THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD (1951)

THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD (1951)

Tagline: It Creeps... It Crawls... It Strikes Without Warning!

(Sci-Fi, Horror, Gardening) [PG]

Note: The MPAA did not give a rating for this movie, but I am guessing it would have been a [PG]. 

Dr. Carrington, you're a man who won the Nobel Prize. You've received every kind of international kudos a scientist can attain. If you were for sale I could get a million bucks for you from any foreign government. I'm not, therefore, gonna stick my neck out and say you're stuffed absolutely clean full of wild blueberry muffins, but I promise my readers are gonna think so.

In this one, scientists and Air Force personnel find a giant glassy coffin-like structure inside a spaceship that crashed in the arctic. After taking it back to their outpost it doesn’t take long before an alien inside is terrorizing the facility. To make matters worse one of the scientists is so fascinated with it he basically goes mad trying to grow its science defying progeny.

First off, this is another movie that is absolutely nuts but very little like either of its 2 remakes. In those movies we get melted wax and gore galore, this one is far tamer, and instead of grossing you out uses the pacing and claustrophobic atmosphere to create a sense of dread. 

I think of the 3 versions of this story, I prefer this one far more than the other 2 is because I am really not all that into gore unless it’s just super cheesy and looks fake. This one does have a severed hand scene, but nothing you would say is “gory”. In fact, the “Thing” costume was so low-budget James Arness who played the creature was so embarrassed he didn’t attend the theatrical premiere. James Arnes by the way was also in the sci-fi classic THEM!. The writing itself is also superior. I actually want to watch this again soon just because there are several scenes where multiple cast members are talking at once or they are taking so fast with split seconds between lines that it’s hard to get a lot of how awesome the dialog really is. 

The movie has a surprising amount of humor in it as well. Douglas Spencer who plays Ned Scott has more great lines in this one movie than a lot of entire movies combined. Ned is my second favorite character in the movie though. Spencer was also in THIS ISLAND EARTH. We also get a brilliant performance from Margaret Sheridan who plays Nikki Nicholson. With only 11 acting credits Margaret crushed this role-playing the most confident, smart, and witty woman perhaps in any 50s movie (perhaps Teresa Alvarez (THE BLACK SCORPION) and Sally Caldwell (THE GIANT CLAW) both played by Mara Corday are close). Kenneth Tobey is also pretty solid in this as Capt. Patrick Hendry. Tobey is also famous for the movies AIRPLANE! and IT CAME FROM BENEATH THE SEA. 

If this movie has a weakness, it’s the alien design and the storyline. Even for the early 50s, it’s pretty rough. We never actually see this thing up close unless we are looking at the poster. To be honest, though I think that makes this movie a bit more ominous. Like a lot of 50s movies meant to be horror, I really didn’t take this as a horror film but I can understand why the majority of people do. For me, it was a sci-fi thriller with a good amount of laughs in the deadpan dialog. Having said that, the storyline just feels off. I think the alien would have been better with some characteristics that were a bit different and Dr. Arthur Carrington’s assumptions about the alien are pretty out there even if they were going for a mad-scientist angle. 

Overall though, this is a sci-fi triumph and I have to give this one a 7 out of 7. It’s an extremely enjoyable ride with plenty of suspense for most of its run time.
 

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