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Pre-Order The Thing From Another World (1951) (Blu-ray) Available for Preorder (1 Viewer)

Ronald Epstein

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Robert Crawford

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Blind purchase worthy? I like a good sci-fi film now and then
Ron,

Just remember this movie came out in 1951. It was a ground-breaking film that has been beloved by Sci-fi and movie fans since they were kids. Seeing this as a mature adult, you might be let down, but it was well done. Furthermore, considering the production codes and the special effects limitation of that era I think it's still one of the best Sci-fi movies I'd ever seen. I try to watch this film at least once every year. This year it will be 3 times because I watched it twice already on Filmstruck/Criterion app.
 

Robert Crawford

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One more thing, the running time should be just 87 minutes and the film moves along at a brisk pace. Just a thought with it coming out on Blu-ray, memories of days gone by when I was a little kid along with my older siblings watching this film at night without any lights on in the house without any of our parents around to bother us.
 

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This ran on Million Dollar Movie (WOR-TV in NY) back in the day, which meant it was shown 16 times during a one-week period. I probably watched ten of those showings, commercials and all. I later acquired a full-length Super 8mm print that got a lot of use back in the 80's. Incredibly tense and scary for a 50's sci-fi, most of which were cheeseball giant insect or ridiculous female-societies-on-the-moon kind of fodder. THE THING had brains, a good script (arguably directed by Howard Hawks more than by the credited Christian Nyby) wonderful actors playing perfectly believable characters, all speaking rapid-fire, overlapping dialog. The giger counter that is used as a means of determining how close The Thing is works better than any suspense tools in more modern films (the ALIEN tracker being an exception), such as "Do I cut the red wire or the blue wire?" and increasingly rapid sonar pings aboard submarines. If you ever thought that Kenneth Tobey was a talentless actor, you need this film.
 

Robert Crawford

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This ran on Million Dollar Movie (WOR-TV in NY) back in the day, which meant it was shown 16 times during a one-week period. I probably watched ten of those showings, commercials and all. I later acquired a full-length Super 8mm print that got a lot of use back in the 80's. Incredibly tense and scary for a 50's sci-fi, most of which were cheeseball giant insect or ridiculous female-societies-on-the-moon kind of fodder. THE THING had brains, a good script (arguably directed by Howard Hawks more than by the credited Christian Nyby) wonderful actors playing perfectly believable characters, all speaking rapid-fire, overlapping dialog. The giger counter that is used as a means of determining how close The Thing is works better than any suspense tools in more modern films (the ALIEN tracker being an exception), such as "Do I cut the red wire or the blue wire?" and increasingly rapid sonar pings aboard submarines. If you ever thought that Kenneth Tobey was a talentless actor, you need this film.
It certainly was which is where I probably discovered it in the early 1960's. Just a great entertaining film.
 

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Blind purchase worthy? I like a good sci-fi film now and then
This movie, along with King Kong (1933), The Wolf Man (1941), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), and The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), is what I gave a late 20's coworker who told me "I don't watch old BW movies because they're not as good as what's made today." That was during a discussion of classic BW horror/SF movies (she's a huge horror fan but had ruled out anything made before ~1970). She watched all of them at my insistence. They made her a believer that she'd been missing out on tons of excellent movies because of that "no BW or pre-1970 movies" stance. While she likes John Carpenter's remake better (in all fairness, she did see it first), she does like the original.

I'm highly biased as I have a love of 50s SF/Horror movies and will watch almost any of them over anything newer.

It's from Howard Hawks. It's 50s SF/Horror. Yes! It's blind purchase worthy.
 

Robert Crawford

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I'm a Million Dollar Movie child, too!! Dick's comments above are spot on!!!
For me, it was one of the things that formulated my love for classic films. Another one was the Late, Late, Shows on Channel 2/WCBS. For those of us that grew up in the NYC Metro area back in the day, we were pretty lucky due to Channels 2, 5, 7, 9 & 11 that constantly broadcast classic films. Did I forget any other channels?
 

dana martin

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while not as iconic as the Drew Struzan poster for the Carpenter remake, it would have been nice to use the original "non spoiler" poster art for this release
 

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It wasn't until I was older and the show was over that I found out the theme music was from GWTW. Channel 9 WOR also had Movie of the Week, I believe and was responsible for the Thanksgiving holiday tradition of showing the three "monkey movies": Kong, Son of... and Mighty Joe. I will be ordering The Thing, too, for the record. It never gets old for me. I can't say whether it's nostalgia, repeated childhood viewing, the movie, itself, or all of the above. The moving dismembered arm and accompanying music still haunts.
 

Thomas T

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For me, it was one of the things that formulated my love for classic films. Another one was the Late, Late, Shows on Channel 2/WCBS. For those of us that grew up in the NYC Metro area back in the day, we were pretty lucky due to Channels 2, 5, 7, 9 & 11 that constantly broadcast classic films. Did I forget any other channels?

I suppose we geezers all pretty much have similar stories but different stations, channels and movies depending on where you lived. I grew up in the San Francisco bay area and my introduction to classic cinema came when channel 7 (KGO?) purchased a batch of 1930s and 1940s MGM films and my pretentious adolescent self devoured them. I even remember my very first movie from the bunch: They Met In Bombay with Clark Gable and Rosalind Russell. This is probably why I have a great affection for MGM's "golden" period. I don't recall Warners, Columbia, Paramount, Universal etc. films popping up much on local TV growing up.
 

Robert Crawford

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I suppose we geezers all pretty much have similar stories but different stations, channels and movies depending on where you lived. I grew up in the San Francisco bay area and my introduction to classic cinema came when channel 7 (KGO?) purchased a batch of 1930s and 1940s MGM films and my pretentious adolescent self devoured them. I even remember my very first movie from the bunch: They Met In Bombay with Clark Gable and Rosalind Russell. This is probably why I have a great affection for MGM's "golden" period. I don't recall Warners, Columbia, Paramount, Universal etc. films popping up much on local TV growing up.
I just watched "They Met in Bombay" again the other day.
 

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