Bonus 36 - THEM!

I read an article by an entomologist who talked about some of the issues with Them!, including the sad fact that insects of that size would be unable to breathe due to their relatively inefficient respiration. The most delightful observation, though, was that insect limbs are not very strong against lateral sheer, so the best weapon to use on the giant ants would have been bricks. You could have rendered them helpless by just pitching bricks at their legs and shattering them. Keep that in your "survive giant insect invasion" toolkit!

Peter Larsen

Does anyone know which Godzilla film ends with a main character rebelliously thumbing his nose at Godzilla. He lights his cigarette to show he isn't afraid/won't submit, and Godzilla looks at him and smashes the entire side of the building? It's killing me!

I agree about you guys checking out Shin, but I think a full-on dive into all the layers in the original Godzilla would be a great episode. The commentary on the Criterion release offers a lot of insight on how it speaks to the post-war Japanese identity. Thanks as always!

Actually, *sniff* lungs are sacks that are inflated by the action of the diaphragm... *ahem* Which is why that scene in Midsommar (the chicken house) is flawed. *aaaaaa-hem* Irritating, but still scary as h*ll. (ﾉ°ヮ°)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧ The more you know! 。.。:+* ゜ ゜゜ *+:。jk

I think you'll find they are merely jazz indifferent.

I don’t think it’s been mentioned and I can’t remember where I read it (many years ago) but I believe Them! was a big inspiration for James Cameron and Aliens. The marines investigating the hive, getting in over their heads, a catatonic Newt clutching her toy.

Excellent talk, fellow drones! I cannot possibly express enough how thrilled I am that the film never falls into the maddeningly stupid trope that the queen ants are controlling the others. This film handles it correctly. The queens are not the brains of the operation; they are the ovaries. There's also a nice gesture toward doomsday math. The first nest is revealed to have spawned two queens. We don't really know about the ship, but the LA nest, again, has two queens. Two doesn't seem all that bad. But if it holds with two per nest, well, it takes a startlingly short time to overrun the planet with giant ants. Sugar snarfing, jazz hating, vomit sharing ants.

I had the same thought.

Next cover The Giant Gila Monster. :)

Ben Gilbert

Ants may not like jazz but bees like to shake their booties.

This movie was a pretty big part of my childhood. It had HEAVY rotation on TBS, particularly mid days and weekends. The other movie I remember having a similar heavy rotation on TBS was the 1972 film “Gargoyles”. I know Gargoyles was also featured on the amazing “Super Scary Saturday” tv show (hosted by Grampa Munster, with WCW wrestlers frequently guest hosting), and there’s a good chance Them! was featured there also. I guess the main place Them! occupies in my mind, personally, is a show that would come on every time I stayed home sick from school. An earlier poster mentioned it playing on Home Box Office, and that sounds right, as well... great show guys, thanks for making me remember such fun things.

Great episode! I need to dig the film back out for another watch. Might be too late for this comment to get seen, but if you liked the Classic Gojira film with it’s commentary on bureaucratic nonsense, Shin Godzilla came out a few years ago and is an excellent film with a very disturbing take on our favorite Kaiju.

Robert Curtin

I always remember this because in the book he was called Red because of the colour of his hair, and in the movie they cast Morgan Freeman, who is not a redhead.

Pearce Duncan

This was shown constantly on Sammy Terry (my childhood haunted host) Still, totally absorbs when I watch. It's aged extremely well. A testament to just the ambient talent level draped casually around Hollywood at that time! Visually, it's got a gorgeous lush feel, the script is smart, the actors subtle in places and you can tell everyone involved really made something they cared about. I mean, magical Ed Gwenn is magical despite having terrible arthritis and wearing wool in the desert!

It Came from the Desert is one of those things that are better in my head than it actually was, but that opening sequence is permanently and fairly accurately burned into my brain. But other than that, this movie, that game and some other black & white show - possibly (googling...) The Zanti Misfits, an episode of the 1960s Outer Limits run - are all fused together in one big ”giant ants in the desert” adventure.

