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Synopsis:
A team of scientists stationed at the North Pole reports to an airforce
base in Anchorage that something, possibly an unusual type of plane, has crashed
in their vicinity. Captain Pat Hendry (Kenneth Tobey) and his crew are sent to
investigate, taking with them reporter Ned Scott (Douglas Spencer). On route,
the radio operator at the camp, Tex Richards (Nicholas Byron), informs the crew
of a strange atmospheric disturbance, and warns them that they are off course.
At the camp, while the crew talks to the scientists, Hendry slips away to renew
his acquaintance with “Nikki” Nicholson (Margaret Sheridan), who is the
assistant to the chief scientist, Dr Arthur Carrington (Robert Cornthwaite).
Nikki takes Hendry to Carrington, who tells him that whatever crashed in the ice
weighed more than 20,000 tons. Moreover, the scientists’ readings prove that
the object had the ability to change direction, indicating that it was not a
meteor. The airforce crew, along with the scientists and Scott, flies out to the
crash site. As they approach, their compass goes haywire, and high radioactivity
is detected. The men find that the crashed object was hot enough when it hit to
melt the surrounding ice, which then re-froze over it. A fin, perhaps a
stabiliser, is jutting out of the ice. Dr Vorhees (Paul Frees) reports that it
is made of no metal with which he is familiar. Trying to determine the size and
shape of the object, the men spread out at its perimeter, staring at each other
in astonishment when they realise that the object is circular.
Following standard procedure, Hendry has his men plant thermite bombs around the
buried ship, so that they can melt the ice covering it. The bombs detonate as
planned, but suddenly everything goes wrong, and the ship is destroyed in a
tremendous explosion. The area is checked for residual radioactivity, and a hot
spot located. Incredibly, buried in the ice is a figure not human, but humanoid….
A storm is building. The men chop out a block of ice containing the strange
being, take it back to camp and place it in a storage area. The scientists
demand to be allowed to thaw and examine the creature, but Hendry refuses to do
anything without express orders. Carrington is furious, insisting that Hendry
has no authority over his team. The imperturbable Hendry has a window smashed in
the storeroom to maintain freezing temperatures, and places an armed guard on
the find. After a time, the crew chief (Dewey Martin) reports to Hendry that
Lieutenant McPherson (Robert Nichols), who has been left on guard, is feeling
agitated at being alone with the trapped creature, as its open eyes are visible
through the ice. Hendry agrees to the watches being shortened. Later that night,
while on guard, Corporal Barnes (William Self) also becomes uneasy at his
situation, and covers the block of ice with a blanket so that he cannot see its
contents. However, the blanket is electric, and it is on. Unnoticed by Barnes,
the ice begins to melt….
Comments:
While science fiction literature had long dealt with the concept of life in
outer space, and even with the possibility of an alien invasion of Earth (Wells’
“War Of The Worlds” was published in 1898), it was several decades before
motion pictures were willing to tackle such subjects in a serious manner. The
moment eventually came, however, and in 1951’s The
Thing, cinema-goers
first witnessed a recognisably alien being setting foot upon this planet.
Historically, it is not difficult to understand why the time for such a film
should finally have been considered ripe. Not only, as the saying goes, was the
Cold War beginning to hot up, but the previous few years had seen a new
expression enter the English language: flying
saucer.
In 1947 – just one month before something
crashed near Roswell, New Mexico – a pilot reported a formation of nine
mysterious objects in the sky over Mount Rainier, Washington. The eyewitness
described the objects as thin and tapered, but also described their motion as
being “like a saucer, if you skipped it across the water”. The journalists
who reported the incident latched onto this phrase and, ignoring the pilot’s actual
statement, dubbed the craft “flying saucers” – a term which swiftly
entered the collective consciousness. Belief in these strange flying machines
was widespread, although most people considered them to be of American origin
– or perhaps, more ominously, as coming from behind the Iron Curtain. It is
this latter notion, and the unease that it generated amongst the American
people, that fuels The Thing,
which is a film whose time had truly come. In the late 1940s – possibly even
inspired by the flying saucer furore – producer-director Howard Hawks acquired
the rights to “Who Goes There?”, a story by John W. Campbell Jr about an
alien that crash-lands on Earth, and the band of humans that must battle it for
their lives. When The Thing
was released, many in the science fiction community threw up their hands in
despair at the realisation that Campbell’s intelligent, telepathic,
shape-shifting invader had been reduced to an out-and-out movie monster.
