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The Thing from Another World

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The Thing from Another World
Image of 1951 theatrical poster
1951 theatrical poster
Directed byChristian Nyby
Howard Hawks (uncredited)
Screenplay byCharles Lederer
Howard Hawks
(uncredited)
Ben Hecht
(uncredited)
StarringMargaret Sheridan
Kenneth Tobey
Douglas Spencer
Robert O. Cornthwaite
James Arness
CinematographyRussell Harlan, ASC
Edited byRoland Gross
Music byDimitri Tiomkin
Production
company
Winchester Pictures Corporation
Distributed byRKO Radio Pictures
Release date
  • April 29, 1951 (1951-04-29)
Running time
87 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Box office$1,950,000 (US rentals)[1]

The Thing from Another World (often referred to as The Thing before its 1982 remake), is a 1951 science fiction film based on the 1938 novella "Who Goes There?" by John W. Campbell (writing under the pseudonym of "Don A. Stuart"). It tells the story of an Air Force crew and scientists at a remote Arctic research outpost who are forced to defend themselves from a malevolent plant-based alien being. It stars Kenneth Tobey, Margaret Sheridan, Robert Cornthwaite and Douglas Spencer. James Arness played The Thing, but he is difficult to recognize in costume and makeup, due to both the lighting and other effects used to obscure his features. No actors are named during the film's dramatic opening credits; the cast credits appear at the end of the film. The movie was partly filmed in Glacier National Park and interior sets built at a Los Angeles ice storage plant. In 2001 the film was deemed to be a "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant motion picture by the United States Library of Congress and was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.

Plot synopsis

A United States Air Force re-supply crew is dispatched by General Fogerty (David McMahon) from Anchorage, Alaska at the request of Dr. Carrington (Robert Cornthwaite), the chief scientist working at North Pole base, Polar Expedition Six. They have evidence that an unknown flying craft has crashed nearby. Reporter Ned Scott (Douglas Spencer) tags along on the trip. After they arrive, a minor romantic sub-plot unfolds as a part of the story, involving Captain Pat Hendry (Kenneth Tobey) and Carrington's secretary, Nikki Nicholson (Margaret Sheridan), whom Hendry knows from past association.

Dr. Carrington briefs the airmen, and Dr. Redding (George Fenneman) shows photos of a very heavy object moving erratically before crashing; not the movements of a meteor. Hendry comments: "20,000 tons of steel is an awful lot of metal for an airplane." "It is for the sort of airplane we know, Captain," Carrington responds. Following Geiger counter readings, the crew and scientists fly to the crash site aboard the supply team's C-47 transport. The mysterious craft lays buried beneath refrozen ice, with just the tip of a rounded airfoil protruding from the surface. As they spread out to outline the craft's shape, they realize they are standing in a circle; they have discovered a crashed flying saucer. They try to uncover it with thermite heat bombs, but in doing so ignite the ship's metal alloy, causing an explosion that destroys the saucer. Sergeant Bob's (Dewey Martin) Geiger counter points to a frozen body buried nearby.

Using pick axes, they excavate a large block of ice around the tall body and fly it back to the research outpost as a major Arctic storm begins to move into their region; it finally cuts off their communications with Anchorage. Some of the scientists want to thaw out the body immediately, but Hendry issues orders for everyone to wait until he receives further instructions from the Air Force. Feeling uneasy guarding the body, Corporal Barnes (William Self) covers the ice block with a blanket, not realizing it is a still plugged and warm electric blanket; as the ice slowly melts, the creature thaws, revives, and finally escapes outside to the sub-zero cold of the raging storm.

The creature is attacked by sled dogs and the scientists are able to recover a severed arm. As the arm warms up, it ingests some of the dead dogs' blood covering it, and then the hand begins to move. They soon discover seed pods in its palm, demonstrating that the creature is a form of plant life and not human. Dr. Carrington is convinced that the creature can be reasoned with and has much to teach them, but Dr. Chapman (John Dierkes) and the others disagree; the Air Force personnel are sure the alien may be dangerous.

