The Thing From Another World versus The Thing:
How Classical Hollywood Filmmaking Produced
Meaning and Message in a Horror Landmark
By Joaquim Ghirotti
One of the most important classics of science fiction cinema is Howard Hawks’s only science fiction film, The Thing from Another World. Originally it was regarded as being directed by an editor frequently used by Hawks, Christian Nyby. However it is frequently argued that Hawks worked on this as much more than a producer. It is also not generally appreciated that Hawks worked on the screenplay, together with the prolific writer Ben Hech, who was responsible for several famous films such as The Man With the Golden Arm (1955) and Spellbound (1945). He had worked with Hawks before in His Girl Friday (1940) and was a writer very comfortable with the traditional Hollywood narrative form. At the time, Hawks developed an interest in the pulp science fiction magazines which were published around the time of World War II, and decided to buy the rights to the story "Who Goes There?" for his film company, Winchester Pictures Corporation.
Howard Hawks
The film was remade in 1982 by horror maestro John Carpenter. Carpenter's adaptation, however, is quite different from the original 1950s horror/sci fi classic. Hawks' version was made just after the catastrophe of World War II, and it attempted to project, through trustuworthy, determined and stable characters, a safer, more controllable world to its audience, an audience perhaps already tired from the destruction and uncertainty of the war. The film, although having scenes which were tense and terrifying for its time, gleamed with hope and a positive perspective before conflicts and evil.
Carpenter, benefitting from freedom which allowed him to use extreme, gory violence and to create a dense atmosphere of nihilism, used the framework, some of the plot-points and the general premise of the original film to produce a dark, menacing and claustrophobic horror narrative, which projects very different ideas from the idealistic heroism and the hopeful certainties of the first film.
The Thing, released in 1951, follows classical thriller/horror and clearly science fiction standards and is a fine example of Hawksian cinema. The narrative is explored in a very expositional way through the main character, Captain Patrick Hendry, played with fluent masculine elegance by actor Kenneth Tobey. His figure is a flawless Hawksian hero, determined, not subject to emotional influences – a stereotypical male role model when facing problems. He begins the movie playing a game of cards, and when he wins over a colleague, another man on the table sets the character: “You should know better than to try to fool our captain, only dames can do that!” Later indeed we will learn that his weakness is for the ladies.
Kenneth Tobey, as Captain Hendry.
In the first five minutes we are introduced to the situation: Captain Hendry is called to supervise the discovery of Dr. Arthur Carrington: a spaceship buried in ice has been found and demands immediate military attention. Soon, we have a man with a mission, a recognizable goal and a mysterious object at stake - a question mark, that can change the destiny of men perhaps?