While you can understand the disappointment and frustration that these people
felt at the apparent “dumbing down” of Campbell’s story, you can also
understand why Hawks may have done it. First of all, most obviously, the special
effects of the time were hardly up to the challenge of depicting Campbell’s
complex alien. However, perhaps a more pertinent reason is the political climate
of the time. For the Americans of 1951, a mysterious flying ship that came from somewhere
else, and the dangerous,
inarticulate, unmistakably hostile being that it disgorged, were metaphors too
potent to be denied. The Thing
ends with one of science fiction cinema’s most famous speeches, as the
reporter Ned Scott urges his compatriots to “Keep watching the skies!” It is
unlikely that anyone in the audience had much doubt about who they were supposed
to be watching out for.
You
will have noticed that in discussing The Thing
so far, I have twice mentioned Howard Hawks as the driving force of the
production. For many years now, controversy has raged over the actual identity
of the film’s director, with numerous commentators claiming that Hawks himself
directed the film, and not his long-time editor, Christian Nyby, whose name is
on the credits. As far as I can determine, the consensus these days is that
while Nyby did indeed direct the film, Hawks rehearsed the actors rigorously
before shooting started, and also oversaw the production. It is likely that he
worked on the screenplay as well. In practical terms, however, such debates are
meaningless: Hawks’ fingerprints are all over The
Thing; it is a “Howard
Hawks film” in everything but name. Characteristically, the story revolves
around a group of people under pressure, who overcome adversity thanks to their
common sense, their ingenuity, and above all their ability to band together and
work as a team in the face of danger. Hawks was one of the screen’s leading
humanists, evincing a simple and enjoyable faith in the ability of human beings
to rise to any occasion and deal with whatever crisis confronted them. His films
hum with positive energy, intelligence, and good humour. In The
Thing, which
unquestionably contains one of the screen’s most attractive depictions of the
military, these qualities are embodied by Pat Hendry and the men under his
command. Hendry himself is the kind of commanding officer everyone would like to
have. Cool-headed and decisive, able to remain friendly with his men while
effortlessly enforcing his orders and maintaining discipline, Hendry is perhaps
most remarkable for his willingness to admit to his own limitations, and to act
upon sensible advice no matter what its origin. Indeed, he spends much of the
latter half of the film obeying “suggestions” from his multi-skilled crew
chief, resigning himself to a secondary role as the inventive Bob and one of the
scientists take matters into their own hands. The byplay between Hendry and his
men is one of the film’s most entertaining aspects. One of Hawks’ trademarks
was his overlapping dialogue, which he used to generate a sense of excitement
and rapidity of action in his films. While His Girl
Friday probably the
best example of this trait, The Thing
is not far behind, boasting dialogue that is remarkably believable. The
characters in this film do not just stand around, politely waiting for others to
finish their lines – sorry, I mean sentences
– before speaking themselves: they interrupt, talk over the top of one
another, smartmouth and editorialise. In other words – they talk like real
people. Often, the focus of the action will be upon one or more of the
characters, while others, perhaps not even in shot, will be providing the “commentary”.
This is not only refreshing, it adds a great deal of credibility to the
proceedings.
