101 Great Films # 98 The Thing

  “Keep watching the skies!”
Those are the last world in the 1951 Howark Hawks/ Christian Nyby directed horror/SiFi hybrid, The Thing. Set in the Arctic, a group of civilian scientist discover a UFO and call in the Government via the Air Force.

Tagging along with the military is a member of the 4^th estate a newspaper reporter. When all 3 groups find an alien in the arctic ice the stage is set for the action to begin.

      Hawks and Nyby do a great job of keeping the film as much about the characters as the suspense, with the Hawkian style of dialogue, and a taunt pace. Plus an amazingly strong female character played by Margaret Sheridan. 

Kenneth Tobey & Margaret Sheridan

 Released in 1951 this was one of the first of the Hollywood films to use Horror & Science Fiction genre to get a political message across, in this case a center- right political message. 

Also released in 1951, "The Day the Earth Stood Still", another very political movie dressed up as a SiFi flick, and a very good one too!  

      I’m not going into detail about the conflict between civilian & military, or the struggle with censuring the press. And We’re not going to discuss how the “Mad” scientist looks very Russian, including his Serbia winter hat. 

If your interested in these undertones in The Thing or any other films during the 50’s

Check out- Seeing is Believing by Peter Biskind, a wonderful book.

If you want to see a great horror/SiFi/action thriller with a "His Girl Friday" overlapping dialogue style then check out The Thing from another world!

The plant scene is still  freaky!

101 Great Films # 98