‘Them’, Sci.-fi. horror at American Embassy

Hollywood sci-fi movie ‘Them’ will be screened at 6.30 pm on Tuesday, January 16 at the American Embassy auditorium, Colombo 3.

Directed by Gordon Douglas the film was the Warner Bros' highest grossing film of 1954. The film was nominated for the Best Effects and Special Effects at the Oscar awards 1955.

The film begins with Peterson (Whitmore) investigating a string of mysterious attacks and killings in the New Mexico desert.

The death of a vacationing FBI agent and most of his family (except for a hysterical little girl) brings in Graham (Arness), and the discovery of a strange set of tracks that attracts the attention of the Medfords (Gwenn and Weldon), a father/daughter team of entomologists from Washington D.C., who theorize and then prove that the culprits are a nest of giant ants, mutated by nearby atomic testing. The authorities attack the nest with poison and kill them, but not before two young queens hatch out and fly away to establish new nests. One ends up onboard an ocean-going freighter, which is overrun by the ants, then sunk by the military.

The other sets up her nest in the Los Angeles sewer system, forcing the US Army to declare martial law and launch a major assault. Peterson rescues two young boys from the nest, at the cost of his own life.

The queen and egg chamber are destroyed with flamethrowers, but the senior Dr. Medford issues a grim warning that the atomic genie has been let out of the bottle, and further horrors may await mankind.