Movie Review – The Thing from Another World (1951)
The extreme cold and isolation at a research station on top of the world at the North Pole.
The thrill of discovering not only a crashed flying saucer but also a humanoid alien life form frozen in the ice.
The terror of the alien returning to life and waging a war against the scientists trapped in the research station.
That’s the basis for the classic 1951 science-fiction film, The Thing from Another World. Directed by Christian Nyby and produced by Howard Hawks, The Thing from Another World takes the audience into a remote and hostile environment, and pits them against a menacing alien creature.
The Thing from Another World beings with newspaper reporter Ned Scott (Douglas Spencer) arriving at the officers’ club at a military base in Anchorage, Alaska. He greets Captain Patrick Hendry (Kenneth Tobey) and seems to have a good rapport with the other men. General Fogerty (David McMahon) receives a message from a research station at the North Pole concerning a crashed aircraft. He orders Captain Hendry to take his men and assist in the search and rescue of the crashed aircraft. Ned Scott is given permission to join the crew and document the mission for a newspaper article.
The Thing from Another World (1951) – (c) RKO Radio Pictures
The crew departs from Anchorage and uses a C-47 to make the long flight to the North Pole. While en-route the crew is informed that there’s a magnetic disturbance somewhere around the research station, and it’s throwing off their magnetic compass. They eventually spot the research station and make a landing on the snow and ice covered terrain.
The Thing from Another World (1951) – (c) RKO Radio Pictures
Inside the research station, Captain Hendry and Ned Scott meet with Dr. Arthur Carrington (Robert Cornthwaite), the chief scientist at the station. Dr. Carrington informs Hendry that their mission is going to take them nearly fifty miles away from the research station. Dr. Carrington shows Hendry photographic evidence that whatever it is that crashed out there is from outer space, and it’s not a meteor. It’s something else.
Another person at the Arctic research station is Nikki Nicholson (Margaret Sheridan). It’s clear that she and Captain Hendry are more than just friends.
Captain Hendry and a team of scientists depart the research station and fly towards the crash site. A crew member’s Geiger counter alerts them to something on the ground as they fly over the area of the crash site. Sure enough something crashed into the ice, and part of the mysterious aircraft’s tail is still exposed. Hendry lands the aircraft and the scientists use sled dogs to reach the crash site.
The Thing from Another World (1951) – (c) RKO Radio Pictures
A large flying saucer is discovered to be buried underneath a thick layer of ice. The only problem is that because of the ice they cannot reach the flying saucer. They also don’t have any large digging tools with them. The men try to rapidly melt the ice by using thermite heat bombs, but this backfires and the whole flying saucer is accidentally destroyed in an explosion.
The Thing from Another World (1951) – (c) RKO Radio Pictures
But all is not lost!
The Geiger counter again alerts the men to something radioactive in the area. They search the ground and quickly discover a large humanoid figure. It must be the flying saucer’s pilot. Instead of using more thermite, they use some pick axes to chop out a large block of ice containing the space man. It’s then hoisted onto a sled and pulled by dogs back to the C-47 cargo plane.
The Thing from Another World (1951) – (c) RKO Radio Pictures
The C-47 lands back at the research station just as a fierce winter storm hits the area. The storm knocks out communication with the military base at Anchorage. Captain Hendry is now the senior officer and decides to keep the humanoid frozen in the block of ice until they re-establish communications and receive their orders. Some of the scientists protest, claiming that they’ll just be given the orders to investigate the humanoid anyway. Hendry doesn’t give in and he has one of the soldiers break a window so that the chilling wind from the storm will enter the room and keep the block of ice frozen.
The men guard the frozen humanoid in two-hour shifts. This goes well until one of the soldiers, Corporal Barnes (William Self), tosses an electric blanket onto the ice block so he doesn’t have to look at the frozen creature, not realizing that the previous soldier left the blanket turned on. Time passes and the heat from the blanket slowly melts the ice which frees the creature. Corporal Barnes panics when he discovers that the creature is now alive. The soldier fires his pistol at the alien and then flees the storage room.
The Thing from Another World (1951) – (c) RKO Radio Pictures
Captain Hendry and his men return to the storage room and discover that the alien creature, the Thing (James Arness), is now missing. Suddenly the outside door pops open and the Thing has escaped from the building. The men watch through the windows as the Thing fights several of the sled dogs. By the time the soldiers have their parkas and make it outside, the Thing has disappeared into the Arctic storm.
On the ground lies the alien’s arm that the dogs severed during their fight.
The Thing from Another World (1951) – (c) RKO Radio Pictures
They take the alien’s arm into the research station and Dr. Carrington examines it. The scientists discover that the arm is covered by what appear to be a bunch of tiny barbs, almost like thorns on a rose bush. There’s also no blood in the arm or any animal tissue. As they conduct more research it appears that the alien creature has much more in common with plants than it does with animals. It explains why the creature was able to survive after being frozen in ice, why the bullets fired from Corporal Barnes didn’t kill it, and why its arm was easily severed by the sled dogs.
Suddenly the alien’s arm comes alive. The tissues within the arm apparently fed on the dog’s blood that covered it, and the arm itself was revived as it was warmed by the overhead lamps. They surmise that the creature therefore feeds on blood.
The Air Force soldiers believe that the creature is dangerous and needs to be stopped. Dr. Carrington, on the other hand, insists that the creature has not committed any crimes and does not know how to behave with life forms on this planet. Captain Hendry receives a partial message from General Fogerty, but it only mentions Ned Scott needing to wait before publishing his story about the recent events.
