Seventy Years On, The Thing From Another World Still Delivers the Goods, And a New Warning

After watching Them! the other week, I decided to keep going and watch my other favorite science fiction film from the 1950s, The Thing From Another World. Released in the spring of 1951, this is a Howard Hawks's production based on "Who Goes There?" a novella by John E. Campbell from 1938. Chances are good you probably already know the plot--either from this film, the 1982 version starring Kurt Russell--but I'll give you gist.

Up in a remote scientific station in Alaska, a team of Air Force men led by Captain Pat Hendry (Kenneth Tobey) and reporter Ned Scott (Douglas Spencer) are sent up to investigate reports of a nearby crash. Dr. Arthur Carrington (Robert Cornthwaite) heads the scientific team and his secretary is an old flame of Hendry's, Nikki Nicholson (Margaret Sheridan). The men fly to the crash site and discover what looks to be a tail of an aircraft sticking out of the ice. They spread out to the edges of the dark shape under the ice and what results is one of the my favorite shots in all of science fiction films: they're standing in a circle and they've discovered a flying saucer.

The team also discovers the pilot, frozen in a block of ice. Naturally, they haul the block back to the station and thus ensues the human conflict. Carrington wants to study the alien while Hendry follows the last orders he'd received prior to a winter storm: leave the creature in the ice. No one is happy, least of all one of the guys who is standing watch over the block of ice. He covers the block with a blanket--that just happens to be an electric blanket which is plugged in--and soon, the creature is defrosted. 

After the team recover the Thing's severed arm--the result of a fight with the sled dogs--the scientists realize the alien is actually an advanced form of a plant. Convinced it is intelligent and envious of all the things he could learn from it, Carrington wants to communicate with it. Captain Hendry wants to kill it, especially after they learn the Thing feeds on the blood of the sled dogs and, naturally, two of the scientists it has killed. Interestingly, Carrington is willing to die for science and thinks all the others should be equally as willing.

The ensuing scenes follow the team as they try and figure out how to kill the Thing with the limited resources they have on hand. With this being a black-and-white film, we get some great shots. There's the one in the doorway.

The Thing on fire.

Carrington's attempt to "grow" new aliens from the blood plasma they have on hand for emergencies.

And the finale, where they design a method to electrocute the Thing.

Science vs. the Military

In many SF films, there are always opposing sides to any first-contact issue, and they are on full display here. Unlike 1954's Them, the military guys don't trust Carrington and his scientific team to do the right thing, that being kill the alien. There's a line about the atomic bomb here that's used as the reason scientists can't be trusted. Coming only six years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki--and two years after the Soviets also got the bomb--the fear is palpable. Even the sporadic orders Hendry receives from his superiors wants him to keep the alien alive. But what are humans to do when confronted with a life form determined to survive itself using human blood? In Them, the lead scientist has zero qualms about killing the giant ants. In The Thing, the scientist is willing to die for knowledge.

The Limitations of 1950s Filmmaking

If you've read the novella or seen the 1982 version, you'll know that the Thing can actually shape-shift. Well, not really shape shift but more like it can imitate other forms it encounters, including other humans. Back in 1951, that would be a difficult thing to pull off convincingly, so Howard Hawks dressed up James Arness, the future Matt Dillon himself, as the alien and allowed him to wreck havoc on the humans. 

The Last Warning

I've always had a fondness for this version of the Thing and find it perfectly acceptable for its time. It's a great snapshot of American life in 1951, with the camaraderie of the military men and the discussion about settling down. Sure, it's not perfectly aligned with the novella, but the movie works on multiple levels. It's a basic Kill the Alien type movie while still being about American life in general, less than a decade after World War II and in the early days of the Cold War and the Korean War.

This fear is catalyzed perfectly in the last scene with a great, short speech by reporter Ned Scott.* Finally allowed to send out his story, Scott delivers the following:

Ned Scott: All right, fellas, here's your story: North Pole, November Third, Ned Scott reporting. One of the world's greatest battles was fought and won today by the human race. Here at the top of the world a handful of American soldiers and civilians met the first invasion from another planet. A man by the name of Noah once saved our world with an ark of wood. Here at the North Pole, a few men performed a similar service with an arc of electricity. The flying saucer which landed here and its pilot have been destroyed, but not without causalities among our own meager forces. I would like to bring to the microphone some of the men responsible for our success... but as Senior Air force officer Captain Hendry is attending to demands over and above the call of duty... Doctor Carrington, the leader of the scientific expedition, is recovering from wounds received in the battle.

