Page 44 - Sports Energy News, Cornwall, Issue No 141

44 Issue 141 October 2024
In Reel Time
Watch The Skies
By Nikolai Adams
efore there was John Carpenter’s
BThe Thing (1982), there was
The Thing from Another World
(1951). If you know John Carpenter,
it is not overly surprising that he
would remake this film, for when
I interviewed him back in 2017,
he could not stop speaking of his
love for film maker Howard Hawks
(citing him as a major influence
on his career, he was enamoured
with his genre jumping films – be
it western, drama or horror). . . and
Hawks’ fingerprints are all over the
1951 version. It is also worth noting
that Carpenter, just five years before
making The Thing, had Hawks’
original make a screen appearance in
his legendary Halloween.
Still debated as to whether it was
Hawks who directed the film or the
co-credited Christian Nyby, not even
the cast has been able to agree. Some
called Nyby the director but Hawks
the boss, while other recollections
remembered Hawks doing most of
the work. Without ever having a true
answer, it seems most likely that
Nyby directed under the tutelage
of Hawks, with the elder statesman
taking charge from time to time
(hence why the film has such a
feeling of the veteran film maker’s
work). There is no denying that he
co-wrote and co-produced the film.
Following a military group in
Arctic Alaska during the early days
of the Cold War, Captain Pat Hendry
(Kenneth Tobey) and his men, some
of which include co-pilot Lieutenant
Eddie Dykes (James Young), and
flight navigator Ken MacPherson
(Robert Nichols), as well as tag
www.sportsenergynews.com
along journalist Ned Scott (Douglas
Spencer), are ordered to fly to a
scientific outpost located at the North
Pole.
Struggling to reach the location
due to horrible interference, radio
operator Tex Richards (Nicholas
Byron) is able to guide them to their
location. The reason they’re there
– an unusual crash site that is so
unorthodox that it could not be the
Soviets, and might just be something
from another planet.
Under the persnickety scientific
eye of Dr. Arthur Carrington (Robert
Cornthwaite), who is waited on by
personal secretary Nikki Nicholson
(Margaret Sheridan), the team has Photo Submitted
discovered that it is some sort of how cold this film feels. The ice is fears of science and whether it
round disc. . . and though they real, the snow is real, and the wind is could be pushed too far after the
accidentally destroy the evidence of real. It is a nice touch when so many bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
the ship, they are able to extricate a movies would have been exclusively six years earlier. The skies never
massive ice block containing some shot on a boiling Hollywood set at before seemed so ominous, hence
sort of giant, man-like creature that the time. On the opposite why the SAGE, or Semi-Automatic
is unlike anything that has ever been Ground Environment was put into
seen on planet Earth. front, there is a scene where the operation later that very decade. . .
alien is set alight by kerosene. . . a way to surveil the skies (including
Leading to a very divided argument one of the first full body fire stunts the Arctic) from possible oncoming
amongst the military and scientific ever to be put on film – a perfect attacks.
minds, the former group wish to keep juxtaposition.
the being on ice, while the latter are But, in the end, The Thing from A film that oozes authenticity, The
eagerly looking to study it. In the end,
Another World is all about its Thing from Another World is also
idiocy releases the beast, allowing the 1950s topical themes. The last line about making everything feel real.
monstrous human-like alien to run
of dialogue, “Keep watching the From the base and those bickering
rampant through their isolated base. skies”, is emblematic of this. Not within it, to the frigid temperatures
Impressively, Captain Hendry is able only does it echo the newfound and even colder attitude of the
to rekindle his romance with Nikki –
flurry of extraterrestrial excitement mysterious being, this sets the tone
a rather forward and risque storyline for a different type horror movie. . .
for the time, despite everyone being and apprehension after Roswell in which in turn proved inspiration for
on high alert. 1947, it also speaks to the unnerving a new crop of film makers including
fears of McCarthyism as well as a Carpenter, Ridley Scott, Tobe
Both shot on a set (built in an Soviet Cold War attack. . . which Hooper, and John Frankenheimer.
ice storage plant in Los Angeles) also goes hand in hand with a most So, take some carotene and keep
and at Glacier National Park in modern threat – the nuclear bomb. your eyes on this classic horror film,
northwestern Montana, the first thing This perspective was not overly it’s a monstrous good time.
that you can truly appreciate is just surprising, as there were very real