We’re
someplace cold: The sign outside the
Officer’s Club tells us we’re at an
army base in Anchorage, Alaska where a winter storm
bitterly roars unabated. A lone figure
makes his way out of the cold and into the
Club to thaw out. While shaking the snow
off, ace reporter Ned Scott (Douglas
Spencer) recognizes one of the
pilots playing cards with two other
airmen. Lt. Eddie Dykes (James
Young) remembers
Scotty, and introduces him to Captain
Patrick Hendry and Lt. "Mac"
McPherson (Ken Tobey and Robert
Nichols).
Although
the credits list him as Ken Erickson,
and several characters actually refer to
him as Ken during the film, at some
point, Nichol's character was changed to
McPherson. I know there was a Ken
Erickson in screenwriter Charles
Lederer's first draft of the script and
another character named McAuliffe that
was eventually dumped, so maybe this is
just an amalgamation of characters.
Asking
what brings him to the top of the world,
Scotty replies that he’s looking for a
story -- any story, but General Fogerty is
"nursing his secrets like a June
Bride." The conversation quickly
leads to a discussion of a "picnic
party" up north around the North Pole:
A group of scientists, led by the famous
Dr. Carrington, are up there doing
whatever scientists do. Mac and Eddie
imply that there is another, more feminine
character among them and Hendry can fill
in the details. They ride Hendry on this
sore spot until he pulls rank and makes
them change the subject.
Word
comes over the intercom for Hendry to
report to Fogerty's office. As he leaves,
Scotty asks to be let in if it amounts to
anything. Reporting as ordered, Hendry is
briefed over a message from the research
party -- and even Fogerty (David
McMananon) manages to get in a barb
in about this mystery women.
Something
big has crashed near the outpost, so
they're requesting military assistance to
investigate further. Fearing the Russians
might be up to something, Fogerty intends
to send Hendry and his crew and
begrudgingly gives permission to bring
Scotty along for the ride -- as long as
Hendry promises to maroon the nosey
reporter up there...
*
* * *
Wohoo!
My 50th review!
Now,
the selection for this particular honor
was really quite simple. When people ask
me what's the worst movie I've ever seen,
I usually answer with something cryptic
like: Define 'the worst?' But when people
ask what's your favorite movie of all time,
the answer is simple:
The
Thing From Another World
And
they usually reply, "Oh, your
favorite B-movie."
To
which I say, "No. It's my favorite
movie. Period."
Back
in 1987, I received the greatest Christmas
present ever. Nope, not peace on Earth --
I got me a VHS VCR. After five frustrating
years of putting up with a Betamax, I
finally threw off the yoke of the
non-wireless remote control and joined the
modern age. Thank
you, Santa! (The whole sad
and sordid affair is gone into greater
detail in my It
Came From Hollywood review.)
Being the B-Movie freak that I
was -- and still am, I immediately headed
to the local video store and dove into the
treasure trove of VHS titles. My first buy:
The
Thing from Another World.
I've
lost count of how many times I've actually
watched the film since, and this is the
first review I've ever written without
having to take any notes. With the entire
film committed to memory, I didn't need
to. From
Dimitri Tiomkin's creepy theramin score
over the dissolving opening credits to Ned
Scott's famous final warning, this film
defies all genre boundaries and is pure
cinema gold. Don't believe me? Read on...
On
the flight to the compound, we’re
introduced to the rest of Pat’s crew:
Sgt. Bob and Cpl. Barnes (Dewey
Martin and William
Self). While trying to fill Scotty
in on the more intimate details of
Hendry’s disastrous encounter with the
mystery girl, they're interrupted by a
call from the outpost: It seems there’s
some kind of magnetic disturbance that's
making the compass very unreliable, so
they have to home in on the outpost’s
radio signal. When they arrive, we get the
feeling that they've all been here before.
