The Thing from Another World - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts

[discussimdb]

Fan of The Thing from Another World or just want to share your movie knowledge? This topic is dedicated to all trivia and questions related to The Thing from Another World

[nicholas]

While complaining about the difficulty in getting a story approved, Scott wonders what Truman is going to say, and Eddie replies "Margaret". Harry Truman was the U.S. President at the time of the picture, and his daughter Margaret was his personal confidant.

[sophie]

The radio operator who rolls his own cigarettes became the radio operator who smokes weed in John Carpenter's version.

[veronica]

Although it has frequently been derided by science fiction purists for being an overly loose adaptation of the original John W. Campbell, Jr. novella, it actually hews quite closely to the first six chapters of the original story. Nearly all of the borrowings from the novella that recur in the movie, including the discovery of the flying saucer through the electromagnetic anomaly it makes, and its accidental destruction through the use of thermite charges, the thawing of the creature, the suggestion that it reads minds, and its death in the electrical trap, come from these first few chapters.

[sara]

The film takes place from November 2 to November 3, 1950.

[gerald]

William Self, who played Cpl. Barnes in "The Thing," later served as executive producer on such iconic 1960s television programs as Irwin Allen's Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1964), Lost in Space (1965), Land of the Giants (1968), The Time Tunnel (1966), as well as for Batman (1966), The Green Hornet (1966) and many others.

[marc]

When Producer and co-Director Howard Hawks attempted to get insurance for the creature, five insurance companies turned him down because "The Thing" was to be frozen in a block of ice, hacked by axes, attacked by dogs, lit on fire, and electrocuted.

[scarlett]

Originally, it was intended to make the creature a shapeshifter, as in the novel, but the limited budget forced the filmmakers to drop the idea. Early conceptual sketches depict a very plant-like looking creature, with one of its limbs seemingly undergoing a transformation into a human hand.

[camila]

Scotty (Douglas Spencer) mentions being at the execution of Ruth Snyder and Judd Gray. This was a real case. The couple were tried for, and convicted of, the murder of Snyder's husband in 1927 and were executed in New York by the electric chair.

[victoria]

The opening credits are unusual for its time, in that they don't list a single member of the cast.

[mathew]

In an interview on National Public Radio's "Fresh Air" with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, when asked about the most scared they'd ever been at the movies, Ebert indicated that this film scared him to death, especially the scene where they incinerated the "Thing".

[terry]

Partly filmed in Glacier National Park, and at a Los Angeles ice storage plant.

[tammy]

Takeoffs from Anchorage and landings at the North Pole station were filmed at the Lewistown MT municipal airport, per a story in Boxoffice.

[eli]

Although they are not credited, some well-known faces and voices appeared in the movie. John Dierkes played in several John Ford/John Wayne westerns, George Fenneman was Groucho Marx's announcer and foil for many years on television, and everyone's favorite "disembodied voice", Paul Frees, was one of the scientists (and makes it to the end of the movie).

[bryan]

When Barnes is left to guard The Thing in the block of ice, he nervously whistles "Bury Me Not On The Lone Prairie".

[norma]

When one character is asked if he knows how to use a Very pistol, his response was, "I saw Gary Cooper in Sergeant York (1941)". He then proceeds to lick his finger and run it along the gun sight like York did throughout the film. Sergeant York (1941) was also directed by Howard Hawks.

[lynn]

When Scotty (Douglas Spencer) mentioned having attended the 1928 execution of Ruth Snyder and Judd Grey, another character asked him if he was able to get a picture of it. Scotty answers, "No, they didn't allow cameras, but one guy." He was interrupted by The Thing's approach before he can finish the sentence. Scotty was referring to Chicago Tribune photographer Tom Howard, who smuggled a miniature camera into the execution chamber strapped to his ankle and was able to take a famous photograph of Snyder's final moments in the electric chair.

[mathew]

The skeleton crew at the South Pole Telescope station have a tradition every winter-over of watching this movie, and the other two adaptations on the very first night after the departure of the final plane of the season.

[jesse]

Howard Hawks asked the U.S. Air Force for assistance in making the film. He was refused, because the top brass felt that such cooperation would compromise the U.S. government's official stance that U.F.O.s didn't exist.