The Thing... from Another World (1951)

[Dave]

The Thing... from Another World, The (1951) 87 Minutes.

http://uk.imdb.com/Title?0044121

Directed by Christian Nyby (with mysterious help from either Howard Hawks or Orson Welles)

A US scienific expedition in the Arctic is menaced by a ferocious being they thaw out of a spaceship. The first ever space-monster on film.

Last speech of film from Scott the newspaper reporter
I bring you warning- to every one of you listening to the sound of my voice. tell the world, tell this to everyone wherever they are: watch the skies, watch everywhere, keep looking- watch the skies!"

Extremely dated. Very slow at the beginning. The excitement shown when they discover they have found a... flying saucer!!! It does speed up later, though the action is restricted to fire and electric effects within corridors. Not much seen of the 'Thing', usually too dark, though its description is something very alien for cinema of the time.

I think its importance is in how much it has been copied, and not only in the John Carpenter remake, but 'Aliens vs Predator' or any of those two series, or any of the poor copies of those two series; Star Trek: Enterprise 'Regeneration' - which has the Borg cube from 'First Contact' crash in the arctic; the X-Files; Stargate...

 

[Starbeast]

A little slow at the beginning, but a marvelous movie to watch

 

[Lemmy]

Agree, awesome movie.

 

[J Riff]

Marshall Matt Dillon as The Thing.

 

[clovis-man]

Directed by Christian Nyby (with mysterious help from either Howard Hawks or Orson Welles)

It was Howard Hawks. The trademark "everybody talks at the same time" feature is hard to mistake. He made a classic film despite pretty much ignoring some primary elemants of John Campbell's original story. Carpenter's version is much more faithful to the 1938 tale. Both are good in their own way.

 

[J-Sun]

It was Howard Hawks. The trademark "everybody talks at the same time" feature is hard to mistake. He made a classic film despite pretty much ignoring some primary elemants of John Campbell's original story. Carpenter's version is much more faithful to the 1938 tale. Both are good in their own way.

That was the, er, thing that struck me the most: it's not very faithful at all to Campbell's classic story, yet is still a really good movie taken on its own terms. I'd love to know what Campbell thought of it in detail (sounds like material for an editiorial) but I've never really been able to find out. Still haven't seen Carpenter's version but intend to someday.

 

[steve12553]

Definitely agree with the last two. THe movie was eerie and thoughtful and very paranoid. I read Who Goes There? some years ago and loved it along with both movies. They work kind of like Blade Runner and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Both good in their own right.