Howard Hawks' The Thing From Another World is a movie that passed me by entirely during my childhood. Of late I've been trying to catch up with all those classic old movies that I did see when I was young, but only have dim recollections of: The Creature From The Black Lagoon, Bride of Frankenstein, The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms, Them, The Fearless Vampire Killers... the list is long.
Unlike a lot of re-makes, the do-over of the Hawks' movie by John Carpenter was visceral, eye-popping top drawer horror movie making; so I was curious to see the original after all this time.
And Hawks' movie is a entirely different beast to be sure, but no less effective. (And by the way, it's technically directed by Christian Nyby, but to all intents and purposes, The Thing... is a Hawks' movie through and through.) This claustrophobic, thinly-veiled meditation on the anti-communist witchhunts in the form of a malevolent alien being terrorising an air force crew and the scientists at a remote Artic research outpost is full of mood and suspense, and plays like a more contemporary movie.
What surprised me most was the dialogue; it's fast-paced, exceedingly snappy stuff for a horror movie of the 50's. Dialogue was never top of the list of requirements for SF/Horror back in those days (and some, me included, would argue it still isn't, alas). But Hawks and Charles Lederer's script bristles with one liners with characters' dialogue often overlapping in a realistic way. It's also notable for having a female co-star who's pretty sassy and more than capable when the alien starts his reign of terror on the base. There's also some light bondage fun to had with male lead, Kenneth Tobey!
Of course, a fifty year old movie simply can't compete with the (still) stunning FX work by Rob Bottin in Carpenter's remake, and James Arness stumbling about in the snow looking like a sub-Karloff Frankenstein doesn't especially do it any favours. But despite this, Hawks' Thing slow-burns the tension, making the menace - out there - all the more fearful, and instead focuses on the interplay between the exceedingly well-drawn characters, and then throws some well-staged and atmospheric set-pieces into the mix for the finale. The final fire and electricity scenes are simply beautiful bits of black and white cinema. There's also some fabulously spooky music by Dimitri Tiomkin that lends extra chills to the shadows and largely unseen menace.
Despite its somewhat heavy handed 'Reds in the bed' subtext, Hawks' The Thing From Another World is huge 50's blockbuster fun. Them is next on the list...
4 comments:
I must pick this up at some point. The 2-disk edition is a bit weird, as it has a colourised version on one disk, and the b&w version on the other - which has an audio commentary by Carpenters, as he's an uber Hawks fanboy.
Yeah, that's the one Joe brought over for us to watch. shame there's no extras aside from the commentary and the pointless colourised version though.
Think I'm going to borrow my dad's copy of the remake to watch, as I haven't seen it in years.
I met Carpenter some years back at the NFT, when he presented a talk on Hawks. I pointed out that since he'd echoed Rio Lobo as Assault on Precinct 13, and remade TTFAW, there still remained one of Hawks' themes he hadn't explored: the screwball comedy. He liked the idea, but I think it came a little too late in his career.
Ref. Nyby, none of the cast recall anyone but Hawks calling the shots on TTFAW. Seems the credit was just a favour for an old friend.
The notion of Carpenter and a screwball comedy just won't compute in my head.
It seems a shame that such a great director has fallen by the wayside in recent times.
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