All
the scientist are friendly folks, and
Scotty starts asking if anyone knows what
really crashed into the ice. Hendry leaves
to check in with Carrington, and Eddie and
Mac try and go with him -- they want to
give the mystery woman the what for over
the way they treated their Captain.
Promising to get even someday, Hendry
heads on alone. Taking a detour from the
lab, he heads to a small office and knocks
on the door, and then we finally get to
meet our Mystery Girl: Nikki Nicholson (Margaret
Sheridan). Trading barbs over their
first date, Hendry is a little foggy on
all the details, but he knows he made a
fool of himself, and asks if they can just
start over. She’s says it will have to
wait because Carrington needs to see him
right away.
From
what we can piece together, on the group's
last trip to the outpost, Hendry talked
Nikki into returning with them to
Anchorage for a night on the town. Turns
out Hendry can't handle his liquor, and
Nikki wound up drinking him under the
table, and then helped him back to the
barracks, and out of his clothes, and
into bed. Leaving a note on his chest complimenting
him on his hairy legs, Nikki took the
next cargo plane back to the outpost.
Others saw the note before Hendry woke
up and now the whole Air-Corps is
laughing at him. Ain't that cute? On
with the review!
Leading
him to the lab, we meet Dr. Carrington (Robert
Cornwaithe) and several other
scientists
(including Paul Frees -- the voice
of Boris Badenov, and George Fennerman --
Groucho Marx’s straight man on What’s
My Line.)
The
doctor
tells Hendry that whatever crashed weighed
around twenty-thousand tons. Hendry assumes
it was just a meteor, but then they show
him pictures where the "meteor"
made a sharp left turn. So either it
defied all the laws of physics, or it
isn’t a meteor.
The
other scientists try to explain how they
computated the precise point of impact,
but Hendry is quickly lost in the
techno-babble. One jump cut later, we’re
back in the plane as they fly over to the
crash site. As they get closer, the faulty
compass gets even faultier and the Geiger
Counter starts flashing and pinging. They
land the plane and make their way toward
the source of the radiation, and whatever
it was, it came in at an angle, skidded
along the icy surface generating enough
heat to melt through the icecap and then
promptly sank. As it cooled, the ice
refroze, and what appears to be an
air-foil, jutting out of the ice, is the
only thing visible. Everyone is getting
the sense that whatever is buried under
the ice isn't local, and this is confirmed
when they slowly spread out and determine
the craft's circular shape.

After
a brief, yet tantalizing pause, the
company realizes they've found an intact
flying saucer. Wanting to report the
discovery of the century, Scotty wants to
radio in, but until he gets clearance from
a higher authority, Hendry won't let him,
which pisses Scotty off to no end. Hendry
and his men pack thermite charges all over
the ice. In theory, the compound will melt
the ice in about 30-seconds. They ignite
the explosives but something goes wrong: The
craft starts burning under the ice, and
then it explodes. When the smoke clears
there is no trace of the radiation or the
ship, just a smoldering hole in the ice. (They
blew it up real good.)
While
Scotty scolds them for turning the
greatest discovery "into a 4th
of July piece," Bob’s Geiger-Counter
starts ticking again. Following the
readings, he leads them to something else
buried in the ice -- and it looks like a
man. After the thermite disaster, they use
picks and axes to chop the
"pilot" out of the ice. And they
have to hurry because a nasty storm is on
its way. (He said ominously.) Winding
up with a giant ice-cube with the alien
still frozen inside, they quickly load him
up and fly the whole thing back to camp.
When
they get back, the camp is quickly divided
on what to do next. Carrington wants to
defrost the alien and examine it, but
Hendry says they have to keep it on ice
and can't proceed until they get orders
from Fogerty. Tension mounts as the
approaching storm kicks up enough static
interference to make their radios useless,
meaning contact with Fogerty is next to
impossible, but Hendry promises to keep
trying to get a message through. Just to
be safe, he places a guard where the Thing
is stored in case one of the egg-heads
gets any funny ideas.
