WEBVTT - Weirdhouse Cinema Rewind: The Thing from Another World 0:00:04.360 --> 0:00:08.160 Hey, Welcome to Weird House Cinema. Rewind. This is Rob Lamb. 0:00:08.560 --> 0:00:13.119 Today's episode, originally published September twenty fourth, twenty twenty one. Oh, 0:00:13.119 --> 0:00:15.280 it's a fun one because we are discussing the Thing 0:00:15.400 --> 0:00:19.919 from Another World. This, of course was the original adaptation 0:00:20.000 --> 0:00:22.880 of John W. Campbell Junior's short story Who Goes There, 0:00:23.280 --> 0:00:26.239 and it would of course be remade years and years 0:00:26.320 --> 0:00:29.320 later in John Carpenter's The Thing. But this is a 0:00:29.360 --> 0:00:33.120 pretty terrific movie in its own right from nineteen fifty one. 0:00:33.400 --> 0:00:38.839 Let's jump right in. This episode of the Stuff to 0:00:38.880 --> 0:00:41.760 Blow Your Mind Radio Hour is brought to you by Thermid. 0:00:42.200 --> 0:00:44.599 If you need a high temperature burst of heat, then 0:00:44.640 --> 0:00:47.879 this pyrotechnic composition of metal powder and metal oxide is 0:00:47.920 --> 0:00:54.080 for you. Metal refining, fireworks, munitions burning through the ice 0:00:54.160 --> 0:01:00.360 to retrieve down spaceships and alien beings. Thermite does it all, Am, 0:01:00.400 --> 0:01:01.880 I ask for it by name. 0:01:07.800 --> 0:01:14.119 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:01:17.760 --> 0:01:21.640 Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb. 0:01:21.680 --> 0:01:25.039 And I'm Joe McCormick, and it's finally time on the 0:01:25.040 --> 0:01:29.480 Weird House Cinema podcast to cover the Thing No, not 0:01:29.880 --> 0:01:32.800 that The Thing, not the one you're thinking of, the 0:01:33.520 --> 0:01:37.360 horror classic, the other The Thing, the Thing from another world. 0:01:38.000 --> 0:01:42.000 Yes, this is a film that I had never seen 0:01:42.080 --> 0:01:44.200 prior to this week, and I think part of it 0:01:44.280 --> 0:01:47.720 was because John Carpenter's nineteen eighty two film The Thing 0:01:48.400 --> 0:01:51.800 is just this masterpiece of science fiction and horror for 0:01:51.840 --> 0:01:55.559 so many obvious It's visceral but intelligent. It's well acted, 0:01:55.640 --> 0:01:59.720 it's effectively scored, it makes great use of sets and locations, 0:01:59.720 --> 0:02:05.200 and just features a bounty of legendary and grotesque practical effects. 0:02:05.920 --> 0:02:09.120 Totally, without a doubt, an absolute masterpiece, one of the 0:02:09.120 --> 0:02:11.920 best horror movies ever made. Can't say enough good stuff 0:02:12.240 --> 0:02:16.160 about Carpenter's The Thing, from the effects, to the acting 0:02:16.280 --> 0:02:19.760 to the music, it's just it's pretty much pitch perfect. 0:02:21.040 --> 0:02:22.520 But of course, one of the things we always have 0:02:22.560 --> 0:02:25.679 to remind ourselves, especially perhaps if we're becoming getting a 0:02:25.720 --> 0:02:28.880 little too judgmental about remakes and reboots and so forth, 0:02:29.440 --> 0:02:32.120 is because I have to remind myself of this is 0:02:32.160 --> 0:02:36.000 that John Carpenter's The Thing is also essentially a remake 0:02:36.120 --> 0:02:39.160 or a reboot, if you will, based on the story 0:02:39.200 --> 0:02:43.640 who goes there by John W. Campbell Junior, an author 0:02:43.800 --> 0:02:47.959 from like the sci fi so called pulp Golden Age, 0:02:48.000 --> 0:02:51.760 and Carpenter's film is the second official adaptation of this story, 0:02:51.800 --> 0:02:54.240 but the first is the film we're talking about here today, 0:02:54.360 --> 0:02:57.639 nineteen fifty one's The Thing from Another World. 0:02:57.960 --> 0:03:00.720 I had also never seen this movie in full before, 0:03:00.800 --> 0:03:04.280 though I'd seen some scenes from it, and I had 0:03:04.320 --> 0:03:08.160 seen it because it is briefly featured on a television 0:03:08.280 --> 0:03:10.040 in John Carpenter's Halloween. 