The Thing from Another World (Nyby, 1951): Cinema Museum 7pm
The film is being screened in conjuction with It Came From Outer Space (1953). Yiu can find the full details here.
Time Out review:
One of the great sci-fi classics, a Howard Hawks film in all but director
credit (he produced, planned the film, supervised the shooting). The
gradual build-up of tension, as a lonely group of scientists in the
Antarctic discover a flying saucer and its deadly occupant, is quite
superb; while The Thing itself (played by James Arness) is shown sufficiently
little to create real menace. As in most of Hawks' work, the emphasis is
on professionalism in a tiny, isolated community, on a love
relationship evolving semi-flippant fashion into something important,
and on group solidarity. Also characteristic is the contrast with a film
like Robert Wise's The Day the Earth Stood Still (made the
same year), which took a liberal stand in exposing the stupidity of men
when confronted with an alien. Hawks rejects out of hand the idea that
the alien might be worth trying to understand or communicate with; in
fact, the scientist who tries to do this is made to seem feeble and even
inhuman, so that the overall message of The Thing emerges as distinctly hawkish. Reactionary or not, though, it's still a masterpiece.
David Pirie
Here (and above) is the trailer.
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