What follows has the makings of a standard '50s sci-fi/horror as the humans battle the guy in the monster suit. The reason it is not so easily dismissable has to do with the marque of its pedigree. The first thing you see after the RKO card is that of Winchester Pictures, the production company of veteran director Howard Hawks. He is also the films producer and his style casts a shadow over the film. Hawks who proved himself a master of every genre from screwball comedies, to tough crime, war movies and Westerns, brought his pictures in at or short of ninety minutes and never included a scene that didn't need to be there. The credited director is Christian Nyby. We'll talk about that.
What it means, though, is that A decidedly Hawksian approach to blocking and overlapping dialogue as well as tightly choreographed physical action gives this movie its solidity and credibility. Yes, James Arness looks like a vegan Frankenstein monster but you need to see it a few times to come to that impression as he is mostly seen in shadow. The one full reveal before the final sequence is a jump scare that doesn't allow a critical dig. Val Lewton never showed the cat in Cat People. Nyby did but did it right. The Thing From Another World.
Between encounters, the world in the research station is tensed up by the conflict between the scientists and the soldiers. Captain Pat has more work than he'd signed on for in resisting the increasingly frustrated Dr Carrington. Carrington, while surrounded by boffin types, comes across as a humourless beatnik with his skivvy collar and goatee. It's science vs safety and when the former is treated like the work of a primadonna artist things are gonna get crazy and do.
Before this, we get the world of the military personnel, with added definition from the reported Scott. They're a bunch of jibing blokes in uniform who obey their orders and explain away their mishaps to the brass. Pat gets an extra dimension. He has history with the admin assistant Nikki and their first scene is a marvel of sex talk without talking sex. Pat's blustering machismo is no match for Nikki's sly rejoinders; he can flirt all he likes but he's not going to get anything through force. The scene is a marvel of economic dialogue, pacing and physical arrangement. By the end of it you just want them to get together permanently. This might have fallen into a lifeless chore were it not for the influence of the director of His Girl Friday and Bringing Up Baby. By the time, in the following scene, Pat exits with a stolen wink at her, we are sold.
This is presaged by the banter of other officers as they play cards back at base as Pat gets ribbed by his history with Nikki. All of it adds to the timeline stretching before the first scene and lets us know we're not going to be mingling with lunkheaded military types who shoot first and shout down the questions later. It's the scientists that get the standoff treatment. Apart from Carrington they are all quite affable but speak in equations and jargon until Pat has to stop them talking. Their talk suggests scholarship in the field which is all it has to do. They're out there in the ice because they have to be. The Jurassic Park question about could and should only comes up when they want to examine the thing that might erase humanity from the face of the Earth.
Let's get back to the question of directorial influence. It's Christian Nyby's name on the chair but there are traits that are pure Howard Hawks. Mostly, this is down overlapping dialogue. Hawks had made the technique his own. You could also point to the economy of coverage and intense physical staging but that could be in any competent director's toolbox. Another example is Poltergeist which says it's by Tobe Hooper but looks and feels like producer Spielberg. Then again, if you want to see Tobe Hooper in Poltergeist, look to the holy rolling aspects of Tangina's performance, a blustering religious performance that Hooper would have grown up with and Spielberg would never have imagined. Once you're there you can find lots of the maker of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre's hands. Similarly, Nyby's close work with Hawks, his deference and conference would have done a lot to make the tight and fast movie we see. I'm going with Nyby's own statement about working with masters and taking heed. It's not a bad way to make your entrance as a director, showing that you can bring the goods in whomever's style. It's a Christian Nyby film.
Another issue to bring up is John Carpenter's 1982 film The Thing. It is not a remake of this film. Carpenter follows the original story by having the thing a body-hopping monster, imitating its host organisms and creating an uneasy paranoia. Hawks and Nyby had to think of the fastest way to create a threat and landed on a physically external being but one with the biological workings of a plant (e.g. regeneration of limbs) that needed blood for life. Not bad on a budget.
The Thing From Another World is repeat viewing for me. I can easily put it on and walk around in its world of ice and terror with a worldbuilding that involved near documentary quality set pieces and the yummiest hokey sci-fi that makes for a believable threat. The pacing and sheer affability wins every time. No accident, by the way, that John Carpenter shows kids watching it on TV in Halloween. At the time he had no idea he'd be making his own version. When he did he honoured this one by not imitating it. Now that's how influence is meant to work.
Viewing notes: For this review I watched my Warner Archive Blu-Ray copy. This, being a kind of on-demand presentation, is a step up from my old DVD but could still benefit from a 4K remaster. That said, the image is not stressed and the audio is clear at all times. Those issues fade as the engagement of the tale sets in. There is no local release in physical media but you can see it for free on Tubi, rent it from Prime or do a search through Flicks to see who else is making it available. If you've never seen it, treat yourself.
