Christian Nyby–better known throughout Hollywood as Howard Hawkes’s editor on such projects as The Big Sleep, To Have and Have Not, and Red River–took the directorial reigns for famed screenwriter Ben Hecht and Hawkes’s adaptation of John Campbell’s “Who Goes There?”–a strikingly similar tale to that of H.P. Lovecraft’s “At the Mountains of Madness.” Some say that Hawkes actually directed the film while others claim the famed director merely acted as a guiding hand. Regardless of who was helming the cinematic vessel, the final product–The Thing from Another World–is a highly-influential, masterful B-production which encompasses the paranoia of the McCarthy era as well as presents opposing philosophies on how America should approach the threat of nuclear warfare.
The film opens in Anchorage, Alaska at an Air Force base, lead by General Fogarty (David McMahon). He is requested to send troops to a botany outpost on the North Pole where an unidentified flying object has crashed. Captain Patrick Hendry (Kenneth Tobey is sent with a small convoy. Upon landing, they discover an aircraft, far superior to anything humanity has yet to produce (made of an unidentified alloy). They exhume the wreckage from the ice only to cause a chain reaction, thus destroying its contents. The crew then discovers a creature (James Arness) frozen in the ice and takes the specimen back to the outpost, followed by orders to keep it preserved until further notice. They inadvertently thaw the alien, who then begins to hunt the crewmembers for their blood.
As a metaphor for how to contend with the ensuing threat of Communism and the Red Scare, Hecht and Hawkes present the brains/brawns dichotomy in a very thoughtful manner. Typically, the military is portrayed as bumbling, warring alpha males while the scientific community is typecast as scrawny, naively ideological geeks. However, in The Thing from Another World, equal weight is given to both sides as we are presented with both parties’ strengths and weakness. One side does prevail over the other but, regardless of the viewer’s assessment of whether said faction is justified and/or warranted in its action, the film maintains its narrative competence. Ultimately, the filmmakers’ concern is the examination of the conflict between those within the same group (humanity), even though a deadly menace is lurking in the shadows, terrorizing the whole.
Nyby/Hawkes does a great job of maintaining the narrative pace throughout as we watch as a threatening, deadly foe–who is merely attempting to survive–is greeted with gunshots before fleeing into the Artic landscape. The banter between the characters shifts from comically upbeat to deadly serious as Hendry and Doctor Arthur Carrington (Robert Cornthwaite), a Nobel prizing-winning scientist, argue over how to approach the alien, the former concerned first and foremost with safety in the wake of numerous deaths, as the latter views “The Thing” as a potential scientific landmine which, if destroyed prematurely, will take its knowledge and advanced wisdom along with it. While the tension mounts as the audience anticipates with each passing second another attack, we begin to shake our heads impatiently at the warring factions. When “The Thing” cuts off the outpost’s heat, the ideological quibbling does not cease as the alien’s looming presence begins to predominate. Instead, the leaders of both sides begin to bicker more fervently as they know that their self-appointed time for action is drawing near.
The tension is maintained, not only in the arguments between Hendry and Carrington, but in the setting: an isolated, frozen outpost in one of the world’s most desolate, forbidding climates. The research station becomes a live-in freezer as a cold front moves in, closing everyone inside indefinitely. Ingeniously, the storm severs the horizon as we are visually consumed by the snow. “The Thing” then forces the crewmembers further and further into the compound as our margin of safety proportionally dwindles. The alien is rarely seen, but when he does appear on screen (partly due to budgetary constraints and partly due to directorial prowess), he is seen at a distance, thus allowing the viewer to fill in the void with his or her own respective fears. Also, Editor Roland Gross (or was it Nyby?) aptly begins cutting the duration of each scene in half as the taunt finale draws near. Interestingly, the overlapping dialogue–instead of creating confusion between the characters–issues a sense of comfort and understanding to those involved as they seem to intuitively comprehend what needs to be done. However, masterfully, this mutual appraisal is limited to those within each group, either the military or the scientific, because once commutative lines are drawn, even during scenes of civil interaction, little is agreed upon as the respective members part their separate ways with the intention of doing what they set out to do prior to the stalwart tête-à-tête.
Interestingly, much like Lovecraft’s Old Ones (the Gothic writer’s masterpiece–which also takes place in the Artic regions of the world, albeit it on opposite poles–appeared two years prior to the publication of Campbell’s tale), “The Thing” itself–composed of vegetable matter and which reproduces asexually via spores–is rationalized by Carrington to be highly intelligent, benevolent, and merely attempting to survive. Unfortunately, its sustenance comprises human blood. As such, in a rather unconventional manner, we are thus issued a left-of-center animal rights metaphor and, consequently, two opposing philosophizes by which to address the situation (Red Scare as the fear of rampant vegetarianism? Natch.). Also, the sole female in the film, Nikki (Margaret Sheridan) is presented (perhaps not surprisingly considering the filmmakers’ resumes), as the Western civilizing agent as she attempts to reconcile the efforts of both sides within the camp.
Lastly, Hawkes requested the United States Air Force assist in the making of the film. The latter declined, stating that involvement in such a project would counter the official declaration that UFO’s did not exist. Those penning the script didn’t fail to reciprocate the love as Hendry’s crew, en route to the North Pole, poke fun at just that: The nation refuses to acknowledge the possibility that we are not alone.
The Thing from Another World prompts may questions and serves as a signpost for the mindset and times in which it was made. Like its low-budget counterpart, Fred Wilcox’s Forbidden Planet, its lack of financial backing didn’t discourage those involved as the filmmakers present us with well-rounded, excessively plausible characters who, under the weight of an potentially apocalyptic dilemma, become a microcosm of humanity as they struggle to survive. Understandably, the film acts as the sounding board for the sci-fi horror genre as it now stands, some of its more famous successors being Byron Haskin’s The War of the Worlds, Robert Wise’s The Day the Earth Stood Still, Ridley Scott’s Alien, and, obviously, John Carpenter’s 1982 remake.
Trivia tidbit: Some sources claim that American novelist William Faulkner contributed to the script at some stage but many scholars of the writer readily deny such a notion.
-Egregious Gurnow
- Interview with J.R. Bookwalter - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
