The Thing from Another World (1951)

 

The Thing from Another World (1951)

 

In 1938, when John W. Campbell became editor of “Astounding Science Fiction” magazine, he’d been already been developing ideas in his head for some time about what he thought the future of SF should be. Even before taking the job, he’d penned two stories that shared the theme of a threat from shape-shifting Aliens. Legend has it that he did so to demonstrate the writing style that was most representational of SF at the time, and what he wanted from his Writers in the Future.

 

These stories appeared three years apart in two different magazines. One, the jokey, Pulp-style, story was, "Brain Stealers of Mars" (1936, in “Thrilling Wonder Stories”) is now forgotten. The other, hard-edged, almost-journalistic in both its verisimilitude and economy of prose, was “Who Goes There?” (1938, in “Astounding” as he was about to take the reins) has become one of the most important stories in the history of the Genre, and the perfect example of the prose style Campbell, about to become the Genre’s most important Editor, most sought from his Authors.

 

Jump forward to 1950-1951, when, after more than a decade’s indifference, Hollywood finally got serious about SF again. Big studios produced decently-budgeted SF films with literate scripts and helmed by their best Directors. “Destination Moon,” “The Day the Earth Stood Still,” “When Worlds Collide,” and this film, all appeared in that two-year period. They tower over almost all that came before and a huge lot of what came after. This film was based on “Who Goes There?”

 

Campbell’s story was about loss of Personal Identity as the body is infected by an Alien Organism in a particularly explicit manner. Though described somewhat indirectly, this mannerism would later be called “Body Horror.” At the time it would’ve been technically impossible to adapt faithfully, and had it been possible, it would have run afoul of censors. But it had a setting, strong atmosphere, and specific plot details that screamed for cinema.

 

Enter the great Director Howard Hawkes and his lesser known protégé Chris Nyby. They stripped the story of its most original and challenging elements to give us a very straight-forward Base-Under-Siege tale, but also applied extraordinary craftsmanship and subtly of technique (it’s now hard to imagine this now, but in 1951 over-lapping dialogue was still innovative). This is an amazingly tense film.

 

It would become one of the top-fifty box-office earners of its year, easily beating all the other films mentioned above. More important is that these four films together launched a SF craze out of what had been an SF desert, and that craze has never really abated since.

 

It is very much a Cold War Paranoia film though Russians are barely mentioned and there’s only a little bit evidence of anti-Communism in the film’s rhetoric/metaphors -- had the film retained the Loss of Identity Theme, so popular in the SF that came on its heels, that would’ve been more explicitly anti-Communist. The best way to interpret its politics is to view it through the bitter recognition that even though the Hell of WWII was over, even with Germany/Nazism defeated, no one felt any safer.

 

The Nazis had been committed to developing Super Weapons, the USA finally won the war by building them bigger, badder, and faster. Our “greatest” achievement, the A-Bomb, Won the War, but many in this Nation didn’t believe we knew how to control it. Then our new enemy, Russia/Communism, had their first successful A-Bomb test in 1949. Add to that, mere months before the film’s release, we learned that Communist Spies had obtained our Atom Bomb secrets through Espionage, and sold our Nation out to the Russians. By then, we already knew that Russia was using formerly-Nazi scientists to build up their new missile program and in 1950, we all knew some of our Scientists assisted sided with the Commies, though we never learned who those specific Traitors were (some people were caught, but not the Scientists).

 

(I should throw in that the USA was also using formerly-Nazis for our missel program and though that was politely ignored, it never really a secret.)

 

Science was both Worshipped and profoundly Distrusted, and we see both those things in this film, stated more bluntly here than any film before it. Science gave us a high-standard of living and great power for good, but the Scientists themselves seemed inhuman the same way Nazis who built Genocide Factories and Experimented on children were inhuman. In the Mass Media of the Nazis, Communists, and USA we were consistently fed their Citizens the propaganda of a Coming Scientific Utopia, but the Communists, by-far, laid on the Utopia the thickest and, among the Communists, there was also weird and dangerous-sounding propaganda of “Scientific Moralities.” It can be no coincidence that in this film, the craziest Scientist was dressed up to look like former Soviet Leader Nicolai Lenin.