Carrington deduces their visitor requires blood to survive and reproduce. He later discovers the body of a dead sled dog in the base's greenhouse; the alien has forced the lock on the greenhouse's door and bent it back in shape. Carrington has Dr. Voorhees (Paul Frees), Dr. Olsen and Dr. Auerbach, stand guard overnight, waiting for it to return.

Later, Carrington secretly uses blood plasma from the infirmary to incubate seedlings grown from the alien pods; he does not tell anyone what he has done. Later, in the greenhouse, the strung-up bodies of Olsen and Auerbach are discovered, drained of all blood. Dr. Stern (Eduard Franz) is almost killed by the creature but escapes to warn others. Nikki reluctantly updates Hendry when he asks about missing plasma and confronts Carrington in his lab, where he discovers the seeds have grown at an alarming rate. Dr. Wilson (Everett Glass) advises Carrington that he hasn't slept, but Carrington remains unconcerned. Hendry then rushes to the greenhouse after hearing what happened there: The alien visitor is right behind the door as Hendry opens it, and he immediately slams the door on the creature's regrown arm as it tries to grab him; as the alien pulls its arm back through, its barbed knuckles rip the door's trim to splinters.

It escapes through the greenhouse's exterior door and breaks into another building in the compound. Following Nikki's suggestion, Hendry and his men set a trap in a nearby room: They set the creature ablaze using a flare gun and buckets of kerosene, forcing it to jump through a window into the sub-zero storm.

Nikki notices that the temperature inside the station is dropping quickly; a heating fuel line has been sabotaged by the alien. The cold forces everyone to make a final stand near the generator room. They rig an electrical "fly trap", hoping to electrocute the creature. As it advances, Carrington twice tries to save it by shutting off the power and by reasoning directly with it; the alien throws him aside and continues to advance. An airman throws a pick axe at the creature, forcing it to step directly on their hidden electrical grid; a switch is thrown and the alien is reduced to a smoldering pile of ash. Hendry then orders all traces of the alien visitor, including the new seedlings, to be completely destroyed.

When the weather finally clears, Scotty is able to file his "story of a lifetime" by radio to a roomful of his fellow reporters in Anchorage. During his report on the harrowing events, Scotty broadcasts a warning to the reporters listening: "Tell the world. Tell this to everyone, wherever they are. Watch the skies everywhere. Keep looking. Keep watching the skies."

Cast

Production notes

The film was loosely adapted by Charles Lederer, with uncredited rewrites from Howard Hawks and Ben Hecht, from the 1938 novella "Who Goes There?" by John W. Campbell, Jr.; it was originally published in Astounding Science Fiction under Campbell's pseudonym Don A. Stuart.

The film took full advantage of the national feelings of the time to help enhance the horror elements of the story. The film reflected a post-Hiroshima skepticism about science and negative views of scientists who meddle with things better left alone. In the end it is American servicemen and sensible scientists who win the day over the alien invader.

The screenplay changes the fundamental nature of the alien as presented in Campbell's novella: Lederer's "Thing" is a humanoid lifeform whose cellular structure is closer to vegetation, although it must feed on blood to survive; one character even describes it as an "intellectual carrot". The internal, plant-like structure of the creature makes it impervious to bullets. In Campbell's original novella, the "Thing" is a life form capable of assuming the physical and mental characteristics of any living thing it encounters; this characteristic was later realized in John Carpenter's 1982 remake of the film (see below).