0:03:10.760 --> 0:03:12.440 Oh that's right, I forgot about that. 0:03:12.840 --> 0:03:16.600 Yeah, one of the kids who's being babysat is watching it. 0:03:16.680 --> 0:03:18.839 I think he's I think maybe he's not quite old 0:03:18.960 --> 0:03:20.080 enough for this movie. 0:03:21.040 --> 0:03:23.560 So this is a film I've always known this was around, 0:03:23.800 --> 0:03:26.480 you know. At some point after being exposed to Carpenter's 0:03:26.520 --> 0:03:29.520 The Thing, I learned about this older version, and maybe 0:03:29.680 --> 0:03:32.080 I would even occasionally see it in the schedule or 0:03:32.160 --> 0:03:35.360 catch part of it on like Turner Classic Movies or something. 0:03:35.760 --> 0:03:38.880 But I never sat down and watched it. And we'll 0:03:38.920 --> 0:03:41.400 get into some of the reasons why, but basically they 0:03:41.400 --> 0:03:44.440 all roll down to me thinking, oh, this this film 0:03:44.520 --> 0:03:46.920 is a modern film. I don't want to see this 0:03:47.200 --> 0:03:51.720 earlier like proto Thing Vision I'm going to stick with perfection. 0:03:52.160 --> 0:03:56.600 But then I was looking through Michael Weldon's and the 0:03:56.640 --> 0:03:59.600 author of the Psychotronic video and film Guides, I was 0:03:59.640 --> 0:04:02.280 looking at his ride up on First on John Carpenter's 0:04:02.320 --> 0:04:04.640 The Thing, which was glowing and you know, and says, oh, 0:04:04.640 --> 0:04:07.720 you know this is this is a wonderful, grotesque, monstrous film. 0:04:07.760 --> 0:04:10.200 Not surprised that he would love that one. But of 0:04:10.240 --> 0:04:13.840 course Welden's also a fan of older genre films as well, 0:04:13.880 --> 0:04:17.480 And I was reading this really high praise for this 0:04:17.600 --> 0:04:21.400 nineteen fifty one film, talking about it having intelligent dialogue 0:04:21.600 --> 0:04:25.560 and a strong female lead, and so that that really 0:04:25.560 --> 0:04:28.520 got me thinking, well, maybe I should give this a look. 0:04:28.600 --> 0:04:31.720 You know, the strong female lead being sort of doubly 0:04:31.760 --> 0:04:35.200 interesting because on one hand, it's nineteen fifty one, You 0:04:35.200 --> 0:04:37.960 don't you know that you don't necessarily think of of 0:04:38.000 --> 0:04:40.800 this being the era of strong female leads. And then 0:04:40.839 --> 0:04:44.400 also you think about John Carpenter's adaptation, and there are 0:04:44.400 --> 0:04:47.080 no women in it at all. It's an entirely male cast. 0:04:47.440 --> 0:04:50.320 Yeah, And Carpenter's version, the all male cast of characters, 0:04:50.320 --> 0:04:54.680 somehow fits the miserable bleakness of the Antarctic bass in 0:04:54.720 --> 0:04:57.640 the movie, but I would say that having watched it 0:04:57.680 --> 0:05:02.599 now I know what Michael Weldon is talking, though I 0:05:02.600 --> 0:05:05.560 think it might be slightly over selling Margaret Sheridan's role 0:05:05.600 --> 0:05:07.960 in the movie, though she is fantastic and I really 0:05:08.000 --> 0:05:10.080 like her character. She does a great job with it. 0:05:10.120 --> 0:05:12.760 But I was expecting her to be the main character 0:05:12.839 --> 0:05:14.839 of the movie based on this, which she is not. 0:05:15.160 --> 0:05:17.280 But in her scenes she is great. 0:05:17.520 --> 0:05:19.640 Yeah, and we'll get into this a bit later. It 0:05:19.680 --> 0:05:22.440 basically comes down to this idea of the Haxian woman, 0:05:22.760 --> 0:05:24.559 and well you'll find out what that means. 0:05:25.720 --> 0:05:28.800 But in terms of differences between the Thing and the 0:05:28.839 --> 0:05:31.960 Thing from Another World, I think we're sort of burying 0:05:32.000 --> 0:05:35.680 the lead because the one major way in which The 0:05:35.680 --> 0:05:39.000 Thing from Another World nineteen fifty one differs from Carpenter's 0:05:39.040 --> 0:05:44.280 movie is that the original film does not involve impersonation. 0:05:44.839 --> 0:05:47.279 People who are familiar with Carpenter's movie will remember the 0:05:47.320 --> 0:05:50.279 main thing about it is that the alien can assume 0:05:50.480 --> 0:05:54.360 the forms of the humans or the animals that it kills. 