THEM!
1954

3D FILMS

3D films appeared in 1952 with a film called Bwana Devil which was based on a story by Arch Obler. The 3D films show two images simultaneously and required the audience wear special glasses that merge the images and give it depth Bwana Devil was followed by a film called Man in the Dark (1953) which takes place in part in Coney Island and then by a film called House of Wax (1953) which launched Vincent Price’s career as a horror film star. House of Wax was a remake of a film called Murder in the Wax Museum (1933) which starred Fay Wray of King Kong (1933) fame! Some well known directors like Alfred Hitchcock entered into the spirit of 3D and made Hitchcock made Dial M for Murder (1954) as a 3D film.

As far as 3D films go, Them! is not one of them, but it was planned that way and many of the shots were storyboarded for 3D. On the first day of shooting one of the cameras malfunctioned and as a result the decision was made not to delay the shooting, but they continue the shoot as a 2D film, although the set ups were still done as though the film were 3D even though it was no longer being shot that way. .Many people think they have seen it in 3D but haven’t. See if you can spot some of the “tell tale shots” that imply a original 3D approach to the film.

. BACKGROUND TO THE 50’s

The films of the 50’s were made at a time that was on the one hand economically secure and yet tense. The “communist menace” was a major issue. McCarthyism was the order of the day for some.

1953-1961 Eisenhower was president.. 1945-53 was Truman

In 1954, because Communism was seen as "godless", under pressure from the Knights of Columbus the words “under God” were added to the Pledge moving it to a religious area.

There were inn fact a number of fears about the acquisition of nuclear weapons in the 50's. The fact that several people had been arrested for selling secret information about the atomic bombs to the Russians, and those people had confessed, made things even mopre uncomfortable. Records found in the Soviet Union after Glasnost indicates that at least in some of the "suspicious" cases (like Julius Rosenberg), the person was,in fact actually involved. Into all this came the McCarthy hearings which heavily impacted the film industry. Blackliosting people who refused to testify or who would not “name names”,

(Note that most of the liberal left in this country has argued that the fall of Russia does not imply the failure of communism, but that neither the Soviet Union nor Russia was never a communist country!)

The films of the 1950’s therefore reflect hevily this socio-political anti communist situation. The idea of Communism, government takeovers, people being asked to “identify” neighbors in Communist countries as well as here. It would appear that the very things that made communism frightening were also the things that the HUAC thought it should do to protect itself.

One can see parallels between the panic of the 50’s with communism and some aspects of the current “war on terrorism”,

The film Them! appears in the middle of all this. Can you spot communist metaphors in the script? Can you see if the film is pro-or anti communist. One of the interesting problems is that art is open to various interpretations and in general many works can be interpreted with virtually opposite meanings. This leads to the complexity of trying to decide if some work is in fact pro-left or right.

Two actors who were to be come famous appear in the film in small parts: Fess Parker who become Disney's Davy Corckett and Leonard Nimoy who would become Mr. Spcok on Star Trek.

AFTER THE FILM

THEM!

The film uses mechanical monsters, rather than some kind of graphics of film work. In this film you should watch for all the things we discussed previously about the monsters:

The first shots are from a plane over the desert, when we see the little girl walking alone. The shot establishes not only isolation, and the location, but makes the child look even smaller. (Compare the statement about people looking like "ants" made by Harry Lime in The Third Man). This makes a nice juxtaposition making people look small, the way ants do, and then ants becoming large.

Off screen sound is another way of building tension. What you can see but not hear in unnerving. We hear the sound of something, rather quietly (which will be the sound of the ants) when officers Peterson and Blackburn are at the trailer. Moments later we hear it louder as Peterson talks with the medic. They look out into the desert, and the child for the first time reacts to something. SHe sits up when she hears the sound. The audience now links the sound with the cause of her condition. We hear the sound again when officer Blackburn is left alone in the general store. He turns off the radio and turns out the lights. He leaves the building and we see him pass the window. We see nothing more of Blackburn, but we here shots fired and his screams. Again all off screen sounds.

When the animals themselves first appear it is in a kind of sandstorm and again they are hidden in part by the weather. It is not until the ant appears out of the enst and tosses the thorax down the slope that we finally see them clearly. The gun belt indicates they are definitely what officer Blackburn heard outside the store, and what killed him.

The people themselves are made to look somewhat insect like when they put on the goggles in the sandstorm that makes them appear to have bulging eyes, and also when their eyes are accentuated when they wear the gas masks in the tunnels. This imagery is an indication that the ants are representation in some ways of people (hence can be taken as the "commumist menace". The fact that the ants can fly off and start new nests and breed, is also indicative of the ability of communism to be able to spread and set up new cells in different places.

From a film point of view, notice the way the long expository material discussed by the news reporters becomes voice over for the scenes of the military entering Los Angeles. Dr. Harold Medford is a bumbling character whose inability to function in the real world is somewhat limited. He doesn't know he should wear goggles, he gets them on wrong, doesn't understand how to talk on the radio and so on. Both he and his daughter, Dr. Pat Medford are initially secretive and unwilling to discuss what they think is happening. The FBI agent Robert Graham and police officer Ben Peterson are more social. Peterson especially is paternalistic to the lost girl, concerned about the kids in the sewer and their mother and so on.

This sets up a situation where the forces of order are kindly and scientists (although they know their business) are a bit odd. The forces of order may need the scientists, but they are the ones who are more personally involved,

The giant ants seem to be lacking in personality. This might imply a distinct difference between monsters who have personalities and those that don't. The Giant ants are not unlike the dinosaurs in many of the films (Lost World and King Kong for example) while others, like the Mummy or the Frankenstein monster do. Can you relate this to concepts about human characteristics and what the monsters represent

Religious material turns up here, often from the scientists implying biblical prophecy is about to be fulfilled (thereby linking science and religion - that is the scientist knows his bible) and is in keeping with a right wing approachin the film. Only the idea of a strong woman scientist seems more liberal than conservative.

The film’s “anti-communist” seems to be at working making the ants the bad guys. They are underground and have a cell like structure. They are described as warlike and slave taking. They spread and have hives like “cells”.

The military wants a solution, as do the scientists, but the scientists are a bit more aggravating, but in the end correct. The scientists are at once stereotypic (dotty old fool) and non stereotypic (female) although female scientists were in films often as a love interest (as in this case) for the military man. Neither scientist is “main stream” that is one is old the other female. The police and military on the other hand are basically young males. Governmental order is preserved in that the Federal government (FBI an military) take over and the police are secondary (and die)

The ants and their underground with a variety of cells are a convenient metaphor for communist “cells”