Review

Captain Hendry and crew are dispatched from Anchorage Alaska to a remote Arctic research station due to failing communications. Once there Hendry learns from lead Scientist Dr Carrington that an unidentified object has crashed some 48 clicks from the station causing magnetic disturbances. Hendry and team are soon at the crash site where they discover the unidentified object is a flying saucer buried beneath tons of ice. Naturally they attempt to use thermite bombs to thaw the ice leading to the Saucer’s engines exploding and destroying the craft.

Luckily they discover the pilot of the craft, an eight foot humanoid, also frozen in ice and cut out a block of ice, encasing the pilot, and take it back to the research station. One thing naturally leads to another and we soon have a blood drinking Alien on the loose causing mayhem and destruction. Can Captain Hendry and his fearless airforce team defeat the Alien menace or will Dr Carrington communicate with it on some intellectual level? I just wanted more blood sucking to be honest.

The Thing From Another World is Howard Hawks' interpretation of the excellent novella Who Goes There? by U.S Sci-Fi writer John W. Campbell Jr. While Hawks' movie remains a classic of American cinema it strays from the story concepts Campbell wrote due to the technology of the day being unable to replicate Campbell's Alien. John Carpenter would head back to the source material in far more convincing fashion with 1982's The Thing, though with far less commercial success. Regardless of whether or not you think Carpenter's movie is the better outing, Hawks' 1951 black and white movie remains a classic and even today receives regular play on commercial television in most parts of the world. In fact the movie is playing in the background of one scene of Carpenter's seminal Halloween (1978). So what makes Hawks' penny dreadful tick and why do we all go weak at the knees when the opportunity presents itself to watch the movie just one more time?

Stephen King has argued elegantly, can we say “elegantly” when we talk King? - that the movie highlights the distrust of Scientists and the support of the military who had just after all won John Wayne's “big one”, World War II kids try and keep up. But I would also argue there's another interpretation. What the new bad boys in town, the Soviet block, might be harbouring in their hangers was a concern of the time as the Cold War heated up, with the Alien craft here being the embodiment of that concern. Equally Captain Hendry's team far from being the square jawed heroes one might expect, are shown as buffoons as they first destroy the alien craft, then unleash the alien menace through the dubious device of a live electric blanket. Wouldn't that short out? Far from pointing out Society's sole concern was with the egg heads and what they might be cooking up in the lab, the movie also for mine demonstrates an early unease with the military and their gung-ho attitude. In short the Scientists might be a worry, but heaven help us if we have to rely on the military to sort things out!

What is pretty cool about The Thing From Another World is the actual creature design. Well okay it's James Arness, (Gunsmoke's Matt Dillon), in a giant carrot costume but nevertheless the whole idea rocks the house down. Our Alien is vegetable, regenerates severed limbs, and the bits that fall off can be germinated if you add blood to the potting mix. Come on, Don Burke would have reached orgasm here! Wonderfully the creature is so exotic that you are left wondering how the alien society, veggie patch? - managed to invent interstellar flight and develop a taste for animal blood. Ladies and Gentlemen, in case of invasion unleash the bunnies! I might sound slightly frivolous here, but I actually dug the whole thing and was rocking on with the concept.

While a lot of horror flicks fail in that you are left wondering why people haven't got out of Dodge or why they haven't called for some serious help, The Thing From Another World circumvents the whole argument by setting the conflict in a remote research station that is cut off from help by atrocious weather conditions. Our band of survivors are trapped in the few buildings making up the station, and ominously it's nearly always night outside. Well okay events happen over a single night and I was kind of being dramatic, but you get what I mean. Our Scooby gang is left to their own devices in trying to handle the vicious vegetable. Hawks does manage to get some tension happening, there is the odd chill scene, but heck most of all we're here for a fun time rather than a hide behind the couch cushions time.

There's a few things not working with the movie, and I'm not talking about the obvious sound stages and painted backdrops here. For no apparent reason we have a love interest, doesn't really do anything or go anywhere meaningful. The Journalist after a scoop gets slightly irritating after a while, though he does get some of the best one liners. And the dialogue ranges from poor attempts at humour to overwrought dramatic moments, clearly Hawks was still heavily influenced by stage productions and wasn't able to see the huge advantages cinema had to offer. So yeah the movie is dated, there's a feeling of people entering and exiting scenes on cue, and the banter between the airforce types is unbelievable.

So I might have put a torpedo into the bow of the few readers keen on watching the movie, but hang on in there kids, Hawks delivers one of the iconic scenes in the dark genre Parthenon, when the crash site team form a circle and realise just what is below their feet. Carpenter would reference this moment in his later adaptation. The whole movie is worth dialling in to for this one scene alone. Of course then you get the cool moment when everyone ducks for cover during the thermite explosion, well except for the Huskies who stand around looking bored. Awesome moment of cinema right there.

I tend to catch The Thing From Another World at least once a year, and Carpenter's version twice, as it's a classic movie for dark genre fans. Sure it's dated, there are some problems for modern Audience, but by heck Director Hawks does deliver the odd moment of cinematic wonder. If you haven't seen the movie yet then add it to your viewing list, well worth the time investment. If this all holds up, the full movie is available to view right below there, knock yourself out folks, and keep watching the skies!