The Thing from Another World
John Carpenter’s “The Thing” is, nominally, a new adaptation of John W. Campbell Jr.’s novella, Who Goes There?, but it’s also an example in how a filmmaker will take what they want from the material, and go in their own direction. (Honestly, the best sort of adaptation.) The 1951 adaptation of Campbell Jr.’s story, “The Thing from Another World,” is very much a movie of its time, similar to Carpenter’s. How it builds to both the science fiction (and horror) elements is something we’ll be familiar with if we’re familiar with the films of the era. It’s a solid film, even if what came after looms large in our mind.
Rather than taking place on Antarctica, “The Thing from Another World” is set at the North Pole, as we watch a crew of Air Force men and scientists go up to investigate what looks like a crashed flying saucer. Nearby, they also find a humanoid form in the ice. They take it into one of the cabins with them, and as that happens, strange things begin to happen.
Produced by Howard Hawks (who did uncredited direction and writing on the film), “The Thing from Another World” is a film that takes the mystery of the inciting incident, and adapts it into something different. The Thing of the title is an alien organism that seems to be able to work with the organisms of its environment, and morph its shape. John Carpenter visualized that in brute visceral ways in 1982; in 1951, Hawks and his collaborators, like director Christian Nyby and screenwriter Charles Lederer, we’re left with a dog, and the humanoid played by James Arness. In structure, this actually has more in common with Ridley Scott’s “Alien” than Carpenter’s film, which keeps the mystery going all the way up to the end, even to this day. “The Thing from Another World” ties things up fairly clearly.
The final 30 minutes is where the humanoid comes into play. They are looking for what might have caused the dog’s death, and the main one who is more curious in studying it than killing it is Dr. Carrington (Robert Cornthwaite). Two men have already died, however. Having said that, the curiosity about the organism is tantalizing. The structure of the film is strong, but the film does feel fairly stoic as it goes on. The climax makes up for a lot of the film’s stoicism, but it also feels like too pat a conclusion for a film that could have explored its subject so much stronger. For fans of this sort of genre film, it’s well worth checking out.