0:05:54.400 --> 0:05:59.599 So it is this polymorphous being that can sort of 0:06:00.760 --> 0:06:04.400 sample the tissue of an organism it comes into contact 0:06:04.480 --> 0:06:07.840 with and then make its own body into a copy 0:06:07.960 --> 0:06:11.160 of that being, which is a wonderful plot device. The 0:06:11.200 --> 0:06:15.080 central mechanic of Carpenter's movie gives rise to the paranoia 0:06:15.800 --> 0:06:18.520 that doesn't really exist in the original. Or maybe there 0:06:18.600 --> 0:06:20.599 is a kind of sense of paranoia, but it's powered 0:06:20.600 --> 0:06:22.760 by different factors that I want to discuss in more 0:06:22.800 --> 0:06:25.960 detail as we go on. But in this movie, the 0:06:26.040 --> 0:06:29.880 Thing is simply a big, hulking alien that thaws out 0:06:29.920 --> 0:06:32.400 of a block of ice and then attacks the base 0:06:32.839 --> 0:06:35.760 where all the characters are stationed. It doesn't assume the 0:06:35.800 --> 0:06:38.320 form of anyone if you're actually able to get a 0:06:38.320 --> 0:06:40.599 good look at it, which you're not really in the movie, 0:06:40.640 --> 0:06:42.720 And in fact, that's a really good thing about the movie. 0:06:42.760 --> 0:06:45.840 The movie obscures the form of the monster for most 0:06:45.880 --> 0:06:49.200 of the runtime in a highly effective way. But if 0:06:49.200 --> 0:06:51.440 you were able to get a really good, well lit 0:06:52.520 --> 0:06:54.600 gander at it, it just looks kind of like James 0:06:54.720 --> 0:06:58.400 Arness in a big, creepy Frankenstein makeup and spacesuit. 0:06:58.800 --> 0:07:01.360 Yeah, and this was a huge reason why I had 0:07:01.400 --> 0:07:04.400 never checked out a film before, because I'd see that 0:07:05.240 --> 0:07:10.680 famous publicity shot of James Arnez in the Thing costume, 0:07:11.000 --> 0:07:13.160 and I would think, well that that looks kind of lame. 0:07:13.200 --> 0:07:14.840 I don't really want to see a movie about that, 0:07:15.080 --> 0:07:19.200 especially when John Carpenter's version of it is this amorphous, 0:07:19.280 --> 0:07:23.000 ultimately formless thing that takes on just a number of 0:07:23.120 --> 0:07:25.800 just grotesque and shifting forms. 0:07:26.120 --> 0:07:28.240 Yeah. And in fact, I mean I've said this on 0:07:28.280 --> 0:07:31.400 the show before, I think one big mistake a lot 0:07:31.400 --> 0:07:34.640 of horror movies make is letting you get too much 0:07:34.680 --> 0:07:37.200 of a look at the monster. I mean, horror movies 0:07:37.240 --> 0:07:40.800 should be sparing in letting you see the monster. It's good, 0:07:41.040 --> 0:07:43.080 it's good to heighten the tension and make it more 0:07:43.120 --> 0:07:46.880 mysterious by usually keeping the monster off screen, I'd say 0:07:47.000 --> 0:07:49.440 Carpenter's The Thing is a movie that breaks that rule 0:07:49.480 --> 0:07:52.440 to great effect. You get tons of great shots of 0:07:52.480 --> 0:07:55.720 the monster and it looks fantastic. So, you know, if 0:07:55.720 --> 0:07:59.800 you're kind of the thing about rules with artistic media 0:08:00.160 --> 0:08:03.080 is you have to obey the rule unless it's just 0:08:03.160 --> 0:08:07.360 really good anyway. Yeah, but yeah, I know what you're 0:08:07.400 --> 0:08:10.040 talking about. With the way the monster looks in this movie. 0:08:10.040 --> 0:08:12.040 This is a major thing I wanted to talk about. 0:08:12.760 --> 0:08:17.320 I was shocked how scary the creature was in this movie, 0:08:17.800 --> 0:08:19.920 and I really mean that like movies of this era 0:08:20.840 --> 0:08:26.960 are I really appreciate them, but they're rarely viscerally disturbing 0:08:27.000 --> 0:08:30.200 on a visual level to modern audiences. And that's not 0:08:30.240 --> 0:08:32.240 a knock on them. And in fact, like at the 0:08:32.280 --> 0:08:34.840 time they might have had people fainting in the aisles 0:08:34.960 --> 0:08:37.200 or falling out of their cars with drive in, but 0:08:37.800 --> 0:08:40.480 makeup effects from before roughly the I don't know, the 0:08:40.520 --> 0:08:44.120 seventies or so, I think, rarely pack a strong punch 0:08:44.200 --> 0:08:47.960 with audiences today. We've just sort of standards have been updated. 