Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Who Goes There?
A spaceship crash-lands in the Arctic, and a nearby scientific research station finds itself threatened by a creature from beyond the stars. Sci-fi/horror flicks of the 1950s fall into two broad categories: so bad, it's good, and very good, indeed. This film is near the top of the second group. It clearly shows the influence of producer Howard Hawks. The lean script, the snappy dialogue, and the emphasis on professionalism blend well with chilling suspense. The bare bones creature-feature story may seem trite by current standards, but not in the context of 1951. Stalwart monster-movie veteran Kenneth Tobey is the only truly familiar face in the cast. What the cast lacks in marquee value, it compensates for in deft performances. The plot quickly unfolds and there is a refreshing absence of subplots. The occasional reference to a sometime romance between Capt. Pat Hendry (Tobey) and Nikki (Margaret Sheridan) barely qualifies, and is mainly for comic relief. There is a stark difference of perspective in the forward-looking thinkers of the science contingent and the pragmatists of the military group. Dr. Carrington and Capt. Hendry vie for control of the space creature, which they believe they have captive. The Thing, however, has plans of its own. The Thing (James Arness) uses human blood from unwilling donors to cultivate progeny in the Arctic station greenhouse. The title character is on camera only a short amount of time. Even so, the lurking, unseen terror of the unknown adds to the delightful sense of raised hackles. It is wonderful what one can do with minimalist special effects, and B&W photography. Collectors of classic sci-fi/horror flicks definitely need this one. ;-)
Rating: - Everyone! Everywhere! Keep watching this movie!
Nifty premise: An Air Force crew recovers a frozen extraterrestrial from an Arctic crash site and accidentally thaws it out to wreak havoc on a remote scientific base. The notion of a physically superior "intellectual carrot" species from outer space with the potential to wipe out mankind, but requiring human blood to propagate itself, must have been unsettling indeed to a public still recovering from a world war and just beginning to hate and fear the threat of communism. It's a white knuckle ride as the flyboys (led by the stolid Kenneth Tobey) plot to destroy the murderous vegetable over the protests of a haughty professor, who just wants to make nice with his otherworldly guest. In the end, Boy Scout know-how wins out over science's insatiable curiosity, as the carrot creature is literally cooked by an ingeniously contrived electrical arc.In my humble opinion, this is one of the three best thinking man's B-movie sci-fi classics (the other two being "The Day the Earth Stood Still" and "Invasion of the Body Snatchers") from a decade that saw half-baked alien invader flicks churned out by the dozen. The acting is natural, the script - chockablock with witty, often overlapping dialogue - is intelligent, the atmosphere is nail-bitingly claustrophobic and the effects are actually pretty darn good for 1951. Douglas Spencer nearly steals the show as a wisenheimer reporter with all the best lines who, after forgetting to snap a picture of James Arness's rampaging creature in the flick's whiz-bang climax, executes what is probably the best dead faint in film history. (That's midget Billy Curtis, by the way, playing the alien in its final death throes.) Lingering controversy dogs the flick's directorship, with contemporary wisdom holding that Howard Hawks, rather than the credited Christian Nyby, called the shots. (Orson Welles is even rumored to have been involved in some capacity.) Whoever's responsible: Bravo, and pass the popcorn.
Rating: - Extra! Air Force crew saves world from alien carrot monster!
"The Thing From Another World" remains the best of the 1950's black & white science fiction films, avoiding both the fake monsters of "Them," its ideological counterpart, and the piety of "The Day the Earth Stood Still." I still remember the first time I saw this movie and realized that here were characters who talked as fast as I did. I know Robert Altman and "M*A*S*H" get the credit for "inventing" over-lapping dialogue, but that seems a bit absurd to me after watching the conversation and group discussions throughout this film. As John Carpenter reminded us in his 1982 "remake," the 1951 version is not even remotely faithful to John W. Campbell, Jr.'s classic sci-fi short story, "Who Goes There?" Campbell wrote of a stranger visitor from another planet who could take on human appearance, so that the problem was that you never knew if the guy sitting next to you was your buddy or the monster. "The Thing" offers a monster from outer space, but with atmosphere, pacing and wit rarely seen on the silver screen. Charles Lederer gets screen credit for the script, but we know know both Howard Hawks and Ben Hecht had a hand in the writing as well (you can find Lederer's original script on line to check out the differences for yourself), and it has been taken as gospel for years that Hawks had some hand in the direction as well (as did Orson Welles according to some). After all, this was Christian Nyby's first screen credit as a director and he went on to direct mostly television series from "Gunsmoke" to "Kojak." Whatever the background of the story, what is important is that this film manages to combine claustrophobia, xenophobia, paranoia and hypothermia into a first rate chiller. The story is relatively simple. Something crashes in the arctic near a scientific station and Air Force Captain Patrick Hendry (Kenneth Tobey) and his crew fly on up to see what is going on. The station is run by Dr. Arthur Carrington (Robert Cornthwaite), who may well be the haughitest scientist on the planet. Just to make things interesting Hendry has a relationship with the good Doctor's secretarial assistant, Nikki Nicholson (Margaret Sheridan, technically the "star" of the film). The group heads out to the crash site, where they find something buried in the ice. In one of the most famous (not to mention inexpensive) special effects shots of all time, the group traces out the shape of the buried object and discover'it is round. When attempts to use thermite to thaw out the space ship only end up destroying it, the crew finds the "pilot" has been thrown clear and frozen in a block of ice, which they obligingly take back to the station and where an electric blanket used so the armed guard does not have to look at that thing in the ice serves as the deus ex machina for getting the creature out and about. Mayhem then ensues. Note: I remember people referring to the Thing (played by James Arness, who avoids monster makeup as the heroic FBI agent in "Them") as the "carrot monster" movie because the creature is more like a sentient vegetable than any animal. Unlike "Them" where the military willingly listens to the nice elderly scientists to get the big bad giant ants, "The Thing" has a more complex socio-political sub-text. Dr. Carrington declares "Knowledge is more important than life" and pontificates about how "There are no enemies in science, only phenomena to be studied." Offering a more objective point of view is Ned "Scotty" Scott (Douglas Spenser), a reporter who came along for the ride and stumbled onto the story of the century, who pointedly asks, "What can we learn from that thing except a quicker way to die?" Thus we have a conflict in the group between the scientists and the military men, although in the end it is Carrington alone who refuses to see the errors of his freethinking ways. But more importantly, Captain Hendry is not the true hero of the piece, and one of the great running gags of this film is that he is always trying to catch up with the plots of his crew, especially Bob (Dewey Martin) the crew chief, whether in regards to finding a way of dealing with the carrot monster or trying to get their captain to settle down with Nikki. Another great thing about this film is that the romantic subplot is one of the most unromantic subplots in movie history, having to do mostly with what may or may not have been said during a drinking engagement on a previous weekend. This is one of those science fiction films where if you do not love it then you probably have not seen it, although you have probably seen people watching "The Thing" since it pops up in both "Halloween" and "Scream." Not until "Alien" do we have such a superb combination of science fiction and horror, and I would still pick the simple elegance of this 50 year old film over the special effects of Ridley Scott's film. Just compare two scenes from these films to prove by point: the chest-buster scene from "Alien" and the gieger-counter scene from "The Thing." In 2001 "The Thing" was added to the National Film registry, which is a totally appropriate piece of timing. Finally, remember: "Watch the skies, everywhere! Keep looking. Keep watching the skies!"
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