The Thing from Another World (1951)

All the trapped in, under, above, at fill-in-the-blank monster horror films we all love (“Alien”!) started with Howard Hawks’ “The Thing From Another World,” or, really, just titled, “The Thing.”  Heavy on the brain-hammer “THEY AREN’T LIKE US!” Commie scares, “Thing” focuses on a group of military hot-heads and science nerds trapped at the North Pole, stalked by a tallish alien humanoid (James Arness) whose flying saucer has crashed nearby. This must have been a blast to watch when it first hit theaters as director Christian Nyby (with Hawks) was smart enough to temper the Red Scare tactics with tongue in cheek humor, cracks at military logic, and a mixture of genuine scares and not a little romance. It makes the patriotism go down smooth, even if the set-up takes for damn ever and the butt of all jokes is the journo (Douglas Spencer) trying to get the story of the millennia out. OK, I liked that last part, especially his line, “Keep watching the skies,” years before the Red Scare hit: Sputnik. A-