Burn Everything!

Art © Mark Schultz

Anyone's who's been following this blog knows that it has a soft spot for popular culture and old Sci-Fi flicks. For my money, and I'm not alone in this opinion, one of the best is Them! It may not have dinosaurs but it's got giant ants, so come on! The TCM Movie Morlock site has a recent piece up on 'flamethrowers in movies', and one of the best scenes ever is in Them!

"...The great thing about this scene is that they are doing all of this damage on the say-so of lady scientist Joan Weldon, who heretofore had been all cute in her little suit and cap, dutifully deferring to her egghead dad Edmund Gwenn — but when the ants’ nest is discovered, Weldon goes all zero tolerance. “Burn it!” she commands. And Whitmore and Arness actually question her call (“What?!”), as if to say “But they’re just babies!” “I said burn it,” she barks through her gas mask. “Burn everything!” And they do."

Read the rest at The Movie Morlocks.

This also gives me the chance to showcase this Them!-inspired image by Mark Schultz from his upcoming Various Drawings Vol. 5, out this summer from Flesk Publications.