0:08:48.040 --> 0:08:50.880 And so even if the way Boris Karloff looked and 0:08:50.960 --> 0:08:54.040 his Frankenstein makeup was terrifying to people at the time, 0:08:54.360 --> 0:08:56.680 I think it looks beautiful. I think it looks amazing. 0:08:56.720 --> 0:08:58.760 I love to look at it, but I don't find 0:08:58.800 --> 0:09:02.760 it really really terrifying. And I would say that the 0:09:02.800 --> 0:09:05.960 baseline monster in this movie is no exception to that 0:09:06.120 --> 0:09:08.440 rule that if you just look at the makeup effects 0:09:08.440 --> 0:09:11.280 of the time, they're usually not going to pack a 0:09:11.360 --> 0:09:14.520 very strong punch. If you look at well lit still 0:09:14.559 --> 0:09:18.040 photographs of James Arnest that the actor who plays the 0:09:18.679 --> 0:09:21.920 monster in the Thing, in his alien makeup and costume 0:09:21.960 --> 0:09:24.160 for the movie, I think he looks goobery. He just 0:09:24.240 --> 0:09:28.120 looks kind of like an EGA guy. He looks like Frankenstein, 0:09:28.240 --> 0:09:31.920 sort of in a space in a jumpsuit, and yet somehow, 0:09:31.960 --> 0:09:35.199 on the screen within the narrative, he is so much 0:09:35.280 --> 0:09:38.439 more than that. This is a movie monster that benefits 0:09:38.520 --> 0:09:43.800 immensely from really strong staging, lighting, and camera work more 0:09:43.840 --> 0:09:46.440 so than makeup effects. So most of the time you 0:09:46.520 --> 0:09:50.240 see the monster in the movie, his appearance is sudden 0:09:50.400 --> 0:09:53.559 or brief or obscured in some way. So maybe the 0:09:53.640 --> 0:09:56.680 characters are looking out at him through frosted glass on 0:09:56.720 --> 0:10:00.360 a snowfield, or he or somebody opens a door and 0:10:00.400 --> 0:10:02.720 he suddenly reaches out through it as they try to 0:10:02.720 --> 0:10:06.200 slam it shut, or he's just a menacing silhouette at 0:10:06.200 --> 0:10:09.040 the end of a corridor, you know, and his features 0:10:09.040 --> 0:10:11.800 are covered in shadow. So really hats off to the 0:10:11.800 --> 0:10:14.360 team that came up with the staging for all these 0:10:14.400 --> 0:10:16.320 scenes and the lighting and the framing and all that, 0:10:16.360 --> 0:10:19.280 because even though the makeup effects kind of fall short, 0:10:19.320 --> 0:10:23.160 the monster on screen within the narrative looks wonderful. He's 0:10:23.240 --> 0:10:24.080 really frightening. 0:10:24.480 --> 0:10:26.800 Absolutely, Like, for instance, in the movie, you never get 0:10:26.840 --> 0:10:30.640 a sense that this character is wearing partially ragged space pajamas. 0:10:30.800 --> 0:10:32.960 But if you look at the still, you're like, those 0:10:32.960 --> 0:10:34.959 are space pajamas, clearly. Yeah. 0:10:35.040 --> 0:10:37.960 Yeah, So they took a kind of goober Frankenstein and 0:10:38.000 --> 0:10:42.080 turned him into this truly menacing being a really excellent, 0:10:42.559 --> 0:10:44.200 excellent filmmaking technique. 0:10:44.720 --> 0:10:47.160 Well, I'd like to get into this more. Let's go 0:10:47.240 --> 0:10:50.840 ahead and just give the basic elevator pitch of the plot, 0:10:51.559 --> 0:10:53.400 especially for people who, you know, did they just know 0:10:53.440 --> 0:10:56.760 the Carpenter version. They maybe don't know how much in 0:10:56.840 --> 0:11:00.640 common this one has with that film, aside from the 0:11:00.640 --> 0:11:01.560 details of the monster. 