The Thing from Another World

A science fiction film set at the North Pole. Word comes from a research station: there is a large object in the ice. A team from the air force flies out and finds a circular craft under the ice. Beside it, a frozen body. They bring the body back to the base inside its block. The ice thaws and what is inside wakes. The real tension is not with the creature but among the people. The officer commanding wants the threat destroyed; the scientist argues that communication is possible and tries to protect it for study. The narrative sustains that argument to the end. The best-known feature is the handling of dialogue: characters cut across each other, talk at the same time, and the scenes accelerate through that overlap. The style is regarded as the signature of the man who produced it. James Arness plays the creature; Kenneth Tobey and Margaret Sheridan are in the cast. Christian Nyby is credited as director, but how much of the film Howard Hawks directed has been argued about for years. It was remade in the 1980s and again later. One of the genre's founding examples for anyone who likes 1950s science fiction and confined-space suspense. For a viewer expecting modern horror, the creature is barely seen and the effect is weak from here.