only instance of color titles in a black-and-white film that I have ever encountered.

The film is structures as a mystery, which is why a secret is maintained about what the menace was.

After the carefully-structured and intriguing opening, Them! becomes a straightforward hunt-and-destroy story, and was one of the first of this type.

Them! was intended as a follow-up to Warner Bros.' successful release, Beast from 20,000 fathoms, and included some of the same plot elements.

The script is terse and clean lined, and characterizes the leads well enough for an action melodrama.

Director Gordon Douglas has had an uninteresting career, with only a few high points, Them! being the most prominent. Other good Douglas films include Follow that Dream with Elvis Presley (1962) and The Detective (1968) with Frank Sinatra.

Although the characters are well-developed for a melodrama, they are still somewhat hackneyed.

Without its being intended, I suspect, James Whitmore becomes the center of Them!

Some commentators have seen Them! as a warning against the threat of nuclear accidents, a warning against the use of any forms of atomic energy. But the attitude of Them! toward atomic energy really isn't so blithely stated.

The ants are, indeed unfortunate by-products of atomic testing, but they are only by-products. The warning Them! sounds, even if inadvertently, is only that man has unleashed a genie from an atomic bottle; it may not be easy to put it back. We'll have to learn how to handle the power and to take responsibility for rectifying our errors; if we don't, as Dr. Medford (Edmund Gwenn) says in the fiery finale of Them!, we will vanish from the world's face and the beasts will reign over the Earth.

Sidebar: A very fine review by Bill Warren. I would disagree though with his opinion that "Them! would be one the best-known and respected science fiction films of the 1950s if it weren't for a flood of imitations that followed."

Them! remains popular and highly respected and has, in no way, been diminished by the spate of inferior giant insects movies that followed it. Quality cannot be hurt by clones.

Time has been kind to Them!, it is as well known and popular as any of the finest SF films of the 1950s. It takes its place among the pantheon of such admired and respected SF movies such as The Day the Earth Stood Still, The Thing From Another World, and Forbidden Planet.
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Mon Feb 28, 2022 6:11 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Pow wrote:
Them! remains popular and highly respected and has, in no way, been diminished by the spate of inferior giant insects movies that followed it. Quality cannot be hurt by clones.

What a great statement, Mike! Love it.

While reading your post, it struck me as odd that you seem to love Them! just the way it is, but your not a big fan of The Land Unknown, the way I am.

I like that wonderful "Lost World" film and don't feel it needs any changes. But I feel that the giant ants in Them! are so badly done that they greatly diminish by enjoyment of the movie. Sad

Ironically, you have stated several time that The Land Unknown would be a classic . . . IF Harryhausen had provided stop motion dinosaurs.

Conversely, I think Them! would have been a far better film . . . IF Harryhausen had provided stop motion ants. Sad

Ironically, Bill Warren states that Them! was supposed to be a follow up for The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms — which featured Ray's magnificent Rhedosaurus. Very Happy

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Pow
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PostPosted: Mon Feb 28, 2022 8:52 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

While I am a huge Them! fan, Bruce, I've always advocated that it would have been much better had stop-motion kings Willis O'Brien or Ray Harryhausen had worked their magic on the giant insects.

When I see still photos of the large ant props constructed for the film I'm not all that awed by 'em. As always I am realistic and view special effects within the setting of the era they existed it.

That must take into account a number of factors for the movie.
(1.) Had the effects team ever attempted anything like this before?
(2.) Did any studio ever attempt such a thing previously so that the (then) current effects team had a working example to draw from?
(3.) The existing level of special effects technology available at that time.
(4.) The budget allocated for creating all the necessary special effects on the film in question.

So no way & no how do I expect a film that is decades old to be done by the standards and phenomenal tech we have with us nowadays.

That said, I still can look at certain films and say, nope, the special effect ain't all that special even though they most likely did the best they could at that time with what they had.

We can, however, compare the special effects of films that existed at the same time. Of course, it doesn't always mean that film "A" had the same budget as film "B." We gotta realize that.

So when I view a movie like The Land Unknown, a 1950s "B" film, I can rightfully compare it to something like Ray Harryhausen's The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad. The animation was superb on Sinbad, and had The Land Unknown employed the same skills and techniques it would have been a superior looking film.

