Them!

1954's THEM! is admirably a big bug movie with brains, one of several potentially campy period science fiction programmers of its era, yet so well mounted and tense that any deficiencies can be easily forgiven.  Director Gordon Douglas in fact rarely lets his film fall into hokiness, even as we see twelve foot long mechanical ants wrap their sharp mandibles around various unfortunates.  The first view of them elicits a brief laugh/groan, but they become sufficiently menacing as the movie progresses, especially when we reach the queen's nest in the sewers of Los Angeles during the climax.

The story begins in the New Mexico desert.  A young catatonic girl wanders aimlessly as Sgt. Ben Peterson (James Whitmore) and others attempt to elicit a response.  This only occurs after entomologist Dr. Harold Medford (Edmund Gwenn) places some formic acid under her nose, after which she screams the film's title.  It seems that this acid was also found in the corpses of a general store owner and others.   Along with Medford's scientist daughter Dr. Pat Medford (Joan Weldon) and federal agent Robert Graham (James Arness),  Ben and Harold discover that those atomic bomb tests performed in the '40s, with their radioactive clouds, spawned mutant Formicidae, which devor mountains of sugar and go on to wreak havoc aboard a Navy freighter before they take to L.A.  Enough of a crisis for martial law to be declared.

THEM!, a major studio release, is a "B" movie to the core, but restrained enough to actually be involving and even a bit disturbing.  Ted Sherdeman and Russell Hughes' screenplay does get talky in the middle stretch, perhaps a bit bogged down by investigative Q & A, but the scientific explanations sound plausible and are delivered earnestly (watch for Leonard Nimoy in a bit part).  There are also plenty of moments for those craving insect invasion type horror, and well executed action scenes during which flamethrowers, rocket launchers, and machine guns are brandished.  Douglas does particularly solid work during the exciting finale, set in the storm drains under the L.A. River drainage channel.

As a political statement, THEM! is never heavy handed or preachy, saving any overt sermonizing for the very last scene.   As Dr. Harold Medford delivers his summation after the wreckage, it's hard to argue with his neutral but forboding words.