Runtime:
87 minutes
Directed
by: Christian Nyby... and also Howard Hawks, or so the story goes
Starring: Kenneth Tobey, Robert Cornwaite, Margaret Sheridan, Douglas Spencer, James Arness
From:
RKO
While not the John Carpenter movie, this is still worthwhile:
I've seen John Carpenter's version of The Thing my share of times and
it's a film I have grown to love; I figured it was time to watch and
review it here, which is one of three movies I am watching on Turner
Classic Movies and the reviews of the other two films will be posted in
the next two days.
The general idea is the same: after almost identical credits, a group of people in a frozen setting has to deal with an alien creature... only in this movie it's the North Pole, they pull up the creature from a crashed UFO and it's not a shape-shifter that can perfectly mimic any organism; rather, it's James Arness who wears an outfit that is literally described as “super carrot” at one point and it's not entirely inaccurate. It won't strike fear into the heart of any man or haunt your nightmares, but usually it's obscured so it doesn't ruin your immersion into the movie... at least it did not for me. Besides, the alien is plant-based and needs blood to survive.
I don't love this movie like I do '82, yet I can still say it's pretty good. The remake's story was preferable to me, the Rob Bottin special effects are still incredible and so is the drama revolving around who is an impostor; but it doesn't mean this isn't worth seeing. The Arctic setting is chilling (pun intended), the cast is uniformly fine and there is drama as-among other things-one of them wants to preserve the creature for future study. I presume that plot point was already a cliché by '51 but at least it's interesting. There are also two women and a newspaper reporter; you can surmise what those characters are and how they factor into the plot.
There's some decent dialogue (not the smartass stuff, to clarify), quality suspense scenes (especially one involving fire) and there's plenty of claustrophobia in such a setting--such attributes are why I can say this is pretty good... how much of it was an uncredited directing job from Howard Hawks, who knows for certain.
The general idea is the same: after almost identical credits, a group of people in a frozen setting has to deal with an alien creature... only in this movie it's the North Pole, they pull up the creature from a crashed UFO and it's not a shape-shifter that can perfectly mimic any organism; rather, it's James Arness who wears an outfit that is literally described as “super carrot” at one point and it's not entirely inaccurate. It won't strike fear into the heart of any man or haunt your nightmares, but usually it's obscured so it doesn't ruin your immersion into the movie... at least it did not for me. Besides, the alien is plant-based and needs blood to survive.
I don't love this movie like I do '82, yet I can still say it's pretty good. The remake's story was preferable to me, the Rob Bottin special effects are still incredible and so is the drama revolving around who is an impostor; but it doesn't mean this isn't worth seeing. The Arctic setting is chilling (pun intended), the cast is uniformly fine and there is drama as-among other things-one of them wants to preserve the creature for future study. I presume that plot point was already a cliché by '51 but at least it's interesting. There are also two women and a newspaper reporter; you can surmise what those characters are and how they factor into the plot.
There's some decent dialogue (not the smartass stuff, to clarify), quality suspense scenes (especially one involving fire) and there's plenty of claustrophobia in such a setting--such attributes are why I can say this is pretty good... how much of it was an uncredited directing job from Howard Hawks, who knows for certain.
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