wanttaja
En-Route
I watched “Them” while standing in the lobby of the theater on my 10th birthday! It was too intense for me at 10. And to make it worse, the critters (mutated ants) made noises that mimicked the sound of crickets chirping. Ugh! I didn’t sleep well for weeks!
IMDB says it’s a “recorded chorus of bird-voiced tree frogs.”
Back when I was a kid, I watched this movie on TV one Saturday evening, then got up early to deliver newspapers on a cold Sunday morning. I was walking down the street, loaded bag over my shoulder, when I heard it.
A weird undulating wail and whistle. Coming from behind. Getting closer. Getting louder.
I turned around quickly. It was a car, its fan belt slipping in the cold weather. Sounding EXACTLY like the ants in “Them!” One wonders how a bunch of bird-voiced tree frogs had been able to afford a Plymouth.
Lotsa great trivia about "Them." Walt Disney was looking to cast a new TV series, and came to the movie to view James Arness. He liked a secondary character better, a pilot from Texas who had been locked up in the looney bin because he saw huge ants flying.
And that's how Fess Parker became Davy Crockett. John Wayne saw "Them" and recommended Arness for a new TV western: "Gunsmoke."
Leonard Nimoy is in it, too.
Ron Wanttaja