I’m a millennial but “Them!” was one of my favorite movies as a kid, as I was really into ants and often had an ant farm. On the one hand the ants in the movie weren’t that impressive due to the limits of SFX at the time. On the other hand, like you say, if the movie was done today the ants would be so creepy that you “wouldn’t want to talk about it.” So that makes me wonder, what would be the right level of creepiness for ant SFX in a modern remake? Also: I’d love to hear you cover HG Wells “Empire of the Ants.” Thanks for all your great work, and a great episode! :)

Another great piece of media that was inspired by this film: "The desert. Unchanged for millions of years, yet witness to a biblical prophecy come true - that one day, the meek shall inherit the Earth." https://youtu.be/qTL-D3AX6H4 I want to see a prequel about the Cask of Amontillado ant - “For the love of God, Mantressor!!!”

I read the book Keep Watching the Skies by Bill Warren, a massive tome unpacking 50s sci-fi movies. He mentions how occasionally in these films a scientist gets mentioned with a name like "Pat" who shows up and surprises the male lead by being a woman. When one successful film did it imitators followed the pattern.

David Halstead

His name was Brooks. The thing he carved on the beam was “Brooks was here.” Red was Morgan Freeman’s character.

The specevo tinkerer in me was slightly annoyed in this episode. Chad, the reason people say ants don't have lungs is because they just don't. They've got a system that fills a similar role, but the whole mechanism is different. A lung is a sack that inflates and deflates to circulate air. That is the *only* thing a lung is. When people say cars don't have legs and then describe tires, do you say "Well they just don't have *human* legs"?

Mandy Reznor (She_It)

That was great fun. Cheers!

Steve

Ants might not have jazz but they have music for sex people.

Steve

You've never heard of Viva Knievel!, They Call me Mister Tibbs! and other exclamation free films such Robin and the Seven Hoods, and In Like Flint?

Steve

When I was about six or seven, my bother (aged 5 or 6), snuck downstairs late one night while my parents were watching them. He saw some of it from behind the sofa until they discovered him, and then they let him watch the rest of the movie. The next day he told me how great it was. I've still not seen it.

Steve

Awesome episode, gents! And your "series of tubes" breathing explanation made me think of another barely comprehensible freak of nature that was originally spawned in the 50's and then came back to haunt us: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTonHRerMC4

We watched Phase IV again over here last night, and heartily second wanting an episode on it!

Richard Horsman

I’ve always wanted to see the tests they made for filming Them in Technicolor. It was all set until two days before shooting, when Jack Warner decreed that it was going to be in b&w. Apparently he thought it was going to be junk and didn’t want to waste money. The movie went on to be the studio’s biggest moneymaker of the year.

Pearce Duncan

William Schallert was in Mant, the movie-within-the-movie in Matinee about a half-man half-ant

Pearce Duncan

Wow, this episode brings back great memories. Sitting on the couch with my mom, watching this on HBO back when it was still called Home Box Office. The Blob immediately aired after Them! - great double feature. To this day, my 75-year-old mom and I still wiggle our fingers above our heads like antenna and make the “deeleeleeleelee” ant sound. Growing up is overrated. Also, can’t believe y’all passed up an opportunity when talking about the special effects to use “ANT-amatronic”

Great stuff, but I feel that the 50’s gets short shrift for how “crazy” it was. Read Halberstam’s book on the 50’s. A brutal war, massive race issues, PTSD and worse for literally millions of veterans. Hollywood defined the 50’s and exaggerated so much (like the 60’s as well).

Andrew Brown

This was just a super, super discussion of the movie, with lots of lovely ant facts to know and tell, and also the insight that these movies are always about something more than just giant ants rampaging through the LA sewers. But! William Schallert played Nilz Baris, the annoying Federation Undersecretary for Agricultural Affairs, in The Trouble With Tribbles, not the Klingon agent disguised as a smarmy human. Also, yes, Phase IV is definitely worth consideration as another movie about something more than just ants building monoliths out in the Arizona desert.

A fun conversation to listen to on a film I too had pushed back in my memory as a just goofy childhood adventure. I’m sure I won’t be the only one to mention this but I’d love to hear the both of you cover the *other* infamous ant movie, 1974’s Phase IV from Saul Bass. As THEM! is a social capsule of 50s culture & concerns, Phase IV captures very 70s anxieties - it’s properly both eerie & weird. Bonus points if you can see a copy with the ‘true’, really gonzo ending. As always the balance of recap & insights that the two of you have grown into is always a pleasure to listen to.

Joshua