THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD (1951)
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia
During the 1970's through the 80['s, I grew up watching 1950's atomic monster and various otherworldly alien pictures. Who can forget "Them!" or "The Day The Earth Stood Still" or "The War of the Worlds"? "1951's "The Thing From Another World" is not really an atomic monster picture but it is a spellbinding treat of an alien picture. Not a great movie but a highly satisfactory one.
A group of U.S. Air Force crew members are sitting at an Alaskan bar playing cards. A press reporter intrudes, looking for any story to print about the government. Before you can say the Iceman Cometh, the crew is requested at a North Pole outpost where a mysterious flying craft has crashed. Kenneth Tobey is Captain Hendry, who leads his crew and the reporter to the site. It turns out the aircraft is a flying saucer, a giant one at that. Thermite bombs are used to thaw out the ship but the crew accidentally destroy it instead. A large block of ice holds some man in it, or is it an alien? Dr. Carrington (Robert Cornthwaite) has his team of doctors decipher from samples that this "thing" is some sort of vegetable monster. Oh, thank God, I guess it won't eat or attack humans, will it?
From first frame to last, "The Thing From Another World" conveys major doses of tension and suspense. Thankfully the filmmakers, including director Christian Nyby and famed producer Howard Hawks (who allegedly, depending on who you ask, also had directorial control), opt not to show much of the monster. When the monster does appear, it is quick and abrupt enough to make an impression without dwelling on the creature's appearance (played by James Arness, who looks like a North Pole variation on Karloff's Frankenstein Monster). But "The Thing" also has a few other goodies in store. Kenneth Tobey is convincingly stoic and sly, especially when flirting with his girlfriend, Carrington's secretary (a nice touch of dignified humor and class by Margaret Sheridan). Their relationship provides a nice balance from the film's frequent outbursts of horror, sometimes induced by loud bangs or quiet beeps, not to mention doors slamming open from the cruel winter weather, the reveal of a dead sled dog found in a compartment, the beeping of a Geiger counter, or the famously jolting moment when Captain Hendry opens a door to find the alien waiting.
Also worth a mention is Robert Cornthwaite as Dr. Carrington, who has one of those quiet, soothing voices that makes you want to hear every word he says. For comic relief, there is Douglas Spencer as Ned Scott, a nerdy reporter who comes across more manly than the average nerd and gets to deliver the film's famous last line.
"The Thing From Another World" is a solidly absorbing, tightly coiled monster flick that bares little relation to its original literary source, "Who Goes There?" by John W. Campbell, Jr. It is a patriotic sci-fi horror picture, where the Americans can do no wrong in fighting the fight. That might seem like a dated notion but the patriotic slant does continue to operate in America today. Today's audiences would probably not give this film a second look. Oh, it is in black-and-white! Oh, it is from another century! Oh, the monster only appears for a total of three minutes. May the cinema gods have pity on all of you naysayers.
