Them Ants

Thank you for the affectionate look at “Them!” which indeed created the genre for the giant bug movies (“Them!” Giant Ants That Spawned a Film Legacy,” by Bob Groves, April 17).

As a child I saw most of these movies with my father. Together in the dark we watched every bug known to man as it stomped across desert floors, huge mandibles seizing cars for the fatal crunch.

Reading Groves’ article made me think how innocent things were then--the movies and the theaters that showed them

There was a theater in my hometown that didn’t advertise in the paper, so my father had to call them up. Asked what was playing one day, a somewhat testy box-office attendant snapped, “ ‘Sweet Smell of Success’ and something about a great big horsefly.”

The horsefly turned out to be “The Deadly Mantis,” yet another little pest grown to monolith proportions, courtesy of the prolific atom bomb. We went. And we had a good time.

DOUGLAS SOESBE

Los Angeles