"Them" (1954) was one of the very first ‘nuclear monster’ movies which explored themes regarding the atomic age, "Them" is also regarded as one of the very best. Telling the story of an ant colony in the New Mexico desert which is enlarged to gigantic proportions thanks to nuclear radiation, the film, like many other science fiction films from the period reflects the growing concern about the effects of nuclear weaponry & ensuning environmental risks. Contemporary 1950's Cold War paranoia also underpins similar scifi films of this period: alien & threatening creatures can be seen as mere sub-conscious reflections of the "red peril" ie, the threat posed by global Communism.

 

Although simple in design, the UK Quad poster for the film is most certainly eye-catching. Intriguingly it does not display the enormous ants themselves (the film itself also did not reveal them until a third of the way through). The poster instead focuses on building suspense about the unknown terror of the creatures. The slanted layout of the title suggests the intimidating and daunting size of the ants whilst the colour scheme, contrasting the yellow/orange background with the red/black of the title evokes a sense of unsettling discomfort. The use of a "graduated" title script was particularly common in 1950's poster designs but was also used through to the 1960's to suggest a sense of epic grandeur as the Quad for "Lonely Ar eThe Brave" also shows (image courtesy of www.moviepostermem.com).

 

 The US 1-Sheet poster (image courtesy of www.moviepostermem.com) used for the film presents an interesting comparison by  promoting instead the image of the very thing that the Quad avoids: the ants. Though the epic size and violent threat of the ants is explicitly shown in the Amereican design, the more subdued approach of the British poster design still conveys perfectly aptly a sense of foreboding, suspense and dread.

 

This particular example has been linen-backed.