One of the film's stars, William Self, later became President of 20th Century Fox Television.[2] In describing the production, Self said, "Chris was the director in our eyes, but Howard was the boss in our eyes."[3]

Appearing in a small role was George Fenneman, who at the time was gaining fame as Groucho Marx's announcer on the popular TV show You Bet Your Life. Fenneman has said he had difficulty with the overlapping dialogue in the film.[3]

Director

There is debate as to whether the film was directed by Hawks with Christian Nyby receiving the credit so that Nyby could obtain his Director’s Guild membership,[4][5][6] or whether Nyby directed it with considerable input in both screenplay and advice in directing from producer Hawks[7] for Hawks' Winchester Pictures, which released it through RKO Radio Pictures Inc. Hawks gave Nyby only $5,460 of the $50,000 director's fee that RKO paid and kept the rest, but Hawks denied that he directed the film.[3]

Cast members disagree on Hawks' and Nyby's contributions. Tobey said that "Hawks directed it, all except one scene"[8] while, on the other hand, Fenneman said that "Hawks would once in a while direct, if he had an idea, but it was Chris' show". Cornthwaite said that "Chris always deferred to Hawks, ... Maybe because he did defer to him, people misinterpreted it."[3] Although Self has said that "Hawks was directing the picture from the sidelines",[9] he also has said that "Chris would stage each scene, how to play it. But then he would go over to Howard and ask him for advice, which the actors did not hear ... Even though I was there every day, I don't think any of us can answer the question. Only Chris and Howard can answer the question."[3]

At a reunion of The Thing cast and crew members in 1982, Nyby said:[3]

Did Hawks direct it? That's one of the most inane and ridiculous questions I've ever heard, and people keep asking. That it was Hawks' style. Of course it was. This is a man I studied and wanted to be like. You would certainly emulate and copy the master you're sitting under, which I did. Anyway, if you're taking painting lessons from Rembrandt, you don't take the brush out of the master's hands.[3]

Reaction

Critical and box office reception

The Thing from Another World was released in April 1951[10] and by the end of that year had accrued $1,950,000 in distributors' domestic (U. S. and Canada) rentals, making it the year's 46th biggest earner, beating all other science fiction films released that year, including The Day The Earth Stood Still and When Worlds Collide.[11]

Bosley Crowther in The New York Times observed, “Taking a fantastic notion (or is it, really?), Mr. Hawks has developed a movie that is generous with thrills and chills…Adults and children can have a lot of old-fashioned movie fun at The Thing, but parents should understand their children and think twice before letting them see this film if their emotions are not properly conditioned"[12] "Gene" in Variety complained that the film "lacks genuine entertainment values.”[13] More than twenty years after its theatrical release, science fiction editor and publisher Lester del Rey compared the film unfavorably to the source material, John W. Campbell's "Who Goes There?", calling it "just another monster epic, totally lacking in the force and tension of the original story."[14]

The Thing is now considered by many to be one of the best films of 1951.[15][16][17] The film holds an 89% "Fresh" rating on the review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes, with the consensus that the film "is better than most flying saucer movies, thanks to well-drawn characters and concise, tense plotting".[18] In 2001 the United States Library of Congress deemed the film "culturally significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry.[19] [20] Additionally, Time magazine named The Thing from Another World the greatest 1950s sci-fi movie.[21][22]

Legacy

American Film Institute lists

Remake

  • In 1982, John Carpenter made a more faithful version of Campbell's novella Who Goes There? called The Thing. It was well known that Carpenter was a fan of the original film, as he included considerable footage from it in Halloween. The film stars Kurt Russell as R.J. MacReady.
  • Certain elements of Carpenter's remake were borrowed from the Hawks' film, most notably the film's "slow burning letters" opening title sequence.

