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-

Notorious (1946)

His dames typically died harsh, and he had crazy Mommy Issues. But Alfred Hitchcock’s run of films is unchallenged. Dig “Notorious.” Made just after WWII and before the arrival of Better Dead Than Red! American patriotism crushed free thought, this plays damn smart if you look between the Hayes’ Code lines. Here, a CIA agent (Cary Grant) forces the American daughter (Ingrid Bergman) of a Nazi spy to romance another SS Bootlicker (Claude Rains) to get any secrets he has cooking. And that he does: Atomic bomb deeds. Straight plot. Melodrama. Suspense. The title is a twisted joke: Grant’s bosses sit and damn Bergman as unwomanly and quite expendable whether she gets the goods or not, for she likes sex and liquor, her notoriety. Never mind these men, Grant included, enjoy skirts and booze. (Look for the lady at the party who knows Grant.) Hitchcock lays American hypocrisy flat with a stealth punch. How can we look these men in the eye? On Grant, we cannot. He is consistently shown from behind, his face a mystery for long stretches until he finally sees the damage his spy gaming has wrought. The final scene is ambiguous and pure Hitchcock genius. A