| The Thing from Another World | |
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| Directed by | Christian Nyby[a] |
| Screenplay by |
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| Based on |
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| Produced by |
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| Starring |
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| Cinematography | Russell Harlan, ASC |
| Edited by | Roland Gross |
| Music by | Dimitri Tiomkin |
Production company | Winchester Pictures Corporation |
| Distributed by | RKO Radio Pictures |
Release date |
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Running time | 87 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Box office | $1.95 million (US rentals)[2] |
The Thing from Another World, sometimes referred to as justThe Thing, is a 1951 American black-and-whitescience fiction-horror film directed byChristian Nyby, produced by Edward Lasker forHoward Hawks' Winchester Pictures Corporation, and released byRKO Radio Pictures. The film starsMargaret Sheridan,Kenneth Tobey,Robert Cornthwaite, and Douglas Spencer.James Arness plays The Thing.The Thing from Another World is based on the 1938 novella "Who Goes There?" byJohn W. Campbell (writing under the pseudonym of Don A. Stuart).[3]
The film's storyline concerns aUnited States Air Force crew and scientists who find a crashedflying saucer frozen in the Arctic ice and ahumanoid body nearby. Returning to their remote arctic research outpost with the body still in a block of ice, they are forced to defend themselves against the still alive and malevolent plant-based alien when it is accidentally thawed out.[4]
InAnchorage, journalist Ned Scott, looking for a story, visits theofficer's club of theAlaskan Air Command, where he meets Captain Pat Hendry, his co-pilot and flight navigator. General Fogarty orders Hendry to fly to Polar Expedition Six at theNorth Pole, per a request from its lead scientist,Nobel laureate Dr. Arthur Carrington; Carrington has radioed that an unusual aircraft has crashed nearby. With Scott, Corporal Barnes, crew chief Bob, and a pack of sled dogs, Hendry pilots aDouglas C-47 Skytrain transport aircraft to the remote outpost.
Upon arrival, Scott and the airmen meet radio operator Tex, scientists Dr. Chapman and his wife, and colleagues Vorhees, Stern, Redding, Stone, Laurence, Wilson, Ambrose, and Carrington. Hendry later rekindles his romance with Nikki Nicholson, Carrington's secretary. Several scientists fly with the airmen to the crash site, finding a large object buried beneath the ice. As they spread out to determine the object's shape, they realize that they are standing in a circle, outlining aflying saucer. The team attempts to free it from the ice withthermite, but a violent reaction with the craft's metal alloy completely destroys it. TheirGeiger counter, however, detects something buried nearby: a frozen body. It is excavated intact in a large block of ice and flown back to the base as an Arctic storm closes in on them.
Given the discovery, Hendry assumes command of the outpost and, pending radio instructions from General Fogarty, denies Scott permission to send out his story and refuses the scientists' demands to examine the body. Tex sends an update to Fogarty, and the airmen settle for the storm. A watch is posted; relieving the first shift, Barnes is disturbed by the creature's glare through the clearing ice and covers it with anelectric blanket he does not realize is plugged in. The block slowly thaws and the creature, still alive, escapes into the storm. It fights with the sled dogs and kills two, but loses most of its right forearm.
An airman recovers the stump after the attack and the scientists examine its tissue, concluding that the creature is an advanced form of plant life. Carrington is convinced of its superiority to humans and becomes intent on communicating with it. The airmen begin a search, which leads to the outpost'sgreenhouse. Carrington stays behind with other scientists, having noticed evidence of alien activity there. They discover a hidden third sled dog, which had been bled dry, revealing the creature as avampire that feeds on blood. Carrington and the scientists post a secret watch of their own, hoping to encounter it before the airmen do.
The next morning, the airmen continue their search. Tex informs them that Fogarty is aware of their discovery and demands further information, now prevented by the fierce storm. Stern appears, badly injured, and tells the group that the creature has killed and bled two scientists. When the airmen investigate, they are attacked, but manage to barricade the creature inside the greenhouse. Hendry confronts Carrington and orders him to remain in his lab and quarters.
Carrington, obsessed with the creature, shows Nicholson and the other scientists that he has been growing small alien plants from seeds taken from the severed arm and feeding them with the base’sblood plasma supply. Hendry discovers the theft when plasma is needed to treat Stern, which leads him to Carrington. Fogarty transmits orders to keep the creature alive, but it escapes from the greenhouse and attacks the airmen in their quarters. They douse it with buckets of kerosene and set it aflame, forcing it to retreat into the −60 °F (−51 °C) storm. After regrouping, they realize the creature has sabotaged the base furnaces’ oil supply, plummeting temperatures indoors. They retreat to the station's generator room to keep warm, and rig a high-voltage electrical "fly trap". The creature continues to stalk them. At the last moment Carrington pleads with it, but is knocked violently aside. The creature walks into the trap and is electrocuted. On Hendry's order, it is reduced to a pile of ash.
When the weather clears, Hendry and Nicholson are careening toward marriage, and Scotty is finally able to radio his "story of a lifetime" to a roomful of reporters in Anchorage. He ends his broadcast with the warning: "Tell the world. Tell this to everybody, wherever they are. Watch the skies everywhere. Keep looking. Keep watching the skies...".