0:11:01.920 --> 0:11:04.600 Okay, well, maybe I'll do the straight elevator pitch first 0:11:04.600 --> 0:11:06.640 and then we'll see if we have any variations on it. 0:11:06.679 --> 0:11:10.840 The straight plot description, I would say is a mysterious 0:11:10.840 --> 0:11:15.280 object from space crashes near a remote Arctic research base. 0:11:15.760 --> 0:11:19.160 When a team of scientists and military men go to investigate, 0:11:19.200 --> 0:11:22.440 they find a humanoid body frozen in the ice, and 0:11:22.440 --> 0:11:24.400 they have to bring it back to the base with them, 0:11:24.880 --> 0:11:27.240 and I guess you just better hope it doesn't thaw out. 0:11:29.080 --> 0:11:31.440 I like that. Let's go ahead and listen to a 0:11:31.440 --> 0:11:36.120 little bit of that trailer audio. 0:11:39.440 --> 0:11:43.920 The thing from another world. This is the spot where 0:11:43.960 --> 0:11:47.280 it was first seen, and these are the first people 0:11:47.280 --> 0:11:51.280 who saw the thing. How did it get here? Where 0:11:51.280 --> 0:11:55.160 did it come from? What is it? That being alive? 0:11:55.320 --> 0:11:57.120 So I saw it, I shot it, I hit it, 0:11:57.120 --> 0:11:59.679 I know it. Nothing happened, but just kept coming up me, 0:11:59.720 --> 0:12:03.400 making it noise like codn It was awful, those hands 0:12:03.400 --> 0:12:05.800 and those eyes. So you've got to tell you about it. 0:12:05.840 --> 0:12:11.760 You've got is it human or inhuman? Earthly or unearthly? 0:12:12.720 --> 0:12:17.720 Baffling questions, astounding questions that not even the world's greatest 0:12:17.760 --> 0:12:21.240 scientific minds can answer. Gentlemen, do you realize what we've found? 0:12:21.800 --> 0:12:24.960 A being from another world's different from us, is one 0:12:25.080 --> 0:12:29.000 pole from the other if we can only communicate with it? 0:12:30.920 --> 0:12:32.680 All right? So I want to come back to something 0:12:32.720 --> 0:12:34.959 you were just talking about, and that was the idea 0:12:34.960 --> 0:12:38.719 of doors opening. So yes, the research base in this 0:12:38.800 --> 0:12:41.560 movie feels it's more or less in keeping with the 0:12:41.600 --> 0:12:45.440 spirit that Carpenter had in his version of the film. 0:12:45.880 --> 0:12:48.160 You know, there are these a lot of these long corridors. 0:12:48.520 --> 0:12:52.720 There are doorways separating different sections of it. Everything feel 0:12:52.920 --> 0:12:57.400 doesn't feel super modern. It feels very very rough. In places. 0:12:57.480 --> 0:13:00.680 There's this idea that outside of this compound there's just 0:13:00.760 --> 0:13:05.240 frozen death awaiting any creature, and it's inside that we 0:13:05.360 --> 0:13:10.400 have this slim, artificial version of life, sustaining temperatures. 0:13:10.840 --> 0:13:13.520 And that makes actually for a killer twist later in 0:13:13.559 --> 0:13:16.360 the movie, where you haven't even really been thinking about 0:13:16.400 --> 0:13:18.800 this while they're coming up all these different ways of 0:13:18.920 --> 0:13:21.320 battling the thing. The thing is sort of laying siege 0:13:21.400 --> 0:13:23.720 to the humans in the base, and then at a 0:13:23.720 --> 0:13:27.240 certain point they're like, oh no, somebody turned off the heaters. 0:13:28.240 --> 0:13:31.200 Yeah, so it's a wonderful set piece in which to 0:13:31.240 --> 0:13:33.800 engage with this monster. But one of the things that 0:13:34.640 --> 0:13:37.320 I was really taken by watching it is just how 0:13:37.360 --> 0:13:40.040 scary all the doors are. There's a lot of characters 0:13:40.280 --> 0:13:43.240 going in and out of doors in this film, often 0:13:43.400 --> 0:13:47.839 very quickly, and even before a monster the monster jumped 0:13:47.840 --> 0:13:50.960 out from behind a door. I was feeling anxious whenever 0:13:51.000 --> 0:13:54.439 a door would open like it was. It was really effective. 0:13:55.040 --> 0:13:57.480 And then eventually a monster is coming out from behind 0:13:57.480 --> 0:14:00.800 the door, and there's worry about things jumping out behind doors. 0:14:01.600 --> 0:14:03.760 I don't think doors have ever been quite this scary. 