The Thing from Another World (1951) – (c) RKO Radio Pictures
The soldiers use the Geiger counter to try to track the alien’s movements within the research station. They follow the signals to a greenhouse, but the creature isn’t there. What the scientists do discover is that the locks have been mangled and several dead sled dogs were hidden inside of a container. Dr. Carrington tells the other scientists to keep this discovery a secret from the soldiers. He believes that not only will the alien return to the greenhouse to seek refuge, but that it’s also smarter than them and can be communicated and reasoned with.
The Thing from Another World (1951) – (c) RKO Radio Pictures
It’s a sound plan but fails miserably.
One of the scientists stumbles into the communication center and falls to the floor. He informs the soldiers that the creature is in the greenhouse. It attacked him and killed the other two scientists, draining them of their blood. Captain Hendry leads his men to the greenhouse where they have a brief encounter with the alien creature. They manage to prop the door closed and keep it locked inside the greenhouse. Just like a plant, the alien creature has regrown its missing arm.
The Thing from Another World (1951) – (c) RKO Radio Pictures
In a separate laboratory, Dr. Carrington is secretly using blood plasma to feed spores from the alien’s severed arm, proving that it has much in common with plant species. When Hendry talks to Nikki, Dr. Carrington’s secretary, she informs Hendry that Dr. Carrington took the blood plasma from the medical center. She also mentions that he has been obsessed with the alien creature since they returned from the crash site, and Dr. Carrington is not thinking correctly any more.
The alien creature breaks out of the greenhouse and is outside in the storm. It can strike at any of the buildings. Captain Hendry and his men being preparing a trap as Nikki monitors the Geiger counter. The radiation count is increasing and they hear a window break. It’s coming for them!
The Thing from Another World (1951) – (c) RKO Radio Pictures
The alien creature breaks into the barracks and makes its way towards the soldiers. The soldiers fight back and toss kerosene onto it and then set it ablaze with a flare gun. Despite being on fire the alien creature continues advancing and starts attacking the men. It’s attacked with more and more kerosene until the alien creature is forced to retreat and escape through a window.
The Thing from Another World (1951) – (c) RKO Radio Pictures
As Captain Hendry tries to form a defensive battle plan the men notice that the research station’s heating system has been stopped. The reservoir for the system’s heating oil was just filled the other day. This means that the alien creature found a way to block the flow of heating oil, putting the research station under siege.
Everybody is placed into the generator room for safety. The men then lay electrical cables along the hallway that leads to the generator room, setting another trap for the alien creature. Instead of trying to burn it again, this time they’re planning on zapping it with electricity.
The Thing from Another World (1951) – (c) RKO Radio Pictures
Once again the reading on the Geiger counter increases as the alien creature makes its way towards the survivors. It breaks open a door and begins advancing along the hallway. Suddenly, Dr. Carrington runs past the soldiers and confronts the alien. He tries talking and communicating with the alien, telling it that it’s a superior being and we have much to learn from it. This has no effect and the alien hits Dr. Carrington, knocking him to the side of the hallway as if he was an insect.
The Thing from Another World (1951) – (c) RKO Radio Pictures
The alien continues advancing down the hallway but it’s not on the wooden pallets that are hiding the wires. One of the men throws a pickaxe at the alien, making it jump back onto the pallets. Once the creature arrives at the correct spot the switch is thrown and the alien creature is electrocuted. The men watch as it is cooked by electricity and then dies. During the excitement of the moment, Ned Scott forgets to shoot his prize winning photograph of the alien.
The alien creature is dead and the people in the research station are saved. After the battle is finished the weather clears and communication is established again with the people in Anchorage.
The Thing from Another World ends as Captain Hendry gives Ned Scott permission to file his news report over the radio. The men listen as Ned begins telling a harrowing tale of their encounter with a vicious alien creature. Ned warns the people of Earth to, “Keep watching the skies!”
So is The Thing from Another World any good?
Many people classify this film as one of the best science fiction films ever made. I don’t know if I would go that far, but this is certainly a very enjoyable film from one of the best time periods in American science fiction films.
Part of what makes this film a decent horror story is its sheer isolation in an incredibly harsh environment. This isn’t a small town that encounters a UFO. This is the North Pole, a vast area of permanently frozen landscape where the extreme cold can freeze people to death in a matter of minutes. Not only do the people have to survive in that unforgivable environment, but they also need to find a way to stop a menacing alien creature that cannot be harmed by bullets.
To me, the worst part of the story is when the alien creature is determined to be an extraterrestrial plant species. This is a creature that looks and moves like a tall and immensely powerful human, yet allegedly its composure is more of a plant species than an animal. That just sounds like a weak attempt at trying to explain how the creature can survive being completely frozen in ice.
Despite the lameness of the creature’s composure, the alien creature itself is still pretty interesting. We catch glimpses of it here and there, adding to the horror element of the story until there’s a fiery battle between the alien and the soldiers in the research station’s barracks.
The Thing from Another World (1951) – movie trailer
Fans of science fiction and horror stories need to experience this classic film. Sure, it’s nowhere nearly as bloody and horrific as later films, but The Thing from Another World still has a great story. I just wish that this film had more science-fiction and less of it being a monster movie.
The Thing from Another World was remade as The Thing in 1982. In 2011 a prequel to 1982′s The Thing was released and, oddly enough, also called The Thing.
Ned “Scotty” Scott – “Watch the skies, everywhere! Keep looking. Keep watching the skies!”