Them! (1954)

Anyone who has watched more than one episode of Archer, the very funny animated show about a dysfunctional, and often drunk, secret agent, should be all too aware of what you can do to get ants. Sugar spillages, sweet treats left around, just wandering around making funny noises while waggling discarded car radio aerials from your head, all of these things can attract ants. It wasn't just Archer that told us about this though. Back in 1954 we had Them! to thank for alerting us to the ant menace. These weren't any normal ants either. They were gi-ants.

While the cast here includes James Whitmore as a Sergeant, Edmund Gwenn and Joan Weldon as two scientists who are also father and daughter, and James Arness, the real reason for watching Them! is the giant ants, which are actually shown onscreen earlier than I thought they would be. The film is presented as a mystery for a number of the early scenes, but all of the clues are there to point towards the kind of creatures shown on the movie poster. What begins in the desert landscape of New Mexico will end in the very different terrain of L. A. in a film that holds up as a classic of the "oversized beastie" sub-genre.

Based on a story by George Worthing Yates, adapted and worked into screenplay form by Russell S. Hughes and Ted Sherdeman, Them! benefits from great pacing, more ambition than many of these films would have in subsequent years, and moments of mayhem that, despite being dated, still hold some power when watched today. Director Gordon Douglas does well with material that could have easily been mishandled, keeping things nicely balanced between the mystery, thrills, and the exposition. There's an energy and momentum to the whole thing, and it's somehow also light enough without injecting any forced and eye-rolling humour into any of the main sequences.

Considering how long I waited to finally get around to this, even after finding out about some of the main plot beats and the excitement of the third act, I was expecting to come away from this slightly underwhelmed. That wasn't the case though. This remains very deserving of a special place in the hearts of film fans, and those who love it will struggle to find anything coming close to it. You can get a fantastic film full of normal-sized ants with Phase IV, but your decent overgrown ant movie choices really boil down to just Honey, I Shrunk The Kids and Empire Of The Ants . . . none of the other attempts to wander through this territory have worked for me.

Everyone who is into their monster movies has already seen this by now. I am surely the last. But if you're a newcomer to creature features, or if you've just delayed this for as long as I did, then I highly recommend it. From the concept to the finalised special effects, from the sound design to the spectacle, it's just an absolute winner from start to finish. Get this cast and crew in place . . . and THAT'S how you get ants.

8/10

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Earth Vs. The Flying Saucers (1956)

There are many factors that can influence individual movie viewings, and when writing up a review it's important, I feel, to mention these if they've notably contributed to the final rating/view of a movie. I try to mention the rose-tinted glasses of nostalgia when applicable. I've mentioned when my own lack of knowledge may be working against me when it comes to certain genres/subgenres/world cinema releases (world cinema releases? I do hate that phrase but have never come up with anything better, sorry). Or, of course, it's worth mentioning if you hate one particular type of movie. A review of Halloween will be very different if the film is watched by someone who doesn't like slasher/horror movies. This is all just leading up to me saying that I fairly enjoyed Earth Vs. The Flying Saucers, but I think that has as much to do with me having recently watched Mars Attacks! as it does to do with the final product on display here.

Hugh Marlowe and Joan Taylor star as the couple who may have the key to fending off an attack by aliens when flying saucers starts appearing everywhere and causing lots of destruction. Well, it's mainly Marlowe thinking up the defence/retaliation plan while Taylor is the loving wife bravely sticking by his side. That's really all there is to it.

I don't know, off the top of my head, if anything similar came along before this film so I'm going to take a guess and say that, despite its many flaws and moments of ridiculousness, Earth Vs. The Flying Saucers has remained quite an influential movie. It undoubtedly cast a large shadow over Independence Day, a film made and released four decades later, with the scenes featuring flying saucers hovering over, and ready to attack, some very famous buildings and landmarks.

Director Fred F. Sears keeps things moving briskly enough, and the script by George Worthing Yates and Bernard Gordon (based on a NON-FICTION book by Donald E. Keyhoe) may often be downright silly most of the time, but is also very entertaining.

The acting isn't the best, but I guess Marlowe and Taylor do okay in the lead roles. Donald Curtis and John Zaremba are two main supporting cast members, both do fine with their limited screentime.

The special effects by Ray Harryhausen are fine. Sadly, he doesn't get to create any living, breathing creatures of myth, but the flying saucers are good, old-fashioned flying saucers that work just fine onscreen. The model work helping to realise the big scenes of destruction in the final reel is nice enough, even if it's not on a par with his usual stuff.

Part of me wonders why I enjoyed Earth Vs. The Flying Saucers so much, but another part of me knows that . . . . . . . sometimes that's just the way it goes. I saw all of the failings and mis-steps, I just found myself easily able to overlook them thanks to the sheer fun factor of the whole thing.

6/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ray-Harryhausen-Collection-Million-Saucers/dp/B0012OTRR0/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1369521808&sr=8-3&keywords=earth+vs+the+flying+saucers

It Came From Beneath The Sea (1955)

It Came From Beneath The Sea is one of many creature features from the 1950s that takes a cue from the threat of nuclear power. It features some great, as usual, special effects from Ray Harryhausen, but I rate it below the more enjoyable movies that he would help create in glorious technicolour.

When a submarine gets itself into a bit of trouble underwater, curiosity is aroused once it is eventually freed and some animal tissue is found attached to it. The animal tissue is from something big, very big. Two marine biologists (Lesley Joyce, played by Faith Domergue, and John Carter, played by Donald Curtis) are called in to investigate further. It's not long until they come to the conclusion that they're dealing with a giant octopus, one that has been made bigger and also starved of its usual food supply by some hydrogen bomb testing. As they race to find a way to deal with the creature, helped by Commander Pete Mathews (Kenneth Tobey), they attempt to resolve the whole situation without panicking the general public. The octopus, however, has other ideas. Especially when it gets close enough to the Golden Gate Bridge.

Director Robert Gordon doesn't do too bad a job here, but he's hampered by a stilted script written by George Worthing Yates and Harold Jacob Smith. The actors are also affected by the poor dialogue that they have to deliver. The flirting between Professor Joyce and Commander Mathews is clumsy and hard to believe, while poor Dr. Carter doesn't get to do all that much until the big finale. Oh, he's present in a lot of scenes, but he may as well not be. As for the rest of the cast - such as Ian Keith, Dean Maddox Jr and Chuck Griffiths - they all blend into the background. They play their part in the grand scheme, and deliver the lines that they get to deliver, but there's nobody who stands out. That leaves viewers with three lead characters to root for, two of them stuck with badly written moments of flirtation and one just far too bland to bother about.

The film is lifted by the work of Harryhausen, as most of the films to have his name attached were, and when the giant octopus is onscreen, or partially onscreen, it's an impressive beastie indeed. So impressive that it lifts the entire movie from just below average to just above average.

I don't dislike this movie, but it's one that I won't really revisit while I have other Harryhausen films to choose from. Fans of '50s sci-fi movies will find enough to enjoy here and those making their way through the filmography of Mr. Harryhausen may end up liking it a bit more than I do.

6/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ray-Harryhausen-Collection-Million-Saucers/dp/B0012OTRR0/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1368710058&sr=8-2&keywords=it+came+from+beneath+the+sea