The Thing From Another World (1951)

 

This is a masterpiece.

Granted, John Carpenter's reworking of this one will always be one of my absolute favourites (let us wisely ignore the lacklustre and mediocre reboot), but this Howard Hawks' production is quite rightly hailed as being one of the best science fiction and horrorfilms of its era. From other eras too, actually, it is just that damn good. 

Close to a base on the North Pole, something is discovered in the ice. It turns out to be a crashed flying saucer, but when they try to blast it out, it blows up. So far the wonderful discovery, you might think. That is, until the team find a passenger frozen in the ice. They chop it out and take it back to base, however, the military wants to keep it on ice whereas the scientists are eager to thaw it out. It does get thawed out, accidentally. Then it transpires that the lifeform isn't exactly friendly and uses blood to propagate itself and drop its seeds. It kills several of the dogs and workers, before the remaining people try to fight back. Alas, doctor Carrington is obsessed with this creature and wants to communicate with it, thus stifling several attempts to destroy it. He even grows several of the alien seeds using blood plasm taken from the infirmary. Will the humans make it through the day? 

Yes, this film is part of the massive science fiction wave of the 50s, but you can instantly tell they took the material seriously and wanted to spend a decent budget. The story comes from a novel called 'Who Goes There?' by John W Campbell Jr. The more faithful adaptation is actually Carpenter's version, where it is almost impossible to tell who or what is alien, whereas here, the alien is more akin to a murderous vegetable. I know that sounds silly (and it probably is), but the way they portray it, is all but silly. 

The acting is solid and it is cool to see that the few ladies present on the base are not relegated to the silly 'damsel-in-distress' tropes. They are quite strong and have personalities, which you can easily gather from the conversations between leads Margaret Sheridan and Kenneth Tobey. The writing is top notch and every character is distinct and believable. Not a small feat, considering the size of the cast. 

Something they also used, is very natural conversation, where people talk over and through one another. Before this film, that was almost unheard of. Someone said a line and everyone else waited until the line was clear before replying. Here, the conversations are not always understandable, but they are natural and that grounds this film in reality. The camerawork is also quite modern and the editing snappy. 

The design of the creature does leave a little to be desired, but they chose James Arness to play the monster, which was a good choice thanks to the man's imposing stature. Also, you don't see the creature all that much, which helps to heighten the tension. Another thing they did here that was new, was jumpscares. There are several instances where you can fly out of your seat. Nowadays, jumpscares are so overused we hardly register them anymore, but back in the 50s, this wasn't done. You can imagine people being completely flabbergasted at this. The scares are still effective today. 

Not only is the story top notch, the acting solid and the camerawork refreshing, this film has two scenes that will always stand out. The first one is when they want to fight the creature: the turn off the lights and the creature is visible in backlight in the door. When it enters the room, they set it on fire and it is this that lights up the entire room. It is still impressive to see. Having the balls to light a scene with a full body burn? I haven't seen that anywhere before. 

The second scene is probably one most people have seen, even if they don't realize it comes from this film: it's when they electrocute the creature near the end. That image of James Arness being struck by electric bolts from all sides is so iconic for science fiction, it has been referenced and parodied countless times. 

The ciliing final words of "Watch the skies!" are but a chill reminder that we most likely are not alone in this universe. But until we get confirmation, we can always enjoy classics such as this one.