All
they can do now is sit tight and wait, and
Hendry and Nikki take the opportunity to
start over, resulting in a truly funny
scene where he allows her to tie his hands
together just in case he loses control
like he did on the first date. As their
romance heats up, Barnes takes over guard
duty. Keeping the room frigid to maintain
the ice, Barnes bundles up and
accidentally places and electric blanket
over the ice-block so he doesn’t have to
look at the ugly critter inside.
Amazingly, it melts the ice without either
shorting out or Barnes noticing. (He
is wearing thick ear muffs, and he is
reading with his back to the ice block, so
I guess this is plausible.)
Completely
defrosted, the Thing (James
Arness -- yep, Marshall Dillon is in two
of my favorite films. This and THEM!)
wakes up, and wakes up cranky. Barnes
finally hears him, and is so frightened,
he fires his gun at the monster, emptying
the whole clip, but it has no effect -- so
he runs away as fast as his legs will
carry him. Finding the others in the
cafeteria, Barnes warns them the Thing
is alive and on the loose. Arming
themselves, the air-men return to the
storeroom -- but find it empty. Outside,
they hear the sled-dogs barking up a
storm. Through the broken window they
watch as several dogs maul and savage the
alien. Fighting back, the creature kills
several animals and then disappears into
the blowing and blinding snow. Donning
their thermal gear, the air-men head out,
and among the dead dogs, they find the Thing's
severed arm.
They
bring the arm inside, and after the
scientists run several tests on it,
determine that the creature is more
vegetable than animal. With no veins or
muscle structure, they also discover what
appear to be seed pods imbedded under its
claws. Carrington
loves the idea: A vegetable would have no
emotions to cloud its judgment, making it
"our superior -- our superior in
everyway."
You
have to ask: Are we supposed to think
Carrington is some kind of Commie? I
don’t think so. Honest. He’s so
involved with improving mankind’s
knowledge quotient that he has no time
for politics. Back to the review,
comrades!
Scotty
can’t quite believe his spiel, but
promises his readers will when he’s done
with the story: "A killer carrot from
space? The mind boggles."
Hendry
gathers his men to plot the next course of
action when the severed hand comes to life
and starts to move! Noticing that
the canine blood that covered it is gone,
Carrington deduces that it absorbed the
blood, and following the scientific
method, concludes the creature and its
kind must live on blood.
Gathering
axes, the military men sweep the base to
make sure the Thing isn't back
inside. Convinced that they can
communicate with it, Carrington pleads
with them not to destroy this new
"source of wisdom." The search
ends in the greenhouse with no sign of the
alien, but Carrington notices that some of
the plants are wilted. When the others
leave, he secretly signals a few of the
other scientists to stay behind.
Reexamining the lock on the outside door,
they find it has been tampered with. They
also spy some blood on the floor, and then
find one of the dogs bled white in one of
the storage cabinets. Carrington says
it’s obvious that the creature would
come here; the only open earth within a
thousand miles. He then convinces the
others to keep quiet on their discovery
and help him stakeout the greenhouse. The
good doctor believes that science, not the
military, can handle the situation better.
Time
passes and the storm worsens. A search
party returns, but the only thing they
managed to do was flush out a polar bear.
While they warm up in the cafeteria, a
severally injured Dr. Stern stumbles in
and collapses. After some applied smelling
salts, Stern (Eduard France)
tells them he was in the greenhouse with
two others, when the Thing broke in
and attacked them. Stern stumbled out of
the way, fell, and hit his head, and when
he came to, he saw the others hanging
upside down from the ceiling with their
throats cut. He then managed to sneak out
without the Thing seeing him.