Now that's not to take away your enjoyment of the movie. I know you see the same glaring weaknesses of how the dinos are done as I do. But you get a kick out of it and enjoy the cheese factor of it all. I have movies I like that certainly have their special effects flaws.

But back to Them!, I would like to have seen "some of the special effects" done via well done stop-frame animation. Other scenes worked well enough with the massive ant prop built for the movie.

Example: There's a scene where we have the leads flying over a large anthill in a helicopter. As they look downwards they view a massive ant coming out of the burrow to the opening. It then drops a skeletal remains of some animal down the hill where we see it roll along until it stops in the midst of a vast skeletal graveyard.

One of the most chilling scenes in the film.

Now that could have been down via stop-motion and worked great.

Later in the movie we see Jim Arness and company explore the caverns of this same anthill after they've gassed all the ants.

As they are moving through the tunnels a giant ant suddenly crashes through a wall towards them but then immediately collapses. Scary scene!

That particular scene could best be done utilizing one of the giant ant props. The lighting is low due to them being in a tunnel, and the movement of the ant is brief.

Those two aspects of the scene really don't require stop-motion animation which I feel works best when the a scene with an ant is going to run longer, as well as having the ant move around more.

So I feel that such a film as Them!, could have been done beautifully by doing a combination of animation and massive prop.

Look, I get none of this is perfect and some will completely disagree with my approach. We are, after all, discussing giant ants here in a SF film. Heck, the physics alone don't make sense.

But that doesn't mean that I'd love to have seen the filmmakers try it.
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Tue Mar 01, 2022 10:00 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Pow wrote:
I would like to have seen "some of the special effects" done via well done stop-frame animation. Other scenes worked well enough with the massive ant prop built for the movie.

Example: There's a scene where we have the leads flying over a large anthill in a helicopter. As they look downwards they view a massive ant coming out of the burrow to the opening.

Later in the movie we see Jim Arness and company explore the caverns of this same anthill after they've gassed all the ants.

As they are moving through the tunnels a giant ant suddenly crashes through a wall towards them but then immediately collapses. Scary scene! That particular scene could best be done utilizing one of the giant ant props.

Those two aspects of the scene really don't require stop-motion animation which I feel works best when the a scene with an ant is going to run longer, as well as having the ant move around more.

Thanks for your well-crafted reply, Mike. We agree more than I realized concerning the where-and-when to use animation and not to use it. Your examples of the scenes in which the ant props work well are spot on, sir.

By the way, you have an important PM in your In Box that's been there for two days. Please take a look at it and let me know what you think of my idea.
Very Happy
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tmlindsey
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PostPosted: Wed Jul 20, 2022 4:09 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I always thought there should have been a modern sequel made while Arness and Whitmore were still alive. They did leave the sequel door WIDE open with the part about the one (north, I think) sector being out of contact while they were blocking off tunnels. Maybe a SyFy Channel movie, but y'know, actually GOOD. Laughing

The sequel could have had Arness and Weldon's kid or grand kid in or attached to the military and being called in to investigate weird goings on.

When they suspect that it's THEM again, he visits his parents (Arness and Weldon) and they end up discovering Whitmore's character, who was not killed but horribly injured and being kept alive in seclusion by the government.

Even the actress who played the little Ellison girl is still alive and she could have been involved somehow (inspired to study insects by the experience, for example).

I think it could have been a fun sequel if they involved the original cast members as possible and treated it with respect.

Tim L.

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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 21, 2022 12:21 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

__________________________________________________

Praise the Lord! Another member who likes to create imaginary sequels . . . like I do! Very Happy

Tim, your sequel concept it terrific. When you get a chance to look through the rest of the Them! thread you'll find several other concepts which have been pitched.

My favorite is the one about the ants invading the incredible tunnel system beneath Las Vegas!

The little girl in Them! was played by Sandy Drescher. She was one of the Magnificent Seven Space Children in (you guessed it . . . ) The Space Children (1958) (<— link), which happens to be one of my all-time favorite sci-fi movies.

Sandy is third from the left. Very Happy




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