In 1950, Lederer and Hecht convinced Hawks to buy the rights toWho Goes There?, who did so for $1,250.[8]
In an unusual practice for the era, no actors are named during the film's dramatic "slow burning letters through background" opening title sequence; the cast credits appear at the end of the film.[3] Appearing in a small role wasGeorge Fenneman, who at the time was gaining fame asGroucho Marx's announcer on the popular quiz showYou Bet Your Life. Fenneman later said he had difficulty with the overlapping dialogue in the film.[9]
The film was partly shot inGlacier National Park with interior sets built at aLos Angeles ice storage plant.[3]
The scene where the alien is set aflame and repeatedly doused with kerosene was one of the first full-body fire stunts ever filmed.[10]
The film was loosely adapted byCharles Lederer, with uncredited rewrites fromHoward Hawks andBen Hecht, from the 1938 novella "Who Goes There?" byJohn W. Campbell. The story was first published inAstounding Science Fiction under Campbell's pseudonym, Don A. Stuart. (Campbell had just becomeAstounding's managing editor when his novella appeared in its pages.)[3] Science fiction authorA. E. van Vogt, who had been inspired to write from reading "Who Goes There?" and who had been a prolific contributor toAstounding, had wanted to write the script.[8]
The screenplay changes the fundamental nature of the alien from Campbell's novella as a life form capable of assuming the physical and mental characteristics of any living thing it encounters (as realized inJohn Carpenter's 1982 adaptation of the original source,The Thing.[3]) into a humanoid life form whose cellular structure is closer to vegetation, although it must feed on blood to survive. The internal, plant-like structure of the creature makes it impervious to bullets, but not to other destructive forces such as fire and electricity.
Film criticBill Warren has argued that the film reflects a post-Hiroshima skepticism about science and prevailing negative views of scientists who meddle with things better left alone,.[3] This suspicion of science, though, is also a larger theme in Arctic horror, including "Who Goes There" (1938) the source material for the film, and other notable works like H.P. Lovecraft's "At the Mountains of Madness" (1936), as well as older works of in horror and the Gothic, such asFrankenstein (1818) andThe Island of Doctor Moreau (1896).
There is debate as to whether the film was directed by Howard Hawks, withChristian Nyby receiving the credit so that Nyby could obtain hisDirector's Guild membership[11][12][13] or whether Nyby directed it with considerable input from producer Hawks[14] for Hawks' Winchester Pictures, which released the film throughRKO Radio Pictures Inc. Hawks gave Nyby only $5,460 of RKO's $50,000 director's fee and kept the rest, but Hawks always denied that he directed the film.[9]
Cast members disagree on Hawks' and Nyby's contributions: Tobey said that "Hawks directed it, all except one scene"[15] while, on the other hand, Fenneman said that "Hawks would once in a while direct, if he had an idea, but it was Chris' show". Cornthwaite said that "Chris always deferred to Hawks ... Maybe because he did defer to him, people misinterpreted it."[9]
One of the film's stars,William Self, later became President of20th Century Fox Television.[16] In describing the production, Self said, "Chris was the director in our eyes, but Howard was the boss in our eyes."[9] Although Self has said that "Hawks was directing the picture from the sidelines",[17] he also has said that "Chris would stage each scene, how to play it. But then he would go over to Howard and ask him for advice, which the actors did not hear ... Even though I was there every day, I don't think any of us can answer the question. Only Chris and Howard can answer the question."
At a reunion ofThe Thing cast and crew members in 1982, Nyby said:
Did Hawks direct it? That's one of the most inane and ridiculous questions I've ever heard, and people keep asking. That it was Hawks' style. Of course it was. This is a man I studied and wanted to be like. You would certainly emulate and copy the master you're sitting under, which I did. Anyway, if you're taking painting lessons fromRembrandt, you don't take the brush out of the master's hands.[9]
The Thing from Another World was released in April 1951.[3] By the end of that year, the film had accrued $1,950,000 indistributors' domestic (U.S. and Canada) rentals, making it the year's 46th biggest earner, beating all other science fiction films released that year, includingThe Day the Earth Stood Still andWhen Worlds Collide.[18]
Bosley Crowther inThe New York Times observed, "Taking a fantastic notion (or is it, really?), Mr. Hawks has developed a movie that is generous with thrills and chills…Adults and children can have a lot of old-fashioned movie fun at 'The Thing', but parents should understand their children and think twice before letting them see this film if their emotions are not properly conditioned".[19] "Gene" inVariety complained that the film "lacks genuine entertainment values".[20] In 1973,science fiction editor and publisherLester del Rey compared the film unfavorably to the source material, calling it "just another monster epic, totally lacking in the force and tension of the original story".[21]Isaac Asimov thought it to be one of the worst movies he had ever seen. For his part, Campbell acknowledged that an adaptation would have to change elements from the original, which he considered too scary for most audience members, and hoped that at least the movie would succeed in getting people interested in science fiction.[8]
The film is now considered to be one of the best films of 1951 and one of the great science fiction films of the 1950s.[22][23][24][25] It garnered an 87% "Fresh" rating at the filmreview aggregator websiteRotten Tomatoes from 69 reviews as of October 2025, with the consensus that the film "is better than most flying saucer movies, thanks to well-drawn characters and concise, tense plotting".[26] In 2001, the United StatesLibrary of Congress deemed the film "culturally significant" and selected it for preservation in theNational Film Registry.[27][28] Additionally,Time magazine namedThe Thing from Another World "the greatest 1950s sci-fi movie".[29][30]
American Film Institute lists
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