Thing from Another World
A high watermark in the spate of science fiction films flooding movie screens in the 1950s, this Howard Hawks production is as remembered for its snappy dialogue and well-timed shocks as its unorthodox placement in the history of auteur cinema. The film bears a directorial credit for Christian Nyby, a seasoned editor who had been working with Howard Hawks since
To Have and Have Not in 1944. He also earned an Oscar nomination for his challenging work on
Red River (1948), which necessitated the creation of two entirely different cuts (both of which have their passionate advocates). The exact nature of the roles of Hawks and Nyby during the production of
The Thing from Another World (1951) remains ambiguous, with Hawks on set throughout the production as producer in a more hands-on role than usual. The finished film is usually referred to as a Hawks production either way, with many writers treating it as part of his directorial body of work.
The 1951 film originated at Hawks' Winchester Pictures Corporation a year earlier with several screenplays drafted from the 1938 short story "Who Goes There?" written by John W. Campbell, Jr. under the name Don A. Stuart. The story first appeared in the magazine
Astounding Science-Fiction, with the main elements lifted for the film including its arctic setting and a group of scientists under siege from an alien menace excavated from the ice. Otherwise the characters and the nature of the threat were significantly changed during the writing process, which included a treatment (as simply
The Thing) by Ben Hecht and Charles Lederer and multiple drafts by Campbell, still writing as Stuart. Hecht and Lederer had famously worked with Hawks on
His Girl Friday (1940), a gender-twisting take on their earlier
The Front Page (1931).
Cast in the leads were Kenneth Tobey as Captain Patrick Hendry and Margaret Sheridan as Nikki Nicholson, another example of Hawks's tough, fast-talking female leads. An experienced stage actor, Tobey caught Hawks's eye in the director's
I Was a Male War Bride (1949) and was promoted here to star status. The film's success led to both a busy TV career and starring roles in two more beloved '50s sci-fi films,
The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953) and
It Came from Beneath the Sea (1955), not to mention affectionate roles in a handful of Joe Dante projects. Discovered by Hawks while she was still in college, Sheridan was originally offered a leading role in
Red River but had to decline due to her pregnancy. However, she flourished in her role here including a memorable scene of mild kink in which she playfully ties Tobey to a chair, a scene trimmed from many circulating prints and home video versions well into the 1980s.
However, the film is arguably stolen by some of its supporting players including one of the era's defining deluded scientists played by Robert Cornthwaite. The World War II vet had one of his most memorable turns here as Dr. Carrington, which was lauded with a Science Fiction Hall of Fame entry in 1993. A year after this film he reteamed with Hawks for
Monkey Business and would also enjoy a long career on the big and small screens. Also among the cast are TV regular Dewey Martin, who had memorable appearances on
The Twilight Zone and
The Outer Limits, and a rare onscreen appearance by master impressionist Paul Frees, whose voiceover and voice acting work made him a familiar presence everywhere from Disney park attractions (including the Haunted Mansion) to movie trailers to TV's
The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show. The most unexpected name here, uncredited on the actual prints, is the "Thing" itself, played by James Arness four years before TV immortality as Marshal Matt Dillon on the two-decade TV run of
Gunsmoke. Also a World War II veteran, he was an ideal choice here thanks to his imposing 6'7" frame and would also go on to star in another key '50s sci-film,
Them! (1954).
The Thing from Another World would become a highly influential film among the '70s New Hollywood breed of directors; the aforementioned Joe Dante nods were legion, and John Carpenter prominently featured two scenes from the film in his groundbreaking horror classic,
Halloween (1978). Carpenter would go on to mount a remake of sorts, simply titled
The Thing, for Universal in 1982 with a far closer adherence to the original short story. That version has become a major genre classic in its own right, though in public appearances Carpenter still defers to the Hawks film as the definitive telling. The 1982 film also spawned a prequel bearing the same title in 2011, while elements of the short story and the films were affectionately included in one of the standout episodes of the first season of
The X-Files, "Ice." However, its greatest contribution to pop culture may be Scotty's famous closing lines, which have transcended their original atomic age paranoia to now encapsulate the appeal of an entire decade of genre filmmaking: "Watch the skies, everywhere. Keep looking. Keep watching the skies!"
