Howard Hawks’ production of THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD is ostensibly based on John W. Campbell’s story Who Goes There?, but only the bare bones were used in the film. An alien found frozen in the ice that comes to life and wants blood to survive. Blood was involved in the Campbell story, but not in this manner. John Carpenter’s remake, THE THING, was more true to the SF classic than this one.
Still, it’s one of my favorite among many fifties “monster” movies.
The plot is known to most of you folks I’m sure. Hacked from the ice and taken to the base for study after it’s ship is accidentally destroyed in an attempt to melt the ice around it. Kept frozen against the scientists’ wills, it thaws when a soldier on guard duty creeped out by the stare covers the block with a blanket,an electric one as it turns out, plugged into the current. It then begins to hunt the crew for the blood needed to survive and grow the buds from it’s body into new beings. A giant carrot(their characterization, not mine), the need to produce an army drives it.
We have all the usual characters here: the stalwart hero pilot, Captain Patrick Hendry(Kenneth Tobey), his love Nikki(Margaret Sheridan), the overzealous/blind scientist, Dr. Arthur Carrington(Robert Cornthwaite), and the stalwart news reporter wanting a story, Scotty(Douglas Spenser). And of course James Arness in an early role as the Thing.
It was suitably creepy when I was a young pre-teen, but mostly just fun now. I always watch it with fond memories of those days as a kid watching the late night weekend monster movies.
For more overlooed movies, check out Todd Mason over at his blog, SWEET FREEDOM,