Produced by Howard Hawks, who gave directorial credit to editor Christian Nyby, The Thing proved enormously popular on its release and remains a landmark in the development of speculative cinema. A chilling morality fable about the responsibility of scientists toward humanity, The Thing also played on fears rampant in 1951 of invasion from “the outside”; it concludes with the hysterial admonition, “Keep on looking! Watch the skies...!” The setting is the Arctic, where a spaceship is found in the ice and taken to a nearby Army station. There, curious scientists confront the pilot, an extraterrestrial vegetable played by James Arness, with whom they hope to communicate. But communication is impossible: Upon thawing, the vegetable proves an incredible menace--cannibalistic, vampiristic, generally without morals, and seemingly unstoppable.
Michael Goodwin writes, “Lightning pacing, overlapping dialogue, and a concentration on group dynamics (all the Hawksian trademarks, in short) work to make this a guaranteed edge-of-your-seat thriller. The scene where the scientists spread out on the ice to mark the outlines of a buried spaceship, and form a perfect circle, is one of the most chilling moments in cinema--and worth the price of admission alone.”