0:14:04.120 --> 0:14:07.160 One hundred percent agree, Yeah, this movie does something really 0:14:07.200 --> 0:14:11.600 special with like portals, openings, doors, windows, It's really good. 0:14:12.000 --> 0:14:13.840 Also lots of scenes where like the door to the 0:14:13.840 --> 0:14:15.760 outside has been opened and you know there's the sense 0:14:15.800 --> 0:14:19.120 of that crushing cold coming in. So it works on 0:14:19.200 --> 0:14:19.920 several levels. 0:14:19.960 --> 0:14:21.960 I think since we're not going to do a scene 0:14:21.960 --> 0:14:24.200 by scene breakdown on this one, I guess to make 0:14:24.280 --> 0:14:26.920 more sense for people who haven't seen especially either movie, 0:14:27.160 --> 0:14:29.720 it might make sense to do a quick, fuller rundown 0:14:29.760 --> 0:14:33.520 on the plot. So the basic cast of characters is 0:14:33.560 --> 0:14:36.320 that you have a journalist and then a group of 0:14:37.280 --> 0:14:41.120 military commanders who fly by plane up to a remote 0:14:41.200 --> 0:14:44.680 Arctic research base where there is some scientific research going on. 0:14:45.080 --> 0:14:47.600 And then, like I said in the elevator pitch earlier, 0:14:47.680 --> 0:14:50.480 there is a crash of some kind of object near 0:14:50.560 --> 0:14:53.560 the base, and the scientists and the soldiers go out 0:14:53.600 --> 0:14:56.120 to investigate it, and it looks like what they have 0:14:56.280 --> 0:15:00.000 encountered is a crashed flying saucer, a crash Dailien spacecraft. 0:15:00.080 --> 0:15:02.280 And then they're frozen in the ice. On the ice 0:15:02.320 --> 0:15:05.960 field is a humanoid figure. So they chip that they 0:15:06.000 --> 0:15:08.680 dig that out of the ice with ice axes and 0:15:08.760 --> 0:15:12.400 with thermite. Yes, this movie is a big fan of thermite, 0:15:12.440 --> 0:15:15.800 of course, and the thermite thing kind of goes wrong. 0:15:15.840 --> 0:15:17.680 I think they end up sort of melting the ship 0:15:17.760 --> 0:15:19.600 by accident while they're trying to get it up out 0:15:19.640 --> 0:15:22.280 of the ice. But they do get this body out 0:15:22.320 --> 0:15:24.040 of the ice and they bring it back to the base, 0:15:24.080 --> 0:15:26.880 and then through a series of mishaps, this body in 0:15:26.920 --> 0:15:30.560 a chunk of ice is accidentally thought out, and what 0:15:30.640 --> 0:15:33.080 they come to discover is that this is a being 0:15:33.240 --> 0:15:36.640 from another planet that is not an animal, but is 0:15:36.760 --> 0:15:40.160 in fact an animate of vegetable. They sort of explore 0:15:40.200 --> 0:15:44.280 the alternative evolutionary history of this creature and say, what 0:15:44.600 --> 0:15:48.440 if plant life on Earth had evolved the ability to 0:15:48.520 --> 0:15:53.520 move quickly and have intelligence and have a mobile body 0:15:53.840 --> 0:15:57.480 instead of animal life. And so that's sort of what 0:15:57.520 --> 0:15:59.720 we're dealing with. And there's a lot of discussion about 0:15:59.760 --> 0:16:04.040 the creature's mindset toward humans. It apparently needs to consume us, 0:16:04.080 --> 0:16:07.240 it wants to drink our blood, but it doesn't have 0:16:07.280 --> 0:16:10.480 any It doesn't really have any remorse for us or 0:16:10.600 --> 0:16:15.200 understanding of us as fellow creatures. Instead, as one character 0:16:15.280 --> 0:16:18.440 so eloquently puts it, he regards us the same way 0:16:18.480 --> 0:16:20.600 we would regard a field of cabbages. 0:16:21.320 --> 0:16:24.920 Yeah. Yeah, this idea that the dog is just the short, 0:16:24.960 --> 0:16:29.200 furry blood container and then the humans are just the larger, 0:16:29.320 --> 0:16:33.240 hairless blood containers. Yeah, and it just needs the blood. 0:16:33.480 --> 0:16:34.360 It's just calories. 