In which an alien “intellectual carrot” is thawed out in the Arctic ice and becomes the first serious invader from outer space to menace Mankind. There had been the occasional alien visitor before the thing went on its rampage but mostly, they were either benign (as in the same year’s The Day the Earth Stood Still) or the pulpy, not to be taken seriously threats stalking the episodes of serials like Flash Gordon (1936) and its sequels, Buck Rogers (1939) and Superman (1948). The Thing is a film that proved immediately influential and has continued to inform alien invasion films ever since.

A group of scientists in a remote Arctic research base report finding an unusual aircraft crashed nearby and Captain Patrick Hendry (Kenneth Tobey) of the United States Air Force is sent to investigate, accompanied by journalist Ned Scott (Douglas Spencer). Joining the military and scientific groups already at the base, Hendry decides to try freeing the craft, which appears to have been frozen in the ice for twenty million years before, but accidentally destroys it when the thermite charges cause the ship’s magnesium hull to ignite. Nearby the discover the body of a large, humanoid creature also frozen in the ice and successfully return it to the base. As a storm closes in, the alien is revived when the block of ice it’s encased it thaws out and escapes, despite losing an arm to one of a husky. The scientists, led by Dr Arthur Carrington (Robert Cornthwaite) and his assistant Nikki (Margaret Sheridan), study the arm and come to the conclusion that the alien is an advanced for of plant life. It’s also highly aggressive and is soon laying siege to the base as the crew desperately try to come up with a way to kill it.

The question of who actually directed The Thing from Another World has haunted the film since the day it was released. The credited director is Christian Nyby, but it’s been suggested on more than one occasion that the film was actually directed by producer Howard Hawks and Nyby got the credit so that he could get Director’s Guild membership. Certainly nothing that Nyby directed subsequently directed was anywhere near as good as this and many of the hallmarks of Hawks’ style – the cast of competent men working together to overcome adversity, the over-lapping, naturalistic dialogue -are present and correct. Even the cast couldn’t recall who directed it, offering different opinions over the years. We’ll likely never know the truth of it at this stage.

Whoever directed it fashioned one of the crown jewels of the 50s American science fiction boom, a film that looks and feels remarkably fresh even after all these decades. The script is a textbook example of how to pace a thriller. It rattles along at a reckless pace, any flab expertly cut away. Coupled with that overlapping dialogue (beautifully written by Charles Lederer an uncredited Hawks and Ben Hecht), the breathless direction lends The Thing from Another World a real sense of urgency that never lets up.

There’s also a real tension to the proceedings that results in some of the scariest moments in 50s cinema. The scene in which the thing is found lurking behind a door is still one of the all-time great shock moments, and when it gets set alight in the dormitory it takes centre stage in one of the film’s most rousing moments. Some have expressed disappointment that the thing is just a very tall man in a boiler suit and bald cap (Arness later went on to television stardom as the lead in the television western Gunsmoke (1955-1975) but Nyby/Hawks features him only sparingly and he’s often quite terrifying and unnervingly resilient – in our first glimpse of it, it’s seen fending off the base’s huskies during a blizzard and losing an arm in the process, an arm it takes little time in growing back. Elsewhere quieter moments also impress, notably the iconic scene of the crew of the polar base outlining the circular shape of the buried flying saucer.

Given such good snappy dialogue, the cast generally rises to the occasion admirably. There are no stars in The Thing from Another World by everyone from Kenneth Tobey to Douglas Spencer are great, though Robert Cornthaite’s redoing of the misguided scientist Carrington as an effete and prissy character have led to some interpretations that were probably never intended. Margaret Sheridan is a lot of fun as Nikki, taking no nonsense from the boys, though Sally Creighton as the only other woman in the cast gets very little to do.

There’s no love lost between the military and scientific contingents of the crew and it’s clear that Hawks and co favoured the brisk professionalism of the soldiers over the stuffy academia of the scientists. It’s familiar trope now but this was one of the earliest screen manifestations of a struggle that has percolated down through science fiction cinema ever since.

As well as being the first serious alien intrusion film, it’s also one of the first films to use science fiction and the spectre of invasion as an allegory for America’s increasingly fractious relationship with the Soviet Union. The Russians are said to be “all over the pole like flies” and the famous “watch the skies” speech could as easily be a plea to be vigilant for incoming ballistic missiles or soviet spy planes as visitors from another planet. It trailblazed a seam of American paranoid cinema that would recast invaders (often from Mars – the red planet) as Communist aggressors out to destabilise every facet of American life.

The Thing from Another World was based on John W. Campbell’s 1938 novella Who Goes There? first published in the August 1938 issue of Astounding Science Fiction but it abandons many of the details, including the fact that the alien can change its shape to mimic anything that it attacks and devours. The effects weren’t up to it in 1951 and it’s an idea that wouldn’t be restored until John Carpenter’s masterly remake in 1982. Carpenter’s version is the showier effects showcase and a fantastic film but in its own right but the original remains a masterpiece, a brilliantly made film that didn’t have the state-of-the-art effects, but which is just as frightening as Carpenter’s version.