Movie Description

The Thing from Another World (often referred to as The Thing prior to its 1982 remake) is a 1951 American black-and-white science fiction/horror film produced by Howard Hawks' Winchester Pictures Corporation, released by RKO Pictures, and directed by Christian Nyby. The film stars Kenneth Tobey, Margaret Sheridan, Robert Cornthwaite, and Douglas Spencer. James Arness played The Thing, but he is difficult to recognize in costume and makeup, due to both low lighting and other effects used to obscure his features. The film is based on the 1938 novella "Who Goes There?" by John W. Campbell (writing under the pseudonym of Don A. Stuart).

The story concerns a U.S. Air Force crew and scientists who finds a crashed flying saucer and a body frozen nearby in the Arctic ice. Returning to their remote research outpost with the humanoid body in a block of ice, they are forced to defend themselves against this malevolent, plant-based alien when it is accidentally revived.

In 2001, the United States Library of Congress deemed the film "culturally significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry. Additionally, Time magazine named The Thing from Another World "the greatest 1950s sci-fi movie."