Eddie: [Softly] Good for you, Scotty.

Ned Scott: And now before giving you the details of the battle, I bring you a warning: Everyone of you listening to my voice, tell the world, tell this to everybody wherever they are. Watch the skies. Everywhere. Keep looking. Keep watching the skies!

"Keep watching the skies." A perfect sentence that crystallized the paranoia and fear of the Cold War, where Americans have realized their oceans no longer protected them from attack when the enemy could fly planes over the United States and drop nuclear weapons on our cities. Here in 2021, after a year of living through the COVID-19 pandemic In which our oceans also didn't protect us, what else should we keep watching?

*I've always wondered if Gene Roddenberry enjoyed this film enough to name Star Trek's chief engineer Scotty.

Sixty-Seven Years Later, THEM! Holds Up

What do Matt Dillion, Daniel Boone, Kris Kringle, and Mr. Spock have in common? They all battled giant ants in 1954.

I can't remember exactly when I first saw this 1954 film, but there's a sliver of a memory from the early 80s when I spent some summer weeks at my grandparents' house in Tyler, Texas and it might've been then. Moreover, I also can't pinpoint when I was re-introduced to this film directed by Gordon Douglas. Sometime this century. But it has vaulted to one of my favorite 1950s-era science fiction movies.

I watched it again over the weekend, first time in a few years, and boy does it hold up well. It is sixty-seven years old this month, and still packs some genuine suspense, especially during the anticipation of first seeing the ants and, of course, their sound effect.

The atomic bomb tests at Alamogordo, New Mexico, were only nine years old when THEM was released, and the unknowns about nuclear energy were still being learned. It is nuclear radiation that morphs the common small ant into the giant behemoths we see in the film. 

The opening sequence is gripping and unsettling, as we follow a pair of New Mexico state troopers as they discover a little girl wandering in the desert. She's catatonic, in a speechless state of shock. Even as the troopers, one of whom is played by James Whitmore, investigate what happened to her family and a nearby store owner, they can't make heads or tails of the destruction. It's only when we hear that distinctive sound effect of the ants does the girl react. Cleverly, Whitmore and a doctor do not see the girl rise up from her resting spot, terror across her face, only to lie down again, eyes wide in fear.

That sound effect. Most every time, it precedes the visuals of the creatures, and it adds so much suspense for the viewer. I defy you not to have a little chilly twinge crawl up your spine when you hear it. One of the troopers hears the high-pitched sound and goes off screen to investigate. The last thing we hear is his own death scream. 

What struck me with this viewing is how the first half of the film is basically a crime film. There are the investigators--now including an FBI agent played by James Arness (Matt Dillon in Gunsmoke), and a pair of scientists, father and daughter, played by Edmund Gwenn (Kris Kringle in Miracle on 34th Street) and Joan Weldon--just trying to figure out what's going on. The monsters drop out of their own film largely because of costs, I assume, but the unknown facing the investigators makes for quite an urgent story. The investigators scour news reports and interview eyewitnesses--including Fess Parker (star of the Daniel Boone TV show) as a pilot who saw the queen ants flying west but is thrown in an insane asylum because of his wild story. 

There's even a scene where our heroes discover another nest of ants, the workers protecting both a pair of queen ants and their eggs. Reminded me of Aliens (1986) and how many other monster films. 

A young Leonard Nimoy (Star Trek's Mr. Spock) shows up as a soldier relaying information from the teletype machine.

They finally figure out there's a nest in the sewers of Los Angeles. At this point, we jump to a more traditional monster film: humans hunting the creatures in darkened tunnels, the suspense escalating. That a prime weapon is flamethrowers lends itself to some gruesome imagery of the ants being consumed by fire. 

From a historical perspective, what I appreciate about THEM is how the soldiers and the scientists worked together. The military defers to the entomologists in the discovery of the insects, but the scientists don't want to preserve one for study, a trope in many films of this kind. No, the scientists know exactly what they need to do and work to that end. This is also a year after the Korean War where our military and the government is still held with a certain amount of respect by the civilians. Many of the side characters accept what the FBI agents tell them without question. I bet you'd get quite a different kind of movie nowadays. 

We also get a potential lesson at the close of the film, as the last nest of ants are consumed by flames. "When Man entered the Atomic Age, he opened the door to a new world. What we may eventually find in that new world, nobody can predict." Looking to sixty-seven years to 1954 from the vantage point of 2021, we can see how many of the nuclear fears of the early days of the Cold War didn't pan out, and we're all relieved by it. But in our post-COVID pandemic era, when the origin of the virus is still not fully known, what are our fears now? What might the folks sixty-seven years hence--2088--think of our current fears. Will they pan out, or will they fester into something greater?