The
other classic Hawks trademark to be found in The
Thing – one which,
overall, is one of the main reasons why his films are still so damned enjoyable
to watch today – is the presence of a smart and sassy woman. As with all Hawks
heroines, “Nikki” Nicholson (it is also typical of Hawks that she should
sport a nickname rather than a real one) is attractive, strong-minded and
independent, happy to mix it with the boys, and quite capable of giving as good
as she gets – or as it happens, much better. The dialogue exchanged by Pat
Hendry and Nikki, and the backstory to their lightly sketched romance, is
nothing short of jaw-dropping. How many fifties film “heroes”, after all,
are explicitly depicted as having such dishonourable intentions as Pat Hendry,
who is revealed to have invited Nikki down to Anchorage with the express
intention of getting her drunk and taking advantage of her? But the censors
needn’t have worried: being a Hawks heroine, Nikki turns out to have a much
harder head than Hendry himself. His campaign came to an inglorious conclusion
when she drank him
under the table, instead. Moreover, when drunk, Hendry turns out to have “more
hands than an octopus” – something Nikki finds intensely amusing. In one of
the film’s most startling scenes (one cut from many prints to this day), Nikki
and Hendry resume their relationship when she invites him
for a drink – on the proviso that he lets her tie his hands behind his back
first. Thus safe from molestation, she proceeds to ply him with alcohol, and
then have her way with him….in terms of kisses, at least. Now – all of this
is immensely entertaining, and we certainly wouldn’t part with it, but it has
to be said that Nikki isn’t one of Hawks’ more imperative heroines. Apart
from one decisive action (and I’ll have more to say about that later), she isn’t
all that necessary to the story. (Mind you, this didn’t stop the publicity
department plastering her and Hendry all over the film’s poster art, you can
see.) Still, we’re glad she’s there, if only because we’re treated to one
of the most unexpected lines of dialogue in all fifties cinema as a consequence.
Granted, it is
made quite clear that Pat Hendry spent the night in question in an alcoholic
stupor, but nevertheless, the casual inclusion of a remark like “When I woke
up in the morning, you were gone” is not
exactly what we expect to encounter in a film of this era. Less unexpectedly, by
the end of the film the relationship between the two has taken a more
conventional turn, and we receive, perhaps, an intimation of the way Howard
Hawks thought marriage should
be. Marginalised as his more technical-savvy juniors take control of the
action, an exasperated Hendry announces, “I’ve given all the orders I’m
going to give!” “If I thought that
was true,” grins Nikki, “I’d ask you to marry me!”
The
Thing,
therefore, is better than fair to the military and to women. Its main
shortcoming is that this fairness does not extend across the board. Well –
perhaps, in 1951, that was too much to ask. The
Thing is an absolutely
seminal work in the history of science fiction cinema, initiating many
conventions that today we consider to be clichés of the genre. One of those is
its “science vs the military” subplot. While the film is structured around
this conflict, it has to be said that it is never a fair fight. The airforce
crewmen are unquestionably set up as the story’s heroes; the viewer is
continually encouraged to side with them, and to assume that in any given
situation, they will be right. Moreover, the film’s POV remains firmly with
Hendry and his men at almost all times: there are only a couple of scenes in
which none of the military personnel are present – and in one of them, Nikki is
present, which pretty much amounts to the same thing. It is to the credit of
the film’s production team that the manipulative nature of all this may not be
readily apparent until a second, or even a third viewing. Certainly, Hendry and
the others are competent, funny and smart: we enjoy their company. However, it
is a fact that when you put aside these superficial qualities and really study The
Thing, it becomes
obvious that the film’s dominant characteristic is the way in which it stacks
the deck against its central scientist, Dr Arthur Carrington.
