I thought I'd go back and watch this sci-fi classic again. There is no better example of perfection in a movie than this.
An alien spaceship crashes in the Arctic and both soldiers and scientists attempt to get the saucer out of the ice. It blows to bits, but they do recover the passenger and take the frozen body back to the outpost where it is accidentally thawed out and begins a rampage of terror.
The alien seeks human blood in order to reproduce and it will stop at nothing to get it. The fight for survival is extremely well done with totally believable characters and dialogue that overlaps, as in real life.
The cast is top notch and couldn't be any better. Kenneth Toby is Captain Pat Hendry, a take charge man who never lets his men down. Margaret Sheridan is Nikki the beautiful secretary to head scientist Dr. Carrington. Nikki is the only woman at the outpost and it is she who actually comes up with the idea of how to kill the invader. Carrington is played by Bob Cornthwaite, and he is the epitome of the dedicated scientist. Douglas Spencer is Scotty, the newspaperman who is with the soldiers and sends out the story of what happened and utters the famous closing line "Keep Watching The Skies".
the rest of the cast includes Dewey Martin, James Young, William Self, Eduard Franz, George Fenneman and James Arness as "The Thing".
Directed by Howard Hawks, even though it is credited to Christian Nyby this is also the first film to ever feature a full body burn by a stuntman and the scene is, in my opinion, the best scene of it's kind ever done. It has no equal.
If you've never seen this film..then you should. Made at a time in America when men were men and women were women and Hollywood knew how to make a good sci-fi film.
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