Detective Comics 1000

Did you get yours yet?

I headed to Houston's The Pop Culture Company yesterday with the intention of picking up not one but three copies of Detective Comics 1000. Why? Because I wanted to covers.

Yet, each issue was priced at $10.

I had second thoughts and decided to go with the 1940s variant cover. Bruce Timm channeling Dick Sprang. Basically two for the price of one.

But that 1930s cover? Oh, man, does this check off basically all the pulp-era goodness I've come to enjoy. Gothic. Strange people wearing masks doing stranger things. Fire. Mystery. A damsel in distress. The hero about to save the day.

And this 1950s cover? Embraces all the goofiness of that decade.

The rest of the covers are decent. While I appreciate the artists behind both the 1960s and the 1970s covers (Jim Steranko and Bernie Wrightson respectively), the images don't exactly scream the decade in question. You can check out both of them and the rest at the always excellent 13th Dimension.

The Stories

Art is only one half of what goes into a comic book story and, as a writer, I'm always keen to know the authors behind the stories. Not every tale from this landmark issue listed the creators' names on the first page, so sometimes, you just started reading not knowing who penned the story. That was interesting.

"Batman's Longest Case" by Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo

Batman follows clues across the world to reveal... [no spoilers] This one is fun and benefits from the dramatic page-turn where you finally see who is behind the trail of clues. Enjoyed the deep dive in this particular comic title's history.

"Manufactured for Use" by Kevin Smith and Jim Lee

Smith's tale and Lee's art turn in a darn good story. Specifically, when you get to the end of the tale and find out what it's really about, you turn back to the opening panels and re-read it again. The clues were there all along.

"The Legend of Knute Brody" by Paul Dini and Dustin Nguyen

If the first story had some humor in it, then this one is likely the funniest of the bunch. Again, like Smith's story, this one will have you go back and scan the earlier panels to get more of the in-jokes.

"The Batman's Design" by Warren Ellis and Becky Cloonan

One of the neatest things about the modern Batman post-1990s is the Bat-God. If Bruce Wayne isn't super-powered, then his brain is. And he's usually twenty steps ahead of anyone. This story proves it.

"Return to Crime Alley" by Denny O'Neil and Steve Epting

This one is interesting and, based on interviews I've heard and read over the years by O'Neil, completely understandable. This one surprised me, and in a good, real-world way.

"Heretic" by Christopher Priest and Neal Adams

Of all the stories, this one was just decent. Adams' art is good as always, but I wasn't too sure about this one.

"I Know" by Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev

There was more humor in this issue than I was expecting, and this one had a great ending. There's a sequence where Maleev just does a head shot of Penguin thinking. Thinking. The realization struck and he grinned. Loved it. And was that a smile on Bruce Wayne's face?

"The Last Crime in Gotham" by Geoff Johns and Kelley Jones 

Kelley Jones! Great to see his art again, and Johns, as always, delivers a good, heart-felt story. And another smile.

"The Precedent" by James Tynion IV and Alvaro Martinez-Bueno

A nice story about the biggest decision Bruce Wayne ever made...after that first one. More smiles!

"Batman's Greatest Case" by Tom King and Tony S. Daniel & Joelle Jones

I've not read a lot of King's work, but darn, this one had a lot of personality. And humor. And character interactions. And yet another smile! So good to see something you don't always see.

For readers of the current Bat-titles, what's a good story arc by King?

"Medieval" by Peter J. Tomasi  and Doug Mahnke

This one appears to be the prologue to the upcoming new story arc starting in Detective 1001. I don't read comics monthly anymore, but I'm curious to see if, like Snyder and Capullo's Court of Owls masterpiece, there can be something new in the Bat-World.


All in all, it was a solid issue with only a couple of stories not landing for me, but that's likely personal preference. Loved seeing all the villains, especially the random ones, and the inclusion of Talon. The historian in me would have liked some sort of essay talking about Batman over the years, but that's likely coming in the hardback book. Still, it would have been a nice addition to the single issue more people will purchase than the bigger, more expensive book.

But what can one really say about Batman that hasn't already been said? If this single issue did one thing and one thing only, it proved that Batman isn't a single thing. The types of stories and the depictions of the characters varied with each writer and artist. Much like I commented yesterday, Batman is a canvas over which myriads of creators have painted with pictures and words.

And that makes the character, created by Bill Finger and Bob Kane eighty years ago, timeless.