 

The film is set in two Artic Outposts with short and compelling sequences in the wasteland (the on-location footage proved hellish to obtain and what was supposed to be a low-budget film became quite expensive, more than the same year’s “African Queen,” with a bigger name cast and a lot more location footage). The first of these Outposts is an Air Force Base, and the date is early November, 1950 (presumably, the originally intended release date but because of production problems and didn’t get released till the following April) with an outside temperature of 25* below zero made even worse by the howling wind. We are introduced to some of the major Characters as they play cards in the Officer’s Lounge:

 

Captain Patrick Hendry (Kenneth Tobey), highly competent, level-headed, tough-as nails, and charming, the film's Hero figure. Then there are his subordinates, Lt. Eddie Dykes (James Young), Lt. Ken “Mac” MacPherson (Robert Nichols and somehow the Character was misidentified as “Ericson” in the credits). Finally, there’s Civilian Journalist Ned "Scotty" Scott (Douglas Spencer), an especially interesting inclusion because I suspect he might have been originally conceived as a Comic-Relief Character (there’s a running gag about being perpetually blocked from getting his story out) but in the film’s final form he's no joke: he’s brave, smart, co-operative, and at one-time was a Front-Line War Correspondent. He’s also granted the film’s last, and most powerful, line of dialogue.

 

Scotty admits he’s "Looking for a story." Air Force guys suggest he seek out Dr. Arthur Carrington (Robert Cornthwaite, he’s the one who looks like Lenin), a Noble Prize winner, but unfortunately located at a Civilian Scientific Outpost even more remote than this Air Force Base.

 

Mac jokes about the Scientists, establishing the Class Conflict that will define the rest of the film’s interactions. “Botanists, physicists, electronic … [are] holding a convention up there." Eddie adds that they were "Looking for polar bear tails." Then both prod Patrick in a friendly manner because his ex-girlfriend is among the Scientists. Mac, "You'll never be able to shoo our Captain southward with his heart wrapped around the North Pole."

 

The girl in question is Nikki Nicholson (Margaret Sheridan) and though her presence and that of a second female character Mrs. Chapman (Sally Creighton), seems a little bit of stretch in the early 1950s in an isolated, potentially dangerous, and otherwise all-male environment, it also spoke of the changing role of women in our society.

 

Though the Feminist movement in the USA doesn’t really get-off-the ground till around 1963, women had been steadily moving into new Professional fields for almost a century by then. The labor storages triggered by WWII had accelerated that process. (It’s worth noting that the Feminism of the 1960s is often called “Second-Stage Feminism, not “First-Stage”). Similar things could be seen in Black communities, and one could argue both the Feminist Movements and Civil Rights Movements were children of WWII. According to some Historians the Civil Rights Era began when President Harry Truman started the move towards Desegregation in the Military in 1948, but in the Air Force, specifically, remained Racially Segregated until late in the same year this film was released, making the presence of women a little odd, but the presence of Blacks was near-impossible, and yes, there isn’t a single Black person in this film.

 

It also reflected the genre of SF changing. It was supposed to be about the Future after all, so the role of women in SF stories was changing as well, there were even a few prominent female Authors like Judith Merrill, C.L. Moore, and of special note, Leigh Brackett, who wasn’t involved in this film (Hawks’ only SF film) but was already a frequent Hawks’ collaborator on Westerns and Detective films. I should say though, though the role of women in SF was changing, SF generally wasn’t very good at it yet.

 

Which brings me to Hawks himself, who was already famous for making Manly-Man movies, but also for much-better-than-average female Characterization in those films. This film’s main Scriptwriter was Charles Lederer, but Hawks contributed along with Ben Hecht (both Lederer and Hecht were repeat Hawks’ collaborators). I suspect Hawks invented the Nikki Character, she is the film’s best written: smart, assertive, and also the most conflicted as she’s loyal to Scientist Arthur, but drawn to Captain Patrick. She owns every scene she’s in but contributes almost nothing to the plot. Having the best-written Character be among the least important is an odd dynamic indeed.

 

In the conflict between Arthur and Patrick, but there is little question whose Nikki will eventually land on. This romance has only marginal baring on the story, but is one of the bolder aspects. In the plot, she obeys Patrick, but when the door is closed, and the lives of no one but the two of them are involved, she owns Patrick. There’s a cute-but-spicy scene of almost BDSM and this notable piece of dialog:

 

Patrick: "I've given all the orders I want to give for the rest of my life."

 

Nikki: "If I thought that was true, I'd ask you to marry me"

 

Hawks’ is often credited as being the film’s real Director, that Nyby was little more than an Assistant. This does happen, “Poltergeist” (1982) was far more Executive Producer Steven Spielberg’s film than listed Director Toby Hooper’s. Here though, I think that might be a little unfair to Nyby: Yes, Hawk’s fingerprints are all over this, but Hawks was also Nyby’s mentor, so Nyby emulating Hawks probably isn’t stepping aside but instead displaying what he’d learned. Cast interviews indicate Nyby was more than merely Hawks for the presence and providing labor.