By Nathaniel Thompson
The Thing (from Another World)
Despite its laugh-inducing title,
The Thing from Another World (1951) turned out to be such a taut, well-made film that even people not enamored of science fiction admit that it's a classic. At the time of the film's release the
New York Times wrote: "Not since Dr. Frankenstein wrought his mechanical monster has the screen had such a good time dabbling in scientific fiction....the film is full of unexpected thrills" and audiences were in total agreement. Contemporary film writers Bill Warren (
Keep Watching the Skies) and Tom Weaver (
Universal Horrors) both consider it one of the ten best science fiction films ever, and they're hardly alone in their assessment.
The film begins as Air Force Captain Hendry (Kenneth Tobey) and his crew head to the Arctic to investigate reports of a mysterious aircraft that crashed there. Upon arrival, he discovers a scientific expedition already encamped there and close to locating the crash site. Hendry also encounters his former girlfriend, Nikki (Margaret Sheridan), who is working for the scientists as a secretary. Soon the group uncovers the alien aircraft buried in the ice and once they melt through to the wreckage, the situation quickly escalates from unpredictable to terrifying.
Undoubtedly the most famous controversy over
The Thing is whether Howard Hawks - listed here as a producer - actually directed most of the film instead of the credited director, Christian Nyby. In an interview with Peter Bogdanovich for his book,
Who the Devil Made It? (Ballantine Books), Hawks commented on the mystery: "Chris Nyby had done an awfully good job as the cutter on
Red River and he'd been a big help to us too, so I let him do it. He wanted to be a director and I had a deal with RKO that allowed me to do that. I was at rehearsals and helped them with the overlapping dialogue - but I thought Chris did a good job." Nevertheless, a few people on the set later claimed that Hawks did much of the daily directing and there are even photos that tend to support this. It's also clear that
The Thing shares strong similarities with other Hawks films that deal with group dynamics, particularly in situations where everyone, women included, are working under pressure and are being judged by their performance. Take a look at any Howard Hawks movie, from
Only Angels Have Wings (1939) to
Air Force (1943) to
Hatari! (1962), and it's remarkable how many of his films fit this pattern, including
The Thing. As for credited director Christian Nyby, who had previously won an Oscar for his editing of
Red River (1948), it would be another six years before he would helm another picture -
Hell on Devil's Island (1957).
But enough about the true director of
The Thing. The film was based on a story by John W. Campbell, Jr., who was one of the key figures in the development of science fiction: he worked as the editor of
Astounding (which later became
Analog) for almost four decades and helped launch the careers of Robert Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, and numerous other writers. Interestingly, Campbell's own story "Who Goes There?," first published in 1938 under the pseudonym Don Stuart, was decidedly more paranoid than the 1951 film version of
The Thing. For the screenplay, scenarist Charles Lederer actually discarded most of the original story except for the basic premise. He even changed the basic physical nature of the alien (in the story it's a shape-shifter). By the time
The Thing was ready for filming, several gruesome sequences had already been trimmed from the script such as a human decapitation scene.
Several stories have circulated about some of the various uncredited writers on
The Thing. Ben Hecht and William Faulkner are often mentioned as possible contributors, which makes sense since they both worked at various times with Hawks and were around RKO Studios during that time. Another rumor that is almost certainly untrue is that Orson Welles contributed some dialogue to the screenplay.
Filming on
The Thing started on October 25, 1950, at RKO soundstages (one of which had been used for
Citizen Kane, 1941) with an A-level budget set at $1.3 million (later to increase to $1.6 million). By the end of November the cast and crew went to a large icehouse in downtown Los Angeles to film shots where the actors' breath needed to be visible in the cold. Then it was off to Montana where they intended to film the expedition and saucer exteriors. Unfortunately the producers didn't realize that the snow in that part of Montana wasn't really adequate for their needs so they only got a few shots there. Additional shooting was done on a North Dakota set using stand-ins for the actors. The flying saucer sequence ended up being filmed at the RKO Ranch in Encino, California, using fake snow in front of an extensive curved backdrop.
In regard to the music score,
The Thing is one of the earliest science fiction films to use a theremin, an electronic instrument played without touching it. The theremin's eerie whine had earlier been used in thrillers like
Spellbound (1945) and
The Lost Weekend (1945), but henceforth it would be associated primarily with horror and science fiction thrillers.
