The Thing from Another World (1951) - film review

At the North Pole, a group of scientists led by Dr Carrington are engaged on important research into Arctic conditions.  When a large metal object crash-lands into the ice not far from the base, Carrington notifies the U.S. military and an Air Force crew is despatched to investigate.  The mysterious object turns out to be a large circular spaceship of unknown origin, almost entirely buried beneath the polar surface.  To free the ship from the ice, Captain Hendry gives the order for thermal explosives to be detonated, but these merely destroy the craft.  Amid the wreckage, a body is discovered, perfectly preserved in a block of ice.  Hendry’s men take the body back to the research base just as a severe Arctic storm breaks.  Carrington is eager to thaw the ice block so that he can make a scientific examination of what is undoubtedly an alien life form, but Hendry insists that no action is to be taken until he has heard from his superiors.  When its icy shroud is accidentally melted by an electric blanket, the alien creature is revived and flees into the stormy Arctic wasteland.  In its escape, the creature is attacked by sled dogs, which manage to rip off one of its arms.  Carrington’s analysis of the severed arm reveals that the creature is more vegetable than animal and that it has the means to reproduce rapidly, by shedding seedpods from its skin.  When the blood-drained body of a sled dog is found in the base’s greenhouse, a terrible truth becomes apparent.  The creature feeds on blood...

The first film to successfully combine horror and science-fiction elements in a contemporary setting, The Thing From Another World remains one of the best examples of its genre, in spite of its dearth of special effects and extreme budgetary limitations.  The film spawned a veritable barrage of inferior B-movie sci-fi monster romps and was the inspiration for John Carpenter’s ambitious but hopelessly flawed 1982 remake, The Thing.   Whereas The Day the Earth Stood Still, released the same year, gave us an optimistic portrayal of man’s first contact with an alien species, The Thing From Another World goes to the other extreme, presenting audiences with the kind of extra-terrestrial monstrosity they would become more familiar with, one that would rip out your intestines and turn you into a nice tasty snack before it even got round to whipping out its business card and saying hello (a bit like double glazing salesmen in fact).

This gloomier portrayal of alien contact was far more in tune with the prevailing mood of the time.  In the aftermath of Hiroshima, the general public had grown wary of scientific progress and increasingly saw scientists as dangerous fanatics who would ultimately bring about the destruction of mankind.  Meanwhile, the emergence of the Soviet Union as a superpower was fuelling anti-Communist paranoia, particularly in the United States, where political opportunists used fear of an imminent Soviet invasion to their own end.  Whilst it may not have been intended as a political film, The Thing From Another World manages to capture these concerns vividly, providing a template for a whole raft of sci-fi B-movies that would thrill and chill audiences over the ensuing decade.

One of the big debates about this film is who actually directed it.  Although Christian Nyby is credited as the film’s director, it is widely believed that the real creative force behind it was its producer, Howard Hawks, one of the most talented and versatile filmmakers working in Hollywood at the time.  Hawks had already earned a name for himself with such diverse genres as gangster thrillers (Scarface, 1932), screwball comedies (His Girl Friday, 1940) and classic westerns (Red River, 1948), but it still seems extraordinary that he would define, if not invent, a whole new genre, the sci-fi horror movie.  Hawks’s influence on The Thing From Another World can be felt both in its artistic design (the confined, claustrophobic setting and use of harsh lighting), its  near-documentary realism, and its convincing portrayal of human interaction in a stressful situation.

The Thing From Another World may tread new ground in the sci-fi department but it is also an effective homage to the old Universal horror films of the 1930s.  The creature, a lumbering seven foot monstrosity that is only seen fleetingly, almost entirely in shadowy long shot, bears a striking resemblance to Universal’s Frankenstein monster.  The darkly oppressive mood (achieved through slick lighting and ingenious set design) also evoke something of the early Universal horror films, although somehow Hawks manages to make his film far more chilling and sinister.  Here, the monster is an amalgam of all the great Universal horror icons – it looks like a hybrid of Frankenstein’s monster and the Mummy, it has the ferocity of the Wolf Man, and, best of all, it has an appetite for human blood that makes Dracula seem like a casual drinker.

The film was inspired by the short story Who Goes There? by John W. Campbell, Jr. (under the pseudonym Don A. Stuart).  Hawks and his screenwriter, Charles Lederer, dispensed with the more fanciful elements of the story (such as the ability of the alien to change its shape) to focus our attention on its human aspects, particularly the reaction to the threat of an alien attack and the conflict between scientific curiosity and the base instinct for survival.  The understated yet compelling performances – notably from Kenneth Tobey  and Margaret Sheridan – and an intelligent screenplay make up for the lack of special effects and the low budget sets.  The result is an engrossing and thoroughly spine-tingling science-fiction horror film, arguably the best of its kind, and one that will definitely give you nightmares, especially when the snow falls.  Watch the skies, and tremble.

© filmsdefrance.com 2010

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