THEM!

“THEM!!” is possibly the best of the B-Movie Sci-Fi-Horror flicks ever.
Watch Marshall Dillon (James Arness) enlist the help of Santa Claus (Edmund Gwenn) to track down whom or what is killing people in the New Mexican desert. The key to this 1954 opus is that it presents the story has a murder mystery. James Whitmore (Who looks a lot like Spencer Tracy) stars as a crusty New Mexico highway patrolman who finds a little girl played by Sandy Descher (Miracle on 34th Street) wandering in the desert.

Keep watching to spot Leonard Nimoy and Fess Parker in minor parts.

SPOILER ALERT

Stop here, watch the movie and come back.

Did you like the movie? This is one of my favorite scenes…

This movie was number one of a Saturday morning sci-fi Double Feature that I played for the kids as soon as they were old enough to change the channels. It was cute to see them bounce up and down yelling “SHOOT THE ANTENNAE! SHOOT THE ANTENNAE!” But check out Spencer Tracy running back to the squad car to get the Thompson out of the trunk. Now there’s a man of action.

I’ve been watching this movie since about 1966 or 1967 and probably is responsible for my life-long love of flame throwers.

Yeah, they’re puppets but the plot is so good you tend to forget. Like the mechanical shark in Jaws, you don’t see much of THEM. Technically this is a RED SCARE movie and you have to love it when the U.S. Army swings into action at the end of the movie.

It was this role that got James Arness the role of Matt Dillon on “Gunsmoke” when the TV producers spotted him. Fess Parker also won his role of “Davy Crockett” when Walt Disney saw him in THEM!