Arming
up, Hendry leads the charge to the
greenhouse. He sends Mac and Eddie outside
to barricade the greenhouse's outside door,
trapping the Thing inside between
them. Scotty tags along, camera at the
ready. Bob locks and loads his M1 Carbine,
and then he, Barnes and Hendry head for
the front door. Asking if Bob's ready, he
tells Hendry he isn't, but to go ahead and
open the door anyway. Quietly, Hendry
pulls on the door, and when it opens, he
comes face to face with the monstrous Thing!
The monster takes a swing at him, misses,
and then Hendry and Barnes throw
themselves against the door and manage to
slam it shut, destroying the creature's
hand that got caught in the jamb. Bob then
fires several round into the door, and the
monster backs off.
When
we notice the Thing's clawed hand
shattering as it tries to pull it back
inside after getting caught in the door,
we also realize it was the same hand
that the dogs ripped off. So the
vegetable-man can regenerate appendages,
and very quickly, meaning this new
damage won’t handicap him long either.
And I honestly don't know if this cool
effect was planned, or one of those divine
cinematic accidents. Back to the film!
Barricading
both doors shut, the Thing is
trapped for now. Hendry then confronts
Carrington about what he allowed to happen,
and then confines him to his quarters
until the crisis is resolved. Gathering
some of his colleagues into his private
lab -- including Nikki, his personal
secretary -- Carrington has something he
wants to show them: Taking the seeds from
the severed hand, he planted them in some
dirt, then saturated it with blood raided
from the infirmary, and now the seed-pods
have finally sprouted. He lets the others
listen to the pulsing plant bulbs with a
stethoscope, and it sounds like a mewling
newborn -- that's hungry. Obviously,
Carrington has started to come off his
spool a little. Hoping he has enough blood
to finish the job, the other scientists
begin to question his motives. The
Thing is obviously doing the same
thing in the greenhouse, and what if it
came to Earth not to visit, but to
conquer? Was it sent here to grow an army?
(So
was it our good fortune that he crashed in
the arctic?) Carrington doesn’t
buy it: In science, there is only
phenomenon to study. And this phenomenon
must be seen through to the end.
Sickened
by the display, Nikki asks to leave.
Carrington tells her to transcribe his
notes, and to let no one see them. As she
types them up, Hendry stops by for a visit.
Confused that the injured Dr. Stern was
given a blood transfusion, Hendry knows he
delivered 35-units of plasma the last time
he flew supplies in and wants to know
what’s become of it. Telling him to take
a swing at her chin to mask her betrayal,
she shows him Carrington’s private
notes. When he's finished reading, he
thanks her for not stopping him. Nikki
asks him to go easy on Carrington because
he hasn’t slept since they found the Thing,
and he isn’t thinking right -- acting
like a kid with a new toy. As he leaves,
Hendry warns that this toy is liable to
bite him.
After
raiding Carrington’s nursery, Hendry
chastises him for his foolish actions as
do most of the other scientists who are no
longer on Carrington's side. Dr. Chapman (John
Dierkes) reads him the riot act,
saying the Thing is obviously
multiplying itself in a similar fashion in
the greenhouse, so for their safety, and
for the safety of the world, the Thing
must be destroyed. A message from Fogerty
finally gets through, saying to take
whatever action is necessary to protect
themselves but to take no action to harm
the alien. Vindicated, Carrington gloats
that Hendry can't disobey a direct order,
but Hendry tells him he can testify to
that fact at his court-martial. But all he
can really do is try to get Fogerty to
change his mind.
More
time passes, and as the weather worsens,
they have to drop the guard on the outside
door of the greenhouse. Hendry and his men
congregate in their barracks. Nikki brings
in some coffee, and they discuss what they
can do to fight the Thing since a
gun has no effect. Scotty asks the 64-dollar
question: "What do you do with a
vegetable?" Nikki’s
answers are simple: "Boil it? Stew
it? Bake it? Fry it?" (Genius.)
Bob hits upon the idea to douse it with
kerosene and then set it on fire. It’s
the only idea they have, so they start to
gather buckets just as the Geiger Counter
starts to tick and flicker, which can only
mean the Thing is on the move. While
Nikki reads the rising radiation levels,
the others scramble to set up an ambush.
