James Whitmore was one of those veteran actors who had a long and busy career — even two years ago he was still acting, via an appearance on CSI — becoming a solid presence and pleasingly familiar face while seldom really drawing attention to himself.
On these pages he appears in The Harrad Experiment, while modern audiences will most likely recall him as the elderly con Brooks in The Shawshank Redemption. Yet to me and thousands of others he’ll always be Sgt. Ben Peterson from Them! (1954), a film that is arguably the greatest giant monster film of all time, barring King Kong. I’ve watched this picture again at least twice in the last year; once, happily, in a theater. It remains an extraordinarily efficient movie, and one that not only bears up under repeated viewings but improves from them.
Whitmore’s Peterson is the heart of the film, moreso than nominal lead James Arness. (Mention must be made, of course, of Edmund Gwenn’s Prof. Medford as well.) Arness can occasionally be a bit stiff and actory, but Whitmore disappears into his role and is never less than entirely naturalistic and convincing. Mr. Whitmore has provided me with countless hours of deelpy satisfying entertainment via this film alone, and for that, I will always remember him fondly. Thus is the true power of art, through which our lives are immeasurably enriched by people we often don’t even pay a moment’s attention to acknowledge. Godspeed, sir.
