Them! is the first of the "big" creature features—its outsized ants would lead to gargantuan grasshoppers, extra-large leeches, massive mantises, colossal crabs, and that greatest of redundant enormities, the giant behemoth. The cause of this gigantism is radiation—spillage from some lax lab or military mishap in service of a Cold War gone haphazardly hot. Here, ants the size of picnic tables are found along a barren stretch of New Mexico desert—curiously close to Alamogordo. The entomologist assigned to the case (Edmund Gwenn) quickly determines that the strange killers with a sweet tooth are "a giant mutation . . . engendered by lingering radiation from the explosion of the first atomic bomb." What has (human) nature wrought? The nest of mutated monsters is destroyed, but the ants have been antsy: the queen has moved on. Undaunted, the army will make sure she's only queen for a day. Or will they? Them! should be rated R for the adult use of radioactive material.

—Steve Seid

• Written by Ted Sherdeman, from a story by George Worthing. Photographed by Sid Hickox. With James Whitmore, Edmund Gwenn, Joan Weldon, James Arness. (93 mins, B&W, 35mm, From Warner Bros.)