When the detector pegs out, the monster
breaks in. After Barnes and Eddie douse it,
Mac fires a flare gun and the Thing
goes up in flames. Dousing it again, the
monster goes berserk and soon the whole
room is a raging inferno. Fighting it off,
the Thing jumps out of a window and
disappears into the snow.
Their
barracks destroyed, the combatants limp
into the cafeteria. Gathering up more
kerosene and some fire extinguishers, and
not wanting the burn the whole complex
down, they plan to go after it --
hopefully outside. Dr. Redding (Fennerman)
suggests
that instead of kerosene, they use
electricity. Bob loves the idea: If they
can rig an electric flytrap and lure him
into it, they can flash-fry the Thing
to a crisp. Again,
the hopeless Hendry is quickly lost by the
technical aspects of the plan, so he
wisely just gets out of the way. Work
commences, but they begin to notice a notable
drop in the temperature. A quick check of
all the heaters finds they're not getting
any oil. Knowing the Thing is
behind the sabotaging, they'll have to
hurry before it freezes them out. Nikki is
the one who realizes that it will probably
go after the electricity next, so they all
hole up in the generator room.
While
rigging up the trap in the hallway leading
to the generator, Carrington tries to
plead with them one more time to not kill
the alien, but they stopped listening to
him a long time ago. The trap completed
all they can do is wait, and they don't
have to wait for very long. The Thing
crashes into the hallway and stalks toward
them, when suddenly, the lights conk out.
Nikki warns that Carrington managed to get
hold of a gun and shut off the generator.
Sending Eddie and Mac to hold the monster
off, Hendry leads the others back to try
and get the power back on. Luckily,
Carrington is quickly overpowered, and as
the generator slowly cranks back up, he
breaks away and runs to the alien,
imploring to its higher intelligence to recognize
him as a man of science who only wants to
tap into his vast intellect. But the Thing
is sick of his spiel, too, and violently
knocks him to the side. Before it can do
anymore damage, Hendry and his men lure
the creature away from him and closer to
their trap. Finally working the Thing
into place Hendry throws the switch, and
the creature is caught in the electrical
arc that slowly burns it down to a crispy
cinder.
The
alien dead, it’s progeny burned, and
with the storm completely subsided --
inside and out, they finally get through
to Anchorage on the radio, and Hendry
let’s Scotty make the first report.
Taking the mike, the reporter alludes to
Noah once saving the world with an ark of
wood and says a similar service was made
today with an arc of electricity. He talks
about the heroes of the battle, including
Dr. Carrington, and wants to bring Hendry
to the microphone -- but he’s too busy
planning his future with Nikki. Before he
goes into greater detail of the battle,
Scotty warns everyone to look out for
other invaders and to keep watching the
skies.
The
end
The
year was 1951. The Cold War was just
starting to heat up, and the country was
in the grip of UFO hysteria. Wanting
to cash in on both phenomenon, legendary
producer/director Howard Hawks -- he of Red
River,
His
Girl Friday
and Rio
Bravo
fame --
took the bare bones of John W.
Campbell’s story Who
Goes There
and turned it into this sci-fi classic.
Taking
place at the opposite polar pole,
Campbell's alien was a virulent doppelganger
whose true form was sorta nebulous. As it
assimilated and spread throughout most of
the compound, the creature was eventually
taken out by an electrified snow-shovel.
John Carpenter's remake is more true to
Campbell's tale of mounting paranoia, but
then gets a little side-tracked with
trying to make its audience throw up.