0:16:34.440 --> 0:16:35.280 Yeah. Yeah. 0:16:35.400 --> 0:16:39.040 But so within this plot, a number of interesting themes emerge, 0:16:39.080 --> 0:16:41.120 and maybe we can talk more about those as we 0:16:41.160 --> 0:16:51.920 go on. But I guess here's where we would typically 0:16:52.440 --> 0:16:54.400 get into some of the people involved in this and 0:16:54.440 --> 0:16:57.160 talk about some connections. Now, Rob, you might have read 0:16:57.160 --> 0:16:59.920 more about the production of this film than I did. 0:17:00.560 --> 0:17:04.760 I'm to understand. I think there's some disagreement or confusion 0:17:04.840 --> 0:17:09.760 about what the level of control, like who basically was 0:17:09.800 --> 0:17:12.320 in charge of making this movie, who was the director, 0:17:12.600 --> 0:17:14.960 and what was their relative level of control. 0:17:15.200 --> 0:17:18.240 Yeah, there's kind it's kind of an open question or 0:17:18.560 --> 0:17:21.560 a matter of debate that'll probably never be fully settled, 0:17:21.640 --> 0:17:24.439 especially since I think everybody involved with this film or 0:17:24.440 --> 0:17:29.520 most of them, have passed on. But the basic situation, 0:17:29.520 --> 0:17:32.600 I'm going to talk about who is the credited director first. 0:17:33.000 --> 0:17:37.640 So the credited director on this is Christian Nibe who 0:17:37.680 --> 0:17:42.639 lived nineteen thirteen through nineteen ninety three, is a TV 0:17:42.680 --> 0:17:45.720 and film director who served as editor on such films 0:17:46.000 --> 0:17:50.080 as Howard Hawke's nineteen forty six adaptation of The Big Sleep. 0:17:50.800 --> 0:17:54.520 This had Humphrey Bogart in it, and William Faulkner actually 0:17:55.160 --> 0:18:00.359 co scripted this adaptation of the Raymond Chandler Philip Marlowe novel, 0:18:00.400 --> 0:18:02.000 which is a really good novel by the way. 0:18:02.359 --> 0:18:04.160 Interesting I've actually never read it. 0:18:04.320 --> 0:18:08.639 However, this film, The Thing from Another World is Nibby's. 0:18:09.040 --> 0:18:13.160 It was his first directorial credit. It's easily the biggest film, 0:18:13.240 --> 0:18:15.320 or at least biggest, you know, the most well remembered 0:18:15.320 --> 0:18:18.679 film that he did, although he worked an entire career 0:18:18.720 --> 0:18:22.320 afterwards as a TV director up until the mid nineteen seventies. 0:18:22.720 --> 0:18:25.359 Okay, so Nibee is credited as the director of the film, 0:18:25.359 --> 0:18:28.160 but for some reason, I've always heard this described as 0:18:28.200 --> 0:18:31.240 having been directed by Howard Hawks, who of course is 0:18:31.320 --> 0:18:34.640 an acclaimed filmmaker of the time. So what's the deal 0:18:34.680 --> 0:18:34.960 with that? 0:18:35.480 --> 0:18:39.120 Okay, So Howard Hawks, who we just alluded to, had 0:18:39.160 --> 0:18:43.920 worked with Nibe. Nibe was his editor. So Hawks was 0:18:43.960 --> 0:18:46.120 also known as the Silver Fox, and if you look 0:18:46.160 --> 0:18:47.600 up pictures of it you can see why, you know, 0:18:47.960 --> 0:18:49.440 dashing sort of silver looking hair. 0:18:49.480 --> 0:18:51.840 I guess it looks like somebody who would be in 0:18:51.880 --> 0:18:55.560 like a whiskey a Scotch commercial on TV in the 0:18:55.560 --> 0:18:56.600 fifties or something. 0:18:56.800 --> 0:19:01.200 Absolutely dashing. Character and director of sech films is Red River, 0:19:01.880 --> 0:19:07.480 Rio Bravo, nineteen thirty two, Scarface, El Dorado, and Hatari, 0:19:08.200 --> 0:19:10.920 as well as the aforementioned The Big Sleep. He was 0:19:11.000 --> 0:19:14.520 nominated for an Academy Award for nineteen forty two Sergeant York, 0:19:14.760 --> 0:19:17.800 and he received an Honorary Academy Award in nineteen seventy four. 0:19:17.880 --> 0:19:21.520 He's considered a legend of the classic Hollywood era, and 0:19:22.320 --> 0:19:25.880 while he was not the credited director or the credited 0:19:25.920 --> 0:19:29.120 co writer on The Thing From Another World, you'll often 0:19:29.160 --> 0:19:30.840 see it looks like. For instance, you'll see him listed 0:19:30.880 --> 0:19:37.159 on IMDb as uncredited director, uncredited writer. Basically, various accounts 0:19:37.520 --> 0:19:42.760 indicate that he was the director and he, for some 0:19:42.800 --> 0:19:46.919 reason or another, let Christian Nibe take the directing credit, 0:19:47.119 --> 