The Thing from Another World | |
---|---|
Theatrical release poster
|
|
Directed by | Christian Nyby |
Produced by | Edward Lasker |
Screenplay by |
Charles Lederer Uncredited: Howard Hawks Ben Hecht |
Based on |
Who Goes There? 1938 novella by John W. Campbell, Jr. |
Starring |
Margaret Sheridan Kenneth Tobey Douglas Spencer Robert O. Cornthwaite James Arness |
Music by | Dimitri Tiomkin |
Cinematography | Russell Harlan, ASC |
Edited by | Roland Gross |
Production
company |
Winchester Pictures Corporation
|
Distributed by | RKO Radio Pictures |
Release date
|
|
Running time
|
87 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Box office | $1.95 million (US rentals) |
The Thing from Another World is a 1951 American science fiction horror film produced by Howard Hawks' Winchester Pictures Corporation, released by RKO Pictures, and directed by Christian Nyby. The film stars Kenneth Tobey, Margaret Sheridan, Robert Cornthwaite, and Douglas Spencer. James Arness played The Thing, but he is difficult to recognize in costume and makeup, due to both low lighting and other effects used to obscure his features. The film is based on the 1938 novella Who Goes There? by John W. Campbell (writing under the pseudonym of Don A. Stuart).
The storyline concerns a U. S. Air Force crew and scientists who find a crashed flying saucer and a body frozen nearby in the Arctic ice. Returning to their remote research outpost with the humanoid body in a block of ice, they are forced to defend themselves against this malevolent, plant-based alien when it is accidentally revived.
A United States Air Force crew is dispatched from Anchorage, Alaska at the request of Dr. Carrington (Robert Cornthwaite), the chief scientist of a North Pole scientific outpost. They have evidence that an unknown flying craft has crashed in their vicinity, so reporter Ned Scott (Douglas Spencer) tags along for the story.
Dr. Carrington later briefs Captain Hendry (Kenneth Tobey) and his airmen, and Dr. Redding (George Fenneman) shows photos of a flying object moving erratically before crashing -- not the movements of a meteorite. Following erratic magnetic pole anomalies, the crew and scientists fly to the crash site where the mysterious craft lies buried beneath refrozen ice. As they spread out to outline the craft's general shape, the men realize they are standing in a circle; they have discovered a crashed flying saucer. They try de-icing the buried craft with thermite heat bombs, but only ignite its metal alloy, causing an explosion that destroys the saucer. Their Geiger counter then points to a slightly radioactive frozen shape buried nearby in the refrozen ice.