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6:17 a.m. - 2021-02-07 Both movies feature oversized entomological freaks preying on humans and presenting a threat to our very existence. The giant ants are mutants resulting from atomic bomb related irradiation in Alamogordo--a cautionary tale for the nuclear age--while the huge scorpions are ancient creatures released by seismic events in Mexico. Both films feature scientists in key roles. Geologists Hank Scott (Richard Denning) and Arturo Ramos (Carlos Rivas) are aided by entomologist Dr Velasco (Carlos Musquiz) in the scorpion film, while the father and daughter myrmecologist team of Medford and Medford (Edmund Gwenn and Joan Weldon) inform the efforts of law enforcement officers Ben Peterson (James Whitmore) and Robert Graham (James Arness) in "Them!" In both movies a child survives one of the initial attacks: the catatonic child memorably played by Sandy Descher, and an infant in the scorpion film. Both feature the death of a lone police officer, and both puzzle the viewer with mysterious damage--to a trailer in one film and a police car in the other--not easily explained by natural phenomena. Both feature a budding romance which has little to do with the plot, though it's obvious that Richard Denning is a much faster worker than James Arness, and less believably so. The ants and scorpions inhabit underground tunnels, and the investigators are forced to enter them at great risk. Both movies feature children in imminent danger from the outsized creatures, and both require a union of scientific knowledge and military action to defeat the monsters. The sound emitted by the black scorpions is very reminiscent of that arising from the giant ants. "The Black Scorpion" has one notable advantage over "Them!" in the area of special effects. Willis O'Brien, best known for his work on "King Kong" (and a mentor to Ray Harryhausen), oversaw the stop action scenes for the scorpions, including some impressively scary scenes with a giant worm and a trap door spider. An attack on a train, a battle with tanks, and a memorable scene where a scorpion pulls a military helicopter out of the sky are equally striking. By comparison the giant ants in "Them!" seem amateurish--probably the film's greatest weakness. But "Them!" tells its story in a more gripping way, allowing the reader to learn everything in the same time frame as the team of Whitmore and Arness, rather than relying on secondhand accounts as told to the geologists in the scorpion film. The acting in "The Black Scorpion" is workmanlike but not nearly as engaging as the performance of Whitmore, Sandy Descher, Edmund Gwenn, Fess Parker (in a small role that reportedly got him the part of Disney's Davy Crockett), and Olin Howland, the extroverted alcoholic who provides a vital clue to finding the ants' hideaway. "Them!" was a pivotal horror film of the 1950s and one of the best from that era, while "The Black Scorpion" is interesting primarily as an example of the influence of its predecessor, as well as the O'Brien special effects.
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