By
and large, science did not fair well in the movies of the fifties. Scientists
were rarely allowed to be “right” about anything unless they were hand in
glove with the military at the time. Even so, few movie scientists have been
treated as harshly as Arthur Carrington, who is one of the screen’s definitive
“mad scientists” – even though for most of The
Thing, his madness seems
more in the minds of Howard Hawks and Charles Lederer than in his own. Even
before open hostilities break out between Carrington and Hendry, the audience
has been visually clued in on what they are supposed to think about the
scientist. With his fur hat and fur-collared coat (no-one else dresses this
way), his beard and his effete manner (and in using the term “effete”, I’m
being polite), Carrington is “coded” beyond any possibility of
misinterpretation. (If we were given a glimpse into Carrington’s home life –
assuming he has
one – we’d probably find that he’s guilty of those other two great
fifties “signifiers”, as well: a preference for cats, and an interest in
modern art.) Worse than all of this, Carrington has no real sense of humour. Oh,
sure, he permits himself the occasional superior smile, and contemptuous smirk,
but he never actually laughs
– while all the other characters are constantly joking and joshing each
other. In a Howard Hawks film, such behaviour sticks out like a sore thumb; it
“marks” Carrington as strongly and as negatively as anything could. Perhaps
the best example of this, which indeed occurs during one of the film’s
funniest scenes, is on the flight back from the discovery – and destruction
– of the flying saucer, and the acquiring of the trapped alien. Lt McPherson
reads aloud a Department of Defense directive stating that their investigation
into unidentified flying objects has been abandoned because “no evidence
exists” that there are such things. Most of those on board have a good laugh;
Carrington just looks disgusted. (Of course, it is a fact that no real
scientist has
a sense of humour; you only have to read my review of Embryo
to know that.)
The third strike against the scientist is more subtle, but no less damning. When
The Thing begins its rampage, the scientists themselves break into two camps,
one siding with Hendry, the other with Carrington. While no particular attention
is drawn to the fact, it is noticeable that the scientists who go over to Hendry
are American and English, whilst those who stay loyal to Carrington – two of
whom later lose their lives to the alien – sport distinct, if unspecified,
foreign accents.
Even
this isn’t enough, however. Almost everything about The
Thing is based on the
assumption that whatever he does, and whatever he thinks, Carrington is wrong.
Even his reaction to the existence of The Thing – his impulse to protect it,
his desire to communicate with it – is treated as irrational, if not downright
insane. At length, the script proclaims outright that Carrington “is a
scientist – he doesn’t think like us”; and in the American cinema of the
1950s (and not just the cinema), anyone who didn’t “think like us” was
automatically to be distrusted – was dangerous at best, and a traitor at
worst. One of the film’s most interesting “anti-Carringtonisms” is the
fact that he is actually in agreement with the airforce command – that “higher
authority” to which Hendry intends to appeal, when he refuses to let the
scientists touch the block of ice. However, when his orders do come, Hendry
ignores them completely, preferring to trust his own judgement, and defend his
actions later. General Fogarty, as it turns out, orders Hendry to do exactly
what Carrington wants: to preserve the flying saucer (yes, well….), and to
take no action that could harm The Thing. Now, you would think the fact that
Fogarty and Carrington are in agreement would be a mark in the scientist’s
favour, but actually the opposite is true. From the moment the film begins,
Fogarty is belittled and undermined. Almost everyone speaks disparagingly of
him, even Ned Scott. (“That’s what I like about the army – smart all the
way to the top!” he says sarcastically at one point, while, when Tex
translates a garbled message from the general as “something….something….”,
he observes, “Sounds
like Fogarty.”) Thus, Fogarty’s agreement with Carrington is yet another
strike against the scientist; and when Carrington praises Fogarty’s orders as
“sane” and “intelligent”, the condemnation of both men is complete.
Yet
for all this, the fact of the matter is that for most of The
Thing Carrington’s
behaviour is by no means unreasonable – or rather, is so only by the very
peculiar standards of this film. Until the clash between the scientist and
Hendry over the immediate fate of the ice-bound alien – and indeed, even
beyond that – Carrington is unfailingly courteous, even friendly. He
graciously defers to a better qualified colleague when the debate of the nature
of The Thing turns botanical, and shows great patience in dealing with both Ned
Scott’s incessant questions, and the reporter’s less-than-polite displays of
scepticism. Carrington’s first questionable act is to conceal from Hendry the
fact that The Thing has been in the greenhouse, and that it has killed – and
bled dry – one of the sled dogs. Clearly, however, this is done with no
malicious purpose, but partly in a display of understandable anger against
Hendry’s assumption of authority within the base (an authority which, as
Carrington rightly points out, he doesn’t actually have, and which he is able
to enforce only because he is backed up by men carrying guns), and partly in the
name of, yes, science. Two men die as a result of Carrington’s decision, but
their superior did not intentionally place them in danger. Rather, Carrington
took the sensible step of posting guards, exactly as Hendry does; and as he
subsequently points out (or tries to: his explanation is disregarded and talked
over), he himself stood a watch, and could just as easily have been one of the
victims. After this, and secretively, Carrington undertakes the cultivation of
baby “Things”, maintaining them on a diet of blood plasma. This is indeed
foolhardy on Carrington’s part, since he has no knowledge of The Thing’s
lifecycle – no notion, for instance, of how long it will be before these
sedentary babies become ambulatory, like their “mother” – and dangerous
like it, too. Nevertheless, in the face of Hendry’s declared intention of
destroying the adult creature, Carrington’s impulse to preserve and propagate
is understandable, if not exactly well-judged.
