Released back in 1951, The Thing from Another World<\/em> no longer strikes us as particularly scary\u2014not in its ideas, and not in its execution. We\u2019re too far removed from the specific milieu that birthed it, and probably too desensitized by the decades of horror genre fare that have followed. It\u2019s easy to understand why audiences at the time found it chilling, though. With its flying saucers and meddling scientists, Charles Lederer\u2019s screenplay, loosely adapted from John W. Campbell Jr.\u2019s seminal novella Who Goes There?<\/em>, tapped into the intense technological anxiety and invasion paranoia that pervaded post-Hiroshima, post-Roswell America, weaving a claustrophobic yarn in which three conflicting institutions\u2014the military, the scientific community, and the press\u2014are forced to solve problems and survive together under pressure as a strange, hostile force closes in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Even if the film\u2019s ability to frighten us, or even creep us out, has diminished, its ability to charm and thrill us endures. Strip away the horror accoutrements, and what you\u2019re left with is a contained collection of instantly endearing, thoroughly distinctive characters, who form a tightly structured network of interpersonal dynamics\u2014something more akin to what Quentin Tarantino would call a \u201changout film,\u201d powered by ricocheting comedic dialogue and an exceptionally efficient visual engine. The human drama at the film\u2019s core is generated by three primary players: Captain Pat Hendry (Kenneth Tobey), the pragmatic airman who resolves to destroy the creature after it\u2019s inadvertently thawed from its stasis; Dr. Arthur Carrington (Robert Cornthwaite), the Nobel Prize-winning scientist who insists that the creature isn\u2019t an enemy but a phenomenon, and should be revered, communicated with, and studied for its biological superiority (here you can see the seeds of Ian Holm\u2019s Ash in Ridley Scott\u2019s Alien<\/em>, another admirer of a foreign species\u2019 unsentimental purity); and Scotty, the everyman reporter who\u2019s just looking for a picture and a story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That the film has as much patience and empathy as it does for each of these individuals remains one of its finest qualities\u2014there are no good guys or bad guys, only men with discordant principles, whose rivalry is infused with respect. Their actions are understandable, as are their miscalculations. Hendry\u2019s use of thermite bombs to melt the ice that\u2019s burying the flying saucer ends in an unexpected chemical reaction that blows the spacecraft to smithereens, but it\u2019s the only logical and logistically viable strategy. And while another film might outright condemn Carrington\u2019s protectiveness of the creature as the delusion of a madman, here he\u2019s given the opportunity to emphasise that his position is at least partially compassionate: \u201cIt\u2019s a stranger in a strange land. The only crimes involved were those committed against it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In its preoccupation with consummate professionals and their dueling philosophies, in its spatial sophistication, and in its fluid rhythm, the film is almost eerily reminiscent of some of the very best work in the oeuvre of Howard Hawks\u2014which makes sense, of course. Aside from producing the project, Hawks is said to have been responsible for uncredited rewrites of the script, and handpicked the credited debut director, Christian Nyby, who\u2019d spent years working for him as an editor on To Have and Have Not<\/em>, The Big Sleep<\/em>, and Red River<\/em>. You\u2019d assume the apprentice must\u2019ve picked up a few things from the master, studied the crispness of the blocking and the acute attention to physical performance. But despite his undeniable grasp of visual grammar and deftness in the cutting room, Nyby\u2019s accomplishments behind the camera have been a source of debate for as long as the film has existed. Speculation that Hawks was the film\u2019s true director has been given credence by several cast members, including Tobey, who\u2019ve said that Nyby merely contributed a handful of threads to Hawks\u2019 overall tapestry\u2014other cast members, meanwhile, maintain that Hawks merely acted as a consultant to Nyby, or directed only once every so often.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ultimately, the sheer strength of the work largely eclipses such discussions. Regardless of authorship, the film is a paragon of propulsive filmmaking, boasting the same peerless, whiplash-inducing velocity of line delivery that makes Hawks\u2019 classic screwball comedies so electrifying. Some of Hendry\u2019s interactions\u2014his telepathic relationship with his fellow airmen, his playful jockeying with Scotty, and his ribbing flirtation with his love interest, tough-talking secretary Nikki Nicholson (Margaret Sheridan)\u2014wouldn\u2019t seem amiss in Bringing Up Baby<\/em> or His Girl Friday<\/em>, films that move at such a blistering pace that they\u2019re almost too quick for the human brain to process. The compositions that facilitate this speed are dense but never cluttered, often hectic but never incoherent, full of depth and shifting geometry. Within this controlled mayhem, the performances are sharp, precise, and instantly identifiable: Hendry is defined by his composed gestures and purposeful stride; Carrington by his rigid posture and laser beam gaze; and Scotty by his frustrated lurches and flailing limbs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That level of stylistic rigour isn\u2019t just rare in modern horror, which tends to favor muddier, murkier images in order to conceal other formal defects, but in modern filmmaking at large as well. We obviously still have a lot to learn from The Thing from Another World<\/em>, which is why it\u2019s unfortunate that despite its classic status, very few people talk about it in any context other than in unfavorable comparison with John Carpenter\u2019s 1982 masterpiece, The Thing<\/em>, the (sort of) remake by which it\u2019s long been overshadowed, in which the creature isn\u2019t a carrot but a shape-shifting nightmare. Conventional wisdom, it seems, pits the two films against each other, and judges the less viscerally impactful original to be obsolete. It\u2019s better, I think, to see them as companion pieces, two variations on the same theme, one fizzy and one bleak, which produce equally entertaining results. “The Thing From Another World” is currently available on Blu-ray<\/a> from Warner Archive, and is available for digital rental and purchase<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/The_Thing_from_Another_World_2-1024x576.jpg\")
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