 

Similar to Hawks’ earlier films, there’s the easy naturalism of the performances and the speeding of pace that over-lapping dialogue provides. This is a dialogue-dense film, there’s much to be explained and the Monster is rarely on screen, but the pace never slows. I grew up on the films that mimicked this one, and virtually none of the others got those elements close to as good.

 

Also, there are distinctive visual ques that Hawks is famous for that aren’t, also couldn’t, be present here. Hawks was one of the masters of wide-screen vistas and long-long tracking shots; he was best known for Westerns, where they most belong, while this is easily the most claustrophobic film he was involved in (also wide-screen, but deftly composed so everything looks cramped).

 

Among the film’s most famous images are the broad-vista of the Flying Saucer Crash-Site early in the film, very Hawks-ish, but most of the rest of the film precludes that kind of imagery, and leans far more on quick-cuts. Both the Cinematographer Russell Harlan and Editor Roland Gross are on the top of their game here, but this is much more Gross’ film than Harlan’s. As Nyby was Hawks’ favorite Editor before he became a Director, I can easily see Nyby breathing down Gross’ neck at least as much as Hawks was breathing down Nyby’s.

 

Nyby would go on to great success as a Director, but almost all of it was TV, a medium where efficiency always trumps style. Hawks, among Hollywood’s most honored right to the end of his career, never did anything even remotely like this film again.

 

Another of Hawks’ important students, but one who may have never met with him personally, is Director John Carpenter. Carpenter’s second film, “Assault on Precinct 13^th” (1976) was basically an Urban-Crime remake of Hawks’ Western “Rio Bravo” (1959) and one can see it. When Carpenter remade this film as “The Thing” (1982) he mimicked this movie’s framing devices (so the maybe Nyby stuff) but side-stepped the famous Crash Site scene (the most obvious Hawks).

 

Back to the story …

 

Soon there’s a report of a suspicious plane crash which sends the Air Force men and Journalist on their way to Arthur’s Outpost. This is the first, and only, mention of Russians in the film because the threat later turns out not to Unworldly.

 

When Air Force and Scientists both respond to the Crash Site, a magnificently shot and truly memorable scene, it slowly dawns on the Investigators that the Craft buried in the ice is not a normal Technology. The Craft is lost because of the methodologies they used trying to recover it.

 

Scientist Arthur (at this point still a fairly sympathetic character): “It's all gone. Secrets that might've given us a new science. Gone."

 

Journalist Scotty: "The greatest discovery in history up in flames. Turning a new civilization into a 4th of July piece."

 

They do find a body near the crash site; it is then they fully realize that they face the Unworldly.

 

Scotty complains about Press Censorship: "You got your authority in the Constitution of the United States! For your information, it's called freedom of the press, and I'm sending a story, Captain...This is the biggest story since the parting of the Red Sea. You can't cover it up! Think what it means for the world."

 

Captain Patrick: "I'm not working for the world, Scott. I'm working for the Air Force."

 

As the film progresses, Scotty never stops complaining: "Biggest story ever to hit this planet, and I run into this human clam" and "The Captain here passes the buck to General Fogarty. Fogarty takes it to Washington. Who will Truman ask when it gets to him?"

 

Scotty is referring to a famous line from then-President Harry Truman, “The buck stops here,” which he borrowed from a sign Truman saw in the offices of an Administrator of a Children’s Reformatory Academy in 1945.

 

The first really stupid mistake is made by an Air Force guy, not one of the Scientists, and it deepened the animosity between the two clearly defined Classes, Working-Class and Well-Educated. Corporal Barnes (William Self) accidently defrosts the Alien and it proves not to be dead. The panicked Barnes shoots the Thing and then it's attacked by sled dogs. At this juncture, the Thing hasn’t actually done anything bad yet, and given the incompatence committed by those of inferior Education and how violently the Thing was treated, Scientist Arthur becomes incalcitrant. It will take most of the rest of the film for Arthur to get it through his head that the Monster is, well, a Monster.

 

So begins the films dual plot-lines, Captain Patrick trying to kill the Thing, and Scientist Arthur trying to save it for study. Patrick has clearer purpose; Arthur is twisted because he needs to know things just outside his reach. Patrick remains virile, while Arthur is increasingly self-deluding as he suffers from self-imposed over-work and insomnia.

