Review of The Thing from Another World (1951) by Jack G — 18 Jul 2015

The Thing From Another World. It's not very scary (James Arness really does look like a Carrot-Man whenever he appears), and in the last reel the scientist character gets to become cliche and over-the-top.

But up until then it has a lot of really strong character building and the over-lapping dialog Hawks was known for in his films makes the situation realistic and compelling - I also liked how characters tried to use *logic* in this situation.

After so many horror/science fiction movies where characters act dumb and unreasonable, it was nice to see something where people talked out things and it was actually interesting too; a lot of credit I give too to Lederer's script (with assist from Faulker?!) which even gives little moments like that between the Captain and the one gal at the station, Nikki, some nice dialog where we actually feel these are people in this situation.

I do still prefer Carpenter's 1982 version just for how it's a perfect horror film, but the Hawks production hasn't aged as badly as I had thought it might; for those who don't like long stretches of dialog it might seem boring but, honestly, it really is more interesting than it had any right to be.

A near-classic.