But
for heaven’s sake, people! – a spaceship from another world and a creature
from another world have just been encountered for the very first time. Surely
Carrington should
be excited – fascinated – even obsessed past the point of danger? How is
anything less even remotely possible? Yet the film never accepts this. Perhaps
the most mystifying aspect of The Thing
is how casual
everyone is about what they find in the ice; everyone but Carrington, that is.
In one of the film’s most indelible moments – one understandably reproduced
by John Carpenter, some thirty years later – the men spread out around the
perimeter of the buried ship, only to discover that that it is round.
“We finally got one!” says the ubiquitous Bob, and Ned Scott chips in with,
“We found a flying saucer!” There is excitement in the men’s manner, but
no shock.
We are left to assume that, in 1951, it was considered only a matter of time
before someone
found a flying saucer; Hendry & Co. just happened to get there first.
Likewise, when the ship is inadvertently destroyed, the men seem embarrassed
rather than devastated – as if there’ll be another one along any moment. And
again, back at the base, radio operator Tex Richards is startled by news of the
alien, but once assured that it is “on ice, buddy, on ice”, he goes right
back to rolling himself a cigarette. In the face of this off-hand attitude, the
scientists’ urgency comes across more like hysteria – which is exactly how
Hendry treats it: not as a valid position, but merely an inconvenience;
certainly not anything that needs to be taken seriously. Indeed, he
contemptuously stigmatises all of the scientists, not just Carrington, as “kids”,
as “children”, as “nine-year-olds with a toy fire-truck”. As for
Carrington himself, he may have won the Nobel Prize, have “received every kind
of international kudos a scientist can attain”, but he cannot be trusted. He
must be watched, guarded, and ultimately controlled by those who have not intelligence,
but common sense
– two qualities, we understand, that have little to do with one another. Like
a child, Carrington must be protected from himself – while others must be
protected from him.
Nikki,
too, eventually calls Carrington “a kid”, and while we may give her the
benefit of the doubt, and assume she merely giving Hendry back his own words as
a way of defusing his anger against her employer, her words accompany one of the
film’s most disturbing moments. Having been privy to Carrington’s revelation
of his babies, Nikki makes the decision to give Hendry a look at the
experimental notes she has been typing up. Now, let me be quite clear about
this: handing over a scientist’s notes to a third party is not
a small thing; it is, in fact, a betrayal of the first order. This is not to
say that Nikki is wrong, necessarily, under the circumstances; but a little more
doubt, a little more heartburning over her resolution, might have been in order.
(Of course, if she did anything like that today, Nikki would spend the rest of
her life in court, being hit with lawsuit after lawsuit for violating
confidentiality and intellectual property agreements.) But the film vindicates
her, the decisive factor being that The Thing is not just hostile, but hungry.
A number of science fiction films over the years have made their aliens
blood-drinkers, and to me it’s always seemed like a cop-out, an easy way of
removing any debate over whether the alien should
be destroyed by making it something that must be
destroyed, purely as a matter of self-defence. (We are supposed to ignore the
unlikelihood that “blood”, as we know it, is widespread throughout the
universe.) Here, it is also used to undermine any possible validity in
Carrington’s arguments. The scientist, in fact, makes two speeches in the
course of the film that have achieved a sort of immortality. When it is
discovered that The Thing is an advanced form of plant, Carrington is thrilled.
