Saw Them! on TCM 1-1-16 and they...

I have this on DVD and still even have 2 versions on VHS. Them has been my favorite movie since I was 8 years old. I'm 60 now. Needless to say my wife and I know the movie pretty well.

I watched this today on TCM and they played a copy that had been altered in that they made it wide screen. The picture quality was excellent, but all they did was crop the top and bottom, which left things a little weird feeling.

An older alteration was back when they put it out on DVD and they blacked out some technical glitches where the dolly used in moving the ant was visible.

I noticed in this version that some scenes were shortened. In the scene where the ants are on the ship and the telegraph guy is taping away there was a background shot of an ant with an obvious dummy in it's mouth, and a quick edit to a different background. The dummy shot and glitch were missing.

The scene where the alcoholic Jensen sings, "Make me a sergeant..." was shortened in the middle leaving him singing only, "Make me a sergeant and give me the booze". The entire section of him singing, "Make me a sergeant and charge the booze" was missing.


I also saw one at the end of the final ant fight. Some dialogue was missing in there and the battle where the beam falls on the guy was noticeably shorter.

I kinda wish they would leave the old stuff alone and just update the medium as needed. I likes seeing the glitches and fun stuff.


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Make me a sergeant and charge the booze!