- Title: The Thing from Another World
- IMDb: link
Throwback Thursday takes us back t0 1951 and the North Pole where a group of soldiers and scientists will unearth an alien from another world from beneath the ice that almost destroys them. Making several changes to the novella which spawned it, the film is your basic fight for survival at the end of the world that even pits some of the humans against each other involving the scientists, oblivious to the dangers involved, who want to capture and keep the creature alive, and the soldiers who know it must be destroyed.
The cast includes Kenneth Tobey, James Young, and Robert Nichols as the solders, Margaret Sheridan, Robert Cornthwaite, and Eduard Franz as the scientists with Douglas Spencer as a reporter looking for a story and James Arness as the alien thawed from a block of ice who is plant-based making it difficult to destroy as it feeds on the blood of its victims to stay alive.
Fairly well-received, the film includes some uncredited work on both the script and direction behind the camera by Howard Hawks (although how much is open to debate). Earning more money the same year than The Day the Earth Stood Still, the original story’s author John Wood Campbell Jr. was content with the film bringing in new audiences to the genre even if some of the scarier aspects of the story were dropped. Decades later, John Carpenter would attempt a more faithful adaptation of the story. Despite the added tension in Carpenter’s version, not being a big fan of the gore it uses when showcasing the creature, I’ve always preferred the original film.