He applauds the thought of a world where plants are the dominant form of life,
arguing that “its development was not handicapped by emotional or sexual
factors”. “No pain or pleasure as we know it – no emotions – no heart,”
Carrington famously purrs. “Our superior – our superior in every way.”
Now,
there is some remarkably specious reasoning in all this. First off, let’s
consider the “no emotion” card. This is, of course, a double-whammy. In the
1950s, it was well known what kind of people were “emotionless”; Carrington’s
approval of a being without emotions is yet another label, all of a piece with
his fur hat and his beard. As well, we have that amazingly persistent fallacy
that science itself is fundamentally “unemotional” – although why it
should be, more than any other line of work, is beyond me. Logical thought and a
lack of emotion are not, after all, the same thing; and frankly, I can’t think
of too many jobs out there where continually making decisions based on your
emotions would be a good thing. Carrington’s speech, in short, is both
scientifically incorrect and based upon unsupported assumptions – two things
you’d scarcely expect him to be guilty of. It is a fact that the development
of a means of genetic recombination through sexual reproduction was one of the
defining events in our planet’s history. Even the most “unemotional”
scientist would hardly dismiss it as nothing more than an inconvenience. And
plants – duh! – do
reproduce sexually; they just don’t – you know – “do it”. As for
Carrington’s other conclusions, they are based on some very shaky
extrapolations indeed. The Thing feels “no pain or pleasure” – how does he
know? By the way it later howls when attacked with fire, it seems the former, at
least, is untrue. And no emotions? Is anger an emotion? Because it certainly
displays plenty of that. That Carrington, who throughout the opening section of
the film refuses to answer questions that he cannot answer accurately, and who
insists that he “dislikes being vague”, would suddenly commit himself to
statements like these, in the absence of any firm evidence, is unlikely in the
extreme.
However,
it is these beliefs that drive Carrington to one of the film’s most famous
moments. The Thing
gave to the world of science fiction one of the all-time great clichés when it
had Carrington cry repeatedly, “We must try to communicate
with it!” At the climax of the film, he acts upon this credo, throwing
himself between The Thing and his fellow human beings and making a desperate
plea, in which he assumes both “intelligence” and “wisdom” in the
creature confronting him. “Use that intelligence!” he implores it. “I’m
not your enemy – I’m a scientist---”
And
it is at this precise moment, of course, that The Thing disposes of Carrington
with one swing of its arm, leaving the scientist
with concussion and a fractured collarbone – and, presumably, a few altered
ideas about the desirability of “intelligence”.
But
really, all of this is very wrong. The Thing’s race
may be intelligent – indeed, we know that it is – but there is no good
reason to assume that this particular specimen has any shining qualities. It was
piloting a spaceship, certainly, but how do we know that required any particular skill or cleverness? All we know for sure is
that it managed to pilot its ship smack into what is, after all, a fair-sized
planet. The creature knows enough to cut the power that is heating the camp,
true, but then it also walks straight into a fairly obvious trap, and displays
no comprehension of the warning that Carrington is trying to convey. So as far
as I’m concerned, when it comes to the creature’s “superior intellect”,
the jury is still out. Indeed, for all we know – and it would be just
Carrington’s luck – this individual might be The Thing-ian equivalent of the
young Vogon space guard: same mental capacity, same range of talents.
Perhaps
the greatest tribute that I can pay to The Thing
is to confess that, despite the preceding three pages of complaint about the
unfairness of the film’s handling of Carrington, I love it with a passion. It’s
exciting, it’s funny, it’s suspenseful, it’s energetic – and it has a
“jump” scene that still gets audiences today, as I was pleased to discover
during a recent revival screening. (I’m not going to tell you what it is –
you’ll know it when you see it!) More than all this, however, The
Thing is a landmark in
the history of the science fiction film. Viewers who see it for the first time
nowadays are likely, most unjustly, to see it as one big bundle of clichés.