0:19:50.200 which again would be his first. John Carpenter among others, 0:19:50.200 --> 0:19:54.000 have echoed this view. However, various other folks, including some 0:19:54.040 --> 0:19:56.320 people involved with the actual production of the film, have 0:19:56.440 --> 0:19:59.400 said otherwise, and they say no, Nibe was the director, 0:20:00.119 --> 0:20:03.040 So ultimately, you know how can you say one way 0:20:03.119 --> 0:20:07.120 or the other. It does seem like Hawks greatly valued Nibe, 0:20:07.520 --> 0:20:11.000 and it's said that Nibe was an instrumental editor in 0:20:11.040 --> 0:20:14.240 many of his films. So it's been argued that perhaps 0:20:14.440 --> 0:20:17.680 Hawks thought that sci fi was beneath him and didn't 0:20:17.720 --> 0:20:20.480 want his name on it, and or he gave the 0:20:20.480 --> 0:20:22.320 credit to Niby so that he could get into the 0:20:22.320 --> 0:20:25.320 director's guild, you know, like, let's go ahead and put 0:20:25.320 --> 0:20:27.879 your name on this film and this will help your career. 0:20:30.320 --> 0:20:32.360 It's hard to say what exactly was going on here, 0:20:32.400 --> 0:20:36.719 but I doubt we're going to get a definite answer 0:20:36.760 --> 0:20:38.960 on it ever. But it does not say I want 0:20:38.960 --> 0:20:41.760 to stress though. I've seen no accounts that indicate that 0:20:41.800 --> 0:20:44.439 this was some sort of This was a situation of 0:20:44.480 --> 0:20:48.080 animosity or like one director being replaced. We often see 0:20:48.080 --> 0:20:51.280 that in this in production stories where I this this 0:20:51.359 --> 0:20:53.280 guy's out on the outs, bring in this guy. No, 0:20:53.400 --> 0:20:56.720 it seems like something else was going on here, and 0:20:57.160 --> 0:20:59.920 you know, if anything, it was probably Hawk's helping out Naiby, 0:21:00.560 --> 0:21:04.080 or it's just been a situation where Hawks was involved 0:21:04.080 --> 0:21:07.120 in the production and Nibee was still the director, and 0:21:07.160 --> 0:21:11.119 maybe people were more inclined to give Hawks more credit 0:21:12.000 --> 0:21:14.960 than he perhaps deserved for it. I mean, I don't 0:21:15.000 --> 0:21:16.000 know what the answer is here. 0:21:16.359 --> 0:21:18.400 Sure, I guess we'll have to leave that one sort 0:21:18.400 --> 0:21:19.080 of unanswered. 0:21:19.520 --> 0:21:22.159 That being said, folks that are familiar with Hawks, they 0:21:22.320 --> 0:21:25.560 do point to various things about this film that have 0:21:26.040 --> 0:21:29.399 his fingerprints on it. So and you put you can 0:21:29.440 --> 0:21:31.880 of course explain that, explain. You can explain that away 0:21:31.920 --> 0:21:34.159 a bit by saying, well, Hawks and Nibe worked together 0:21:34.720 --> 0:21:37.359 so much. You know, they had similar interests, they worked 0:21:37.480 --> 0:21:40.720 together to make these previous films. So who knows. We're 0:21:40.720 --> 0:21:41.919 not going to reach an answer today. 0:21:42.160 --> 0:21:45.359 Well, I will emphasize yet again that I think pretty 0:21:45.440 --> 0:21:48.880 much across the board in terms of technical filmmaking, this 0:21:49.000 --> 0:21:52.720 is an excellently made movie, especially for science fiction films 0:21:52.760 --> 0:21:56.040 at the time. I mean, there are definitely things that 0:21:56.080 --> 0:21:58.200 you can criticize about it, and we will as kind 0:21:58.200 --> 0:22:00.640 of kind of like quaint or product of their era. 0:22:00.760 --> 0:22:02.560 But a lot of that's in the actual sort of 0:22:02.640 --> 0:22:06.280 story content. In terms of a technical exercise in filmmaking, 0:22:06.600 --> 0:22:09.720 I think the Thing from Another World just is awesome 0:22:09.840 --> 0:22:10.880 for nineteen fifty one. 0:22:11.280 --> 0:22:14.919 Absolutely. Yeah, if you're hesitant to watch this just because 0:22:15.240 --> 0:22:18.320 it is an early nineteen fifties film. Just know that 0:22:18.359 --> 0:22:22.080 it is in many ways ahead of its time. All Right, 0:22:22.160 --> 0:22:23.960