James Arness, later famous as Marshall Dillon on TV's
Gunsmoke, was cast as
The Thing and at the time he was just a struggling movie actor. In his few brief appearances as the creature, it's difficult to get a very good look at him; apparently a lot of close-ups were filmed but most were later removed because they were too obviously fake. As documented, Arness reported to the set two months prior to filming for the development of the make-up design, which took two hours each day to apply. At least their efforts weren't in vain: One day Arness and the make-up man took the Thing's claws to a drive-in restaurant where they startled the unsuspecting waitresses. Yet, despite the film's subsequent success, Arness was reportedly embarassed by his role as
The Thing for the rest of his life and didn't even attend the film's premiere.
In 1982, John Carpenter remade
The Thing, but this time remained more faithful to Campbell's original story. Though dismissed at the time, Carpenter's version is now considered a neglected masterpiece. Unsettling and paranoid, it's one of the few genuinely surrealist films ever made. But the original version of
The Thing is also a landmark film in many ways and says much about the psychological state of the nation in the fifties when flying saucers were a popular topic as well as a threat.
Producer: Howard Hawks
Director: Christian Nyby
Screenplay: Charles Lederer
Art Direction: Albert S. D'Agostino, John Hughes
Cinematography: Russell Harlan
Costume Design: Michael Woulfe
Film Editing: Roland Gross
Original Music: Dimitri Tiomkin
Cast: Kenneth Tobey (Capt. Patrick Hendry), Margaret Sheridan (Dr. Nikki Nicholson), Robert Cornthwaite (Dr. Arthur Carrington), Douglas Spencer (Ned "Scotty" Scott), Dewey Martin (Bob), Eduard Franz (Dr. Stern), Robert Nichols (Lt. McPherson), James Arness (The Thing).
BW-87m. Closed captioning. Descriptive Video.
by Lang Thompson & Jeff Stafford
Kenneth Tobey (1917-2003)
Kenneth Tobey, the sandy-haired, tough-looking American character actor who appeared in over 100 films, but is best remembered as Captain Patrick Hendry in the Sci-Fi classic,
The Thing From Another World (1951), died on December 22nd of natural causes at a hospital in Rancho Mirage, California. He was 86.
Born in Oakland, California on March 23, 1917, Tobey originally intended to be a lawyer before a stint with the University of California Little Theater changed his mind. From there, he went straight to New York and spent nearly two years studying acting at the Neighborhood Playhouse, where his classmates included Gregory Peck, Eli Wallach and Tony Randall. Throughout the '40s, Tobey acted on Broadway and in stock before relocating to Hollywood. Once there, Tobey soon found himself playing a tough soldier in films like
I Was a Male War Bride and
Twelve O' Clock High (both 1949); or a tough police officer in
Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye and
Three Secrets (both 1950). Such roles were hardly surprising, given Tobey's craggy features, unsmiling countenance and rough voice.
Needless to say, no-nonsense, authority figures would be Tobey's calling for the remainder of his career; yet given the right role, he had the talent to make it memorable: the smart, likeable Captain Hendrey in
The Thing From Another World (1951); the gallant Colonel Jack Evans in the "prehistoric dinosaur attacks an urban center" genre chiller
The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953, a must-see film for fans of special effects wizard, Ray Harryhausen; and as Bat Masterson, holding his own against Kirk Douglas and Burt Lancaster in
Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957).
Television would also offer Tobey much work: he had his own action series as chopper pilot Chuck Martin in
Whirlybirds (1957-59); and had a recurring role as Assistant District Attorney Alvin in
Perry Mason (1957-66). He would also be kept busy with guest appearances in countless westerns (
Gunsmoke,
Bonanza,
The Virginian) and cop shows (
The Rockford Files,
Barnaby Jones,
Ironside) for the next two decades. Most amusingly, the tail end of Tobey's career saw some self-deprecating cameo spots in such contemporary shockers as
The Howling (1981);
Strange Invaders (1983) and his role reprisal of Captain Hendry in
The Attack of the B-Movie Monsters (2002). Tobey is survived by a daughter, two stepchildren, and two grandchildren.
by Michael T. Toole