This is by no means a criticism of the film, but rather an indication of just
how influential it has been – something for which it rarely receives
sufficient credit. For instance, I’ve seen reviews of The
Thing written within the
last decade that dismiss its characters as “the usual crew”, with no
recognition of the fact that this film was the one that determined who “that
crew” would be in countless movies to follow. In Arthur Carrington, with his
dislike of “emotion”, his passion for “intelligence”, and his thwarted
desire to “communicate”, we have the model for an entire psychiatric ward’s
worth of mad movie scientists. And as for the film’s basic structure--- Let’s
see: a disparate group of characters, trapped, isolated, unable to communicate
with the outside world, which has to battle a monster that lurks in the shadowy
corners of their facility, picking the unfortunate humans off one by one. Sound
familiar? There is a tendency these days, when this scenario recurs – as it very
often does – to dismiss the film in question as “an Alien
clone”; and while that is probably true in the short term, we should never
lose sight of just how much Ridley Scott and his writers owed to The
Thing
in the first place. The other long-term effect of The
Thing, as I have already
indicated, came from its “science vs the military” subplot, which is the
only aspect of the film that might actually be copied more frequently than the
“isolated characters” set-up. Of course, these days it is far more likely
than it was in the fifties that “science” will turn out to be right, and
that it will be allowed to save the day – while the military, quite often, is
treated just as unfairly today as science ever was.
For
two members of the cast, appearing in The Thing
also had long-term consequences. Kenneth Tobey did not have the career that
his performance here indicates that he should have, but it ended well. During
the eighties, the film-makers who as children had quaked at the very thought of
this film sought the actor out: he had roles in, among other things, Flying
High!, The
Lost Empire, Spaced
Invaders,
and most significantly, in
Joe Dante’s The Howling,
Gremlins,
Gremlins 2 and
Innerspace.
But it was for the beleaguered Robert Cornthwaite (who would go on to play “a
scientist” in Monkey Business,
War Of The Worlds,
and Colossus: The Forbin Project)
that Dante reserved his greatest honour. The highlight of Matinee,
a truly wonderful film, is Mant!,
a glorious, affectionate, wickedly clever pastiche of the science fiction films
of the 1950s. Many familiar faces pop up in this brilliant little
film-within-a-film, and amongst them is Robert Cornthwaite’s. Naturally, he is
playing – “a scientist”.
There
is a greatness about The Thing
that is strangely hard to pin-point. Perhaps it is simply that the film does so
much right, it finally becomes more than the sum of its parts. That said, The
Thing has its flaws –
quite apart from its handling of Carrington which, my voluble complaints
notwithstanding, is very much a matter of opinion. The film succeeds in hiding
its monster for much of its running-time, but it can’t do it forever, and when
we are finally granted a good look, it is unquestionably a disappointment. Even
allowing for the technical limitations of the time, it’s hard to believe that
anyone was actually supposed to be frightened of – James Arness in leafy drag.
Far from being recognisably “alien”, The Thing, with its squared-off
forehead, its height, and its lurching gait, is a riff on Karloff’s Creature
from Frankenstein
– perhaps a hint that the real “monster” in this film is science run
amuck. Yet there is, in fact, precious little actual science in this film, for all it is considered to be “classic science
fiction”. One genuine blunder is the carelessness that all the characters –
the scientists included – display with respect to radioactivity. Throughout
the film, Geiger counters are waved about, high radiation is detected – yet
no-one does anything to protect themselves, nor even gives any sign that they
are aware of the danger in the first place. (Perhaps the reason that they are so
unconcerned is that radioactivity disappears when
you blow it up. Really.)
Of course, if it comes right down to it – why should a plant, even an alien
plant, be
radioactive? Carrington, for all his theories, is silent on this point. This is
perhaps the one time when the film does not succeed in disguising a contrivance
– The Thing is radioactive purely so the men can know when it’s hanging
around. Other objections may be raised with respect to the destruction of the
saucer – if it survived a crash landing, would it really be vulnerable to
thermite bombs? – even though this comes directly from Campbell’s story; and
also to the melting of the ice by the electric blanket. However, that Barnes
didn’t notice the melting is credible, given that he has his back turned, and is wearing earmuffs
against the freezing cold: this represents one of the script’s better “saves”.
