Sometimes I start one place, go down a side road, end up elsewhere, and find my way back to say goodbye.

The 1950s-1960s movie and television character actor Christian Drake, who played Trooper Ed Blackburn in the classic 1954 film Them!, has died at the age of 82. Is it a coincidence that I just flipped on my television to catch the last hour of this movie on cable? Bizarre!

The film Them! was directed by Gordon Douglas, who would later be the director for Skullduggery, a fascinating 1970 cryptozoology film about the Tropi (pictured below), bipedal hairy hominoids, which are so-called "missing links" living in the jungles of New Guinea.

The studio promoted the plot as being about what happens when an "expedition into the interior of Papua New Guinea comes across a tribe of ape-like people who may or may not be ancestors of early man."

Considering the focus in the last couple of years has been on the Flores Hobbits and the Malaysian Johor Mawas, Hominid, or Bigfoot, this film serves as a historic visual curiosity. I am in awe at how ineffective the Tropi creations for the movie were. Beautiful Asian actors were employed and hair stuck on their bodies (directly and indirectly). Frankly, there’s nothing too Johor Hominid about them. No interpretative sketches are needed. These are hominological movie bipeds at their most lame.

Skullduggery is also a rather unbelievable film in content, which ranges from environmentalist conspiracy rants about the military-industrial complex to an incredible courtroom finale involving the Black Panthers. The film’s expedition is lead by a character named "Douglas Temple," played by none other than Burt Reynolds.

The story seems to contain elements from the real but shadowy life of OSS-operative and cryptozoology-aware Tom Slick. Slick headed a 1950s expedition to New Guinea to look for unknown hominids or maybe even Amazons. The movie’s plot was reportedly based on the novel Ye Shall Know Them by the French novelist Vercoeur. Vercoeur was allegedly the pseudonym for former Indochinese intelligence services agent Pierre Boulle, who wrote The Bridge on the River Kwai (1952) and Planet of the Apes (1963). One does measure a circle, beginning anywhere.

So, back to Drake and his monster movie.

Them!, Warner Brothers’ highest grossing film of 1954, is recalled as the first modern American motion picture to have "monsters" generated by mutations due to nuclear activity. Tests of nuclear bombs in the New Mexico proving grounds are found to be the source of sightings and killings caused by giant ants in the desert. In the beginning of the movie, the usual scenario occurs where local residents begin to have some extraordinary encounters that are not believed by the authorities. Even a sinister government coverup is shown, with an eyewitness not being released from a mental hospital to keep him quiet. In the end, of course, the oridinary folks are correct, and something bizarre comes to a head underneath Los Angeles.

This movie created science fiction film motifs that live on in modern cinema (e.g. Alien, AVP, Evolution, Terminator 2) and on television (e.g. The X-Files, Surface) through the use of storm tunnels, flame-throwers, top-secret files, and frightening monsters caused by human atomic mistakes.

Them! included significant actors, such as James Arness and James Whitmore. The movie also has appearances by the future soon-to-be-discovered Davy Crockett, actor Fess Parker playing a confused eyewitness ( "Alan Crotty") who reports some winged giant ants as flying saucers. Look closely and you will see a youthful not-yet-Spock Leonard Nimoy as an Air Force sergeant. They both were billed lower than Christian Drake.

So today, a tip of the hat to Drake, who appeared in Them!, and a salute to his passage to a place that will always be perhaps a little more exotic for him than for most.

The following is the LA published obituary.

WILLIAMSBURG – Christian Drake passed away July 9, 2006, in Williamsburg. He was born Dec. 11, 1923, in Elmont, Va. At the age of 6, his family moved to southern California where he lived until 1992 when he returned to Virginia, residing in Kingsmill.

He is survived by his wife of 48 years, Peggy, and his four children; Ron of Seattle, Wash., Christian Drake II of Boise, Idaho, Dannye Drake Ivey of Vienna, Va., and Morgan Drake of Chula Vista, Calif.; six grandchildren; two sisters; and many nieces and nephews. His special loves were his two grandsons, Kevin (14) and Brad (11) Ivey of Vienna.

Christian served with the Marine Raiders in World War II. Always a Marine, he was proud of his service behind Japanese lines on Guadalcanal where he was wounded and returned to the United States, spending a year in various hospitals.

After his return, he was discovered and signed to a contract at RKO Studios. He spent many years in the movie and television industry, being in over 110 movies and television shows. In 1954, he co-starred in a television series, "Sheena: Queen of the Jungle," where he played Bob the White Hunter, spending almost a year in Mexico filming. He also starred in "Forever My Love," the first film made in Japan with an American, living in Japan for a year.

In 1958, he entered the real estate profession, in time owning 11 offices on the Palos Verdes Peninsula, retiring in 1990. He was proudest of his family and his Marine Raiders. "Semper Fi."

Visitation will be at Nelsen Funeral Home, 3785 Strawberry Plains Road, Williamsburg on Thursday, July 13, from 7 to 8:30 p.m. A private burial service will take place at a family burial site in Ashland, Va. Nelsen Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.

Thanks to Rusty at Einsiders.com