 

Arthur was treated with disdain, presented as an effete gentleman, wearing a turtleneck disguising his Adam’s Apple, with the lightest hair color of all the male characters, and driven by a cold logic that is slowly revealed as inhuman and irrational. On the other hand, the film respects Arthur’s obvious brilliance. Starting around the half-way mark, when he does start doing most the stupid things, he also continues to provide the most brilliant insights, and though he and Patrick can’t stand each other, they ultimately rely on each other (pragmatic Patrick recognizes this much better than Arthur does). Arthur could’ve easily proved a Villain, like so many Misguided Scientists in Alien Invasion films across the decade to come, but in this film, no one would’ve survived without him. This film becomes a battle of wills Man of Action vs the Man of Science, and not surprisingly, Action is the winner.

 

Among the things the film retained from the novella was the respect for Scientific Process, basically the Detective work of Science, even though movie’s version of the Alien couldn’t be more different if it tried. Hawks had long-proven his love of Detective movies. But Arthur is so in love of Process and Possibility he’s lost sight of Consequence: It is he who demonstrates how fast-growing the Things seedlings are, and therefore that they could Conquer the World while using us for food, but seems unperturbed by this discovery.

 

Arthur becomes progressively dismissive not only of the Airmen, but members of his own staff. "There are no enemies in science, Professor [meaning Character Wilson, played by Everett Glass], only phenomena to study. We are studying one ... You're talking like frightened school-boys...Any destruction would be an outrage - a betrayal of science."

 

Patrick: "It may be a betrayal of science, Doctor, but it'll make me and some of the others sleep a lot better if we get rid of it."

 

Arthur: "It doesn't matter what happens to us. Nothing counts except our thinking. We fought our way into nature. We've split the atom..."

 

Patrick: "Yes, and that sure made the world happy, didn't it?"

 

Arthur: "We owe it to the brain of our species to stand here and die - without destroying a source of wisdom.... Civilization has given us orders."

 

This film required a fair amount of dialogue in which Scientists explain stuff to Military Men, and such exposition has been the downfall of many a SF film, but here its lucid, tightly-written, quick-unfolding; the basic truth, that new ideas are going to be challenging to grasp, is treated in a humorous but non-condescending manner. When the Scientists realize the Thing is mobile form of plant-life, Scotty observes, "An intellectual carrot. The mind boggles."

 

The dialogue is so well done it assists suspense instead of killing it. It allowed the filmmakers to tighten their grip on the audience even with the Thing rarely present on-screen. That proved essential because the Thing’s costume isn’t actually very good. Had he/she/it ever been shown in full-light, the film would’ve collapsed. But “The Thing from …” isn’t really about the Thing, it’s about how people respond to its existence and that’s an insight that most Monster Movies lack.

 

(The Thing was played by James Arness, who had already had much more substantive parts in other films so he, understandably, expressed dislike for this particular role.)

 

Hawks had a simple sounding rule for making a good movie, “Three great scenes, no bad ones.” Well, there are no bad ones here, but as a special treat, we got at least six great ones:

 

Above mentioned, the discovery of the Flying Saucer, is captivating.

 

Then there’s a scene where the Airmen think they’ve cornered the Thing, they open a hatch, and find something else disturbing. That’s scene makes the opening of every door suspenseful for the rest of the film.

 

Then, there’s the scene wherein they open the door and the Thing is, in fact, standing there.

 

Then, about 70 minutes into the 87-minute film, is the most violent scene. The Thing is being tracked by a Geiger counter and the readings are spoken out-loud (this was mimicked with great effect in “Alien” (1979)). The Thing bursts in, the Airmen set it on fire, but it leaps out a window and douses the flames. (The Stuntman was shamefully uncredited given that a full-body burn was most dangerous stunt anyone might do in those days).

 

Then there’s the climax, when the Thing is baited into exactly the right spot to be brutally destroyed (a scene apparently heavily cut at the demand of censors, but still quite raw and we see it electrocuted, burn and wither).

 

Finally, Scotty gets to make his history making report, and those lines become among the most famous uttered in an SF film, “I bring you a warning. Everyone, of you listening to my voice, tell the world. Tell this to everybody wherever they are. Watch the skies! Everywhere. Keep looking. Keep watching the skies!"

 

The Russians were first into space with Sputnik 1 only six years later, displaying they had the power rain A-Bombs down on the heads of the USA from the other side of the Planet.

 

“Keep watching the skies,” indeed.

 

Trailer:

The Thing From Another World (1951) Official Trailer #1 - Howard Hawks Horror Movie - YouTube