But
The Thing’s
virtues completely outweigh its faults. I find it a remarkably satisfying film
to watch. I love the tautness, the briskness, the
logic
of its screenplay – and I love even more that its characters are believable
people who, even in the midst of a crisis, act and react believably – and have
believable things happen to them. (A nice touch is Barnes’ broken arm, which
he suffers not in battling The Thing, per se,
but in tripping over a bunk!) This is even true of Ned Scott, who with a brief
reference to “El Alamein, and Bougainville, and Okinawa” lets us know that
he, too, can be relied upon to keep his head in the face of danger. (Scott may
qualify as the era’s least
Odious Comic Relief©. Heck, quite a number of his lines are actually
funny
– although how one reacts to his infamous exclamation – “An intellectual
carrot – the mind boggles!”
– is, I suppose, a matter of personal taste.) Carrington, meanwhile, is
ultimately judged “misguided” rather than “wrong”, let alone “traitorous”:
his public humiliation and his physical injuries are considered sufficient
punishment for his transgressions, which for all his supposed lack of emotion,
are those of passion rather than stupidity. Intriguingly, the first draft of
this film had Carrington gruesomely killed off at the end. I like to think that
Howard Hawks’ innate sense of fair play came into action here, and that in
recognition of how roughly the scientist had been treated, he granted him a
reprieve.
A
painful number of science fiction films these days qualify as Idiot Pictures©:
the characters in them behave as no-one ever has, or ever would, purely to
justify the impossibilities of the screenplay. There’s none of that here. The
Thing is – and
although I hesitate to use the word under the circumstances, it’s the only
appropriate one – an intelligent
film. Perhaps this is best illustrated by something this film gets right, and
an appalling number of other films get wrong. There is an unspoken law in
science fiction and action films (and my colleagues over at Jabootu’s have had
much to say about this), that any plan that fails once must never be tried
again, even if it failed through no fault of its own. In The
Thing, in contrast, the
characters learn from their experiences. When The Thing first attacks, the men
splash it with kerosene and set it on fire. They succeed in wounding it and
driving it away, but they also destroy their own recreation room and very nearly
fry themselves, as well. Later, when the time for the final battle comes, the
men refine their method of attack, not using the dangerous kerosene approach,
but employing another source of heat, one more easily controlled: electricity.
It’s stuff like this – so simple,
you’d think, but in fact so disappointingly rare – that lifts The
Thing above the pack.
The uneasy world politics of the early fifties may have inspired the film, but
Howard Hawks was careful to provide answers to the questions that his film
raised, and to reassure those watching that America’s security was safe in the
hands of brave, clever, resourceful men and women, who could be relied upon to
rise to any occasion, and deal with any crisis. Despite its flying saucer from somewhere
else, its rampaging monster,
and its untrustworthy scientist, it is likely that the audiences of 1951 found The
Thing to be a strangely
comforting experience.
Want
a second opinion of The Thing From Another World? Visit Stomp
Tokyo.
Footnote:
This is the second in a series of “tag-team”
reviews undertaken by Chad Denton of The
Good, The Bad, The Ugly and myself entitled “That Was Then, This Is
Now”, in which we compare and contrast two cinematic versions of the same
story.
In 1982, John Carpenter,
a passionate fan of Howard Hawks, released his own version of
The Thing, taking full advantage in the quantum leaps in special effects
technology that had occurred in the interim. Over at TGTBTU, Chad takes a look
at this version
of the story. As well, as an extra special bonus, Zack Handlen of The
Duck Speaks also gives us his views on the story on which these films
were based, Who Goes
There? . And if you still
can’t get enough of shape-shifting aliens (or tall guys in makeup, whichever),
head back to TGTBTU, where Chad, Zack and I will debate the merits of both
films.
Whew! It’s a
Thing-A-Thon!
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