References

Notes
  1. ^ 'The Top Box Office Hits of 1951', Variety, January 2, 1952
  2. ^ "Self Promoted to Presidency of 20th-Fox TV"Daily Variety (1968 11 1) Pgs. 1;26
  3. ^ a b c d e f g Fuhrmann, Henry (25 May 1997). "A 'Thing' to His Credit". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 20 April 2012.
  4. ^ p.346 Weaver, Tom Kenneth Tobey Interview Double Feature Creature Attack 2003 McFarland
  5. ^ "And let's get the record straight. The movie was directed by Howard Hawks. Verifiably directed by Howard Hawks. He let his editor, Christian Nyby, take credit. But the kind of feeling between the male characters — the camaraderie, the group of men that has to fight off the evil — it's all pure Hawksian." Carpenter, John (speaker) (2001-09-04). Hidden Values: The Movies of the '50s (Television production). Turner Classic Movies. Retrieved 2009-04-01.
  6. ^ "Christian Nyby: About This Person". New York Times. Retrieved 21 April 2012.
  7. ^ p.344 Mast, Gerald Howard Hawkes, Storyteller 1982 Oxford University Press
  8. ^ Matthews, Melvin E. Jr. (1997). 1950s Science Fiction Films and 9/11: Hostile Aliens, Hollywood, and Today's News. Algora Publishing. p. 14. ISBN 978-0-87586-499-0.
  9. ^ Weaver, Tom (2003). Eye on Science Fiction: 20 Interviews With Classic Sf and Horror Filmmakers. McFarland & Company. p. 272. ISBN 0-7864-1657-2.
  10. ^ Warren, Bill. Keep Watching The Skies Vol I: 1950–1957, pgs. 48–55, McFarland, 1982. ISBN 0-89950-032-3.
  11. ^ Gebert, Michael. The Encyclopedia of Movie Awards (listing of 'Box Office (Domestic Rentals)' for 1951, taken from Variety magazine), St. Martin's Paperbacks, 1996, pg. 156. ISBN 0-668-05308-9. "Rentals" refers to the distributor/studio's share of the box office gross, which, according to Gebert, is roughly half of the money generated by ticket sales.
  12. ^ Crowther, Bosley (May 3, 1951). "THE SCREEN: TWO FILMS HAVE LOCAL PREMIERES; The Thing, an Eerie Scientific Number by Howard Hawks, Opens at the Criterion Communist for F.B.I. New Picture at Strand Theatre, Features Frank Lovejoy At the Criterion". New York Times, May 3, 1951. Retrieved 2011-06-03. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  13. ^ "Gene". The review from Variety dated April 4, 1951, taken from Variety's Complete Science Fiction Reviews, edited by Don Willis, Garland Publishing, Inc., 1985, pg. 86. ISBN 0-8240-6263-9
  14. ^ del Ray, Lester. "The Three Careers of John W. Campbell", introduction to The Best of John W. Campbell (1973), page 4. ISBN 0-283-97856-2
  15. ^ "The Greatest Films of 1951". AMC Filmsite.org. Retrieved May 23, 2010.
  16. ^ "The Best Movies of 1951 by Rank". Films101.com. Retrieved May 23, 2010.
  17. ^ "Most Popular Feature Films Released in 1951". IMDb.com. Retrieved May 23, 2010.
  18. ^ "The Thing from Another World Movie Reviews, Pictures". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved May 23, 2010.
  19. ^ "Librarian of Congress Names 25 More Films to National Film Registry". press release. Library of Congress. Retrieved 20 April 2012.
  20. ^ "National Film Registry". National Film Registry (National Film Preservation Board, Library of Congress). Retrieved 2011-11-26.
  21. ^ "1950s Sci-Fi Movies: Full List". Time. December 12, 2008. Retrieved June 20, 2010. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  22. ^ "1950s Sci-Fi Movies". Time. December 12, 2008. Retrieved June 20, 2010. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  23. ^ "AFI's 100 Years... 100 Thrills" (PDF). American Film Institute. Retrieved March 7, 2012.
  24. ^ "AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains: The 400 Nominated Characters" (PDF). American Film Institute. Retrieved March 7, 2012.
  25. ^ "AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movie Quotes: The 400 Nominated Movie Quotes" (PDF). American Film Institute. Retrieved March 7, 2012.
  26. ^ "AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition): Official Ballot" (PDF). American Film Institute. Retrieved March 7, 2012.
  27. ^ "AFI's 10 Top 10: The Official Ballot" (PDF). American Film Institute. Retrieved March 7, 2012.
  28. ^ Collura, Scott. "Exclusive: Moore Talks The Thing".
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