The
character of Dr. Carrington alludes to
this change, saying their creature is as
different from us as one pole to the
other. And from the plot description The
Thing From Another World
sounds like a typical cheesy 1950s sci-fi
clunker, but what sets it apart is its
well-defined characters, eerie atmosphere,
incredible dialogue, and intriguing -- and
often hilarious subplots. And
remember, if it sounds familiar, realize
this one came first. Every
character in the film, no matter how
small, has his or her own little endearing
eccentricities or quirks. Watch as Hendry,
the stalwart leader, is reduced to
babbling idiot whenever he’s around
Nikki. And how the always helpful Bob
won’t allow Hendry to ever have the last
word. And then there's the great
camaraderie among Hendry’s crew, who
constantly crack wise and make fun of each
other (mostly
Hendry.) Scotty
is definitely quirky duck, too. He has a
snide remark for everything, but is always
there to help pitch in. (Spenser
takes this role and runs with it
brilliantly.) But there is no odder
duck in this film than Dr. Carrington, who
is so obsessed with the discovery that he
doesn’t realize the inherent danger of
his actions. (The original
"I’m not evil just misguided"
scientist.)
In
fact, there really isn't a whole lot of
difference between Hendry and Carrington
when you think about. Both are capable men
in their fields, yet they both defer to
others if it isn't their particular field
of expertise. They only differ where
Carrington will pursue knowledge no matter
what the consequence, while Hendry
realizes some knowledge must be sacrificed
for security. In this film, Hendry is
right and Carrington's wrong. Here the
military is in the right and science is in
wrong, something that would change drastically
as the genre progressed into the late
1960's and beyond.
We
all know there's been a heated argument
over the years as to who really
directed the film. Was it Hawks, or his
long time film-editor Christian Nyby. Put
me in the camp that believes Hawks
directed it and gave the credit to Nyby so
he could get his union credentials. Tobey,
Arness and other cast members have stated
that Nyby might have been director, but
Hawks was the one really in charge. For a
modern equivalent, think of Steven
Spielberg and Tobe Hooper in Poltergeist.
It
really smells like a Hawk’s film: A
group of professionals must band together
in an isolated area to fight off some
threat; strong female characters with
definite masculine qualities (notice
her name is Nikki, a derivative of her
last name Nicholson. We never find out
what her first name is); and
overlapping, rapid-fire dialogue that will
take several viewings to fully absorb. Now
are we talking about Rio
Bravo,
or The
Thing?
Even
today, new rumors are circulating that
Orson Wells was involved in the film to
add punch to the dialogue. Whoever it was,
they did a masterful job. (If
you listen closely, there are some real
gems.)
It isn’t completely spelled out for you,
but you can basically piece together what
happened on Hendry and Nikki’s first
disastrous date, and I love the way his
men deride him constantly over this.
Now,
can someone please explain to me why this
film is not out on DVD yet and out of
print? You can’t find it to buy anywhere,
and if you do, you have to be careful
because there are two different versions
circulating around. Turner’s "40th
Anniversary" edition is only 81
minutes long and is missing almost 6
minutes of the movie. (Whenever
it's on TNT or TBS it is also butchered
beyond recognition and in computerized
color. Yuck.)
This may not seem like much, but the
missing scenes are usually the romantic
interludes which help elevate this film
far above it’s B-movie brethren.
2001
is the 50th Anniversary of The
Thing from Another World,
so could someone, anyone, please get the
full-length film out on DVD. PLEASE! My
old VidAmerica copy is all but worn out,
and then I'm totally screwed.
My
wish was finally granted as of September
'03! Wohoo!
I
could go on and on about this film sos'
I’ll just try to sum up:
The
Thing from Another World
is perfect. It has a perfect cast; it has
a perfect score; it’s wonderfully paced
and nothing is wasted; it’s funny,
witty, scary, action-packed, gruesome (mostly
implied), and by god, it’s
even romantic. And that's what strikes me
most about this film -- how funny it is.
Not campy, but genuinely funny. Seek this
movie. Find this movie. Watch this movie.
And you will love this movie, too. Trust me.
And
remember…
Keep
watching the skies. Everywhere! Keep
looking. Keep watching the skies!
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