The Thing From Another World

A few years ago, I was told by someone who studies film history that The Thing from Another World (1951) was a right-wing film about the Communist menace. It stood out as a right-wing film because the scientists in the film are weak and untrustworthy, unlike scientists in left-wing 1950's sci-fi who usually try (and often succeed) to save the world.

That's one valid reading. However, I think there is a stronger reading than this. A few things stood out for me when I watched this film for the first time a week ago.

The movie is about intrepid air force Captain Pat Hendry. He is called with his loyal men to a remote scientific base in North Alaska after they discover a mysterious aircraft (an unidentified flying object, if you will) crashed in the ice. It is occupied by an eight foot tall humanlike creature entombed in a block of ice for easy transportation. They bring the creature back to the base where it thaws out (thanks to an unthinking airman and an electric blanket - D'OH!) and proceeds to make life miserable for everyone since it is a blood-drinking vegetable. I don't think I'm giving too much away when I say that ingenuity saves the day. This is a 50's sci-fi/horror flick, after all. Ambiguous endings were a no-no.

The first thing I noticed about the film was that the Soviets weren't mentioned, or if they were, I blinked and missed it. There was no sense that the fallen spaceship was from the Ruskies, or that there was a risk they might acquire it, or even that there was a place called the Soviet Union where they practiced Communism. The Thing is not the only science fiction film to fail to mention the enemy of freedom-lovers of the day. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) similarly does not mention the Soviet Union and many would agree that movie is singularly about the Communist menace. But it's hard to imagine a so-called right-wing film of the 50's passing up an opportunity to denounce their favourite bugbear.

Interestingly enough, you could get a better anti-Communist reading from the film's remake. John Carpenter's The Thing (1982) has the same plant monster, however this one changes shape to resemble its prey. This leads to many 'who is the enemy' moments which recalls the paranoia that infused Invasion of the Body Snatchers. But there is no such confusion in Christian Nyby/Howard Hawks's Thing. We know who the enemy is for the entire movie.

(It's a dumb enemy at that. This thing invented a spaceship and presumably faster-than-light travel and when it gets to Earth its idea of military strategy is to lurch around and swat people with a giant paw? Huh?)

One of the great causes of social anxiety during the Cold War was the threat of nuclear war. This manifested itself in many films, possibly most famously in The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951). This anxiety is probably the reason more than anything that we see the untrustworthy scientist in The Thing. Dr Carrington seems unable to realise that the creature is a deadly threat and wants to study and communicate with it even if it risks the lives of everyone at the base. He secretly tries to grow more Things using blood packs to satiate his curiosity, even though it's obvious that doing so means more literally blood-thirsty monsters running around to assail Our Heroes.

Obviously Dr Carrington can't be trusted. But he is only one scientist on the base. Others disagree with his actions, and the root of their disagreement is on the basic merits of Carrington's argument. Uhm, hello? This thing is trying to slaughter us like sheep? Stuff science. No rousing speech or admonishments from Our Hero is required to change their minds. They independently recognise that Carrington's course is reckless and wrong. If the definition of a right-wing 1950's sci-fi film is that the scientists are untrustworthy, The Thing fails in this regard.

The manner of the air force pilots is peculiar, especially to a modern viewer so used to the rabid jingoism of the right-wing elements of America. They treat their Captain quite casually, never saluting him. In fact, they usually don't even refer to his rank, often they simply call him 'Pat'. Considering the right's fetishization of the military, especially during the Cold War, it is difficult to imagine that a film could be considered right-wing with such disregard for military tradition.

If the film isn't a right-wing parable about the Cold War, what is it? (Other than a movie about monsters tearing up the place - film students aren't allowed to state the obvious) One of the striking themes of the film is the general rejection of authority and bureaucracy. One of the pilots dryly comments, "(the air force will) Probably make you a general for destroying evidence that they are wrong." One of the tensions of the film is that the heroes cannot take the right action because it will bring them into conflict with their faceless superiors.

It seems that the gripe about science goes along similar lines. The problem isn't scientists - they can be good or bad just like anyone else. The problem occurs when a pedantic adherence to some authoritarian notion of scientific progress is slavishly enacted.

One of the most interesting moments in the film happens when the love interest, Nikki (who incidentally is a character full of sass and independence that I can't fathom having a place in a right-wing 50's film) plays with Pat. She ties him up, forces him to drink, and ignores his pleas to be untied. For a moment we see a complete reversal of traditional 50's male/female relationships. What is striking about this scene is that it doesn't seem to be a facile comment about women tying men down. Instead it seems to ironically be a moment of freedom, the couple playing like children with carefree abandon.

So it seems that this film, more than a comment on the Cold War, is a piece about individual freedom versus stale conformity. This is hardly a radical reading of the film: the same themes abound in Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and The Thing only predates The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit by five years. Carrington idolises the monster because it feels "No pleasure or pain. No heart. Superior in every way." This mirrors the fears in the post-war period of conformity stifling the American soul, a fear that would lead the the breakout of cultural rebellion in the 60's. The enemy of The Thing isn't Communism, it's the death of freedom.