Secrets of the City

Brother, actually. Not borther.

Anyone else spend a good portion of their youth terrified of wolf spiders?

Them was the first monster movie I ever saw. I was 5 years old and I begged my older brother to let me tag along with him and his friends to the Faust theater to see it. After the first or second appearance on screen of the giant ants, I spent most of the rest of the movie in the lobby.

Oh god, why did I click on that wolf spider link? WHY?! Damn you, Max.

I actually did battle (which, of course, involved me squealing in terror while hopping around in my PJs, barefoot) with a wolf spider on our annual family fishing trip two years ago. It finally succumbed to my brother’s massive shoe – my own shoe would have required me to get to close to kill it (sorry, bro). Those things jump, right? Ick. Ick, ick, ick.

The other enormous creepy crawly that I have never seen anywhere else besides Minnesota is The Giant Walking Eyebrow. Ditto on the multitude of icks.

The ants look ludicrous now, of course, but Them still features a smart, funny script, and a really, really freaked out little girl who responds to the smell of boric acid by crying out “Them! Them!” It’s the most frightening scene in the film.

I had a feeling the wold spiders would freak you out, Leigha. When I was a kid, I was afraid to do things like lift the canoe into the water at Christmas Lake, because inevitably a few wolf spider would scramble out, sometimes right across my hand. If you poked at them with sticks, they attacked the sticks. However, they’re not supposed to be aggressive, and I suppose I was never bit by one, for what that’s worth.

I got a large cluster of spider bites on my hip this summer. It took weeks for the welts to go down and it looked horrible. I was attacked while sleeping. If my only defense is to get some Minnesota born Hollywood Hunk to be at my side at night for protection, I’m willing to take those extreme measures.

The acid in Them that made the girl scream was formic acid.
The word myrmecologist was used to describe the scientist, and I don’t hear that word enough.

Wouldn’t a giant crawfish be a lobster?

If my only defense is to get some Minnesota born Hollywood Hunk to be at my side at night for protection, I’m willing to take those extreme measures.

what about a pudgy, pasty, Wisconsin born white boy?
Well, I tried…

Mrs. Lungs told me of a movie that scared the heck out of her about the same age marzasapa went to the Faust (let’s hope he wasn’t a regular later, when Farris Alexander owned the joint). She was “in town” at a cousin’s house, and they stayed up late to watch a scary movie on TV, something her parents forbade back at home. She remembered little about it, other then it scared her greatly and that a little girl about her age was in the move, wandering lost in one scene.

Of course, we are talking about Them.

I have always held that Them is MUCH scarier before you see the giant ants. The anguish in co-star’s James Wittmore’s face as he questions the little girl he finds wandering in the desert — a girl who hold the clues to the stange and brutal killings of her parents, but is too traumatized to speak.

Wow. Why all these years later Them is more than just a movie about big bugs (or one of Hollywood’s first all star, big-budget sci-fi films). It’s a movie that can still send chills, even after all these years.

Back in the 50s, the Faust theater on University ave. was the neighborhood theater in what passed for the ghetto in St. Paul. We lived about 2 blocks away. The guy who ran it must have loved kids because saturday matinees (for 25 cents) included a cartoon marathon, a serial episode (The Crimson Ghost), a drawing for six-packs of coke, and then, of course, the feature. I can still picture the guy standing up on stage, reading ticket stub numbers for the free pop and I don’t think it was Ferris Alexander then. heh. Wouldn’t it be funny if it was?