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Here's another quiz on this film:(1) What was the timeframe and associated dates of the story?
(2) Who left Polar Expedition Six camp as soon as The Thing arrived in
the block of ice?
(3) There were two camp cooks, one had a single line; what was his name
and what was the line?
(4) Did Scotty The Newspaper Reporter get a photograph of The Thing?
(5) Who, besides James Arness, played the part of The Thing?
(6) What Bible Story analogy did Scotty make with the plight of Polar
Expedition Six during his radio newscast in the final scene?
(7) What person associated with making the film has the same name as an
early 20th Century chessmaster?
(8) What ever happened to the metal filings supposedly obtained from the
spacecraft's stabilizer fin at the crash site?
(1) The film's opening scene shows Scotty The Newspaper Reporter (Ned Scott), entering the Officers Club at the Air Base in Anchorage, Alaska;
there follows a conversation between him, Capt. Hendry and Lts. MacPherson
and Dykes for about ten minutes. Hendry then gets an intercom call from
General Fogherty to report to him and Scotty looks at his watch and comments its 8 PM. A short while later, Hendry, Scotty, the two Lts (Dykes
is Hendry's co-pilot and MacPherson is navigator) among others leave for
Polar Expedition Six, an arctic station some 2,000 miles north, on Air Force 191, and arrive the next morning at about 11:15 AM. Hendry meets
Dr. Carrington, who in his dictation to Miss Nicholson, comments that it's
11:30 AM, November 2nd. Carrington also tells Hendry that his sensors recorded an explosion 48 miles due east from the station at 6:15 PM the
previous day, November 1st. They fly to the explosion site and return to
PES that evening with The Thing frozen in a ice block. The film ends at
night with Scotty announcing in his radio newstory that's it November 3rd.
So the timeframe spans from the evening of November 1st to sometime during
the night of November 3rd. As for the year, we know it's after 1949, because Lt. MacPherson reads aloud a DOD Bulletin published December 27th
of that year, and it's been already established it's currently November,
therefore, a minimum of almost a year from the date of the Bulletin must
have elapsed. A further clue is revealed when Scotty mentions that Harry
Truman is U.S. President - Truman served from April 12, 1945 to January 20,
1953 - so the year had to be either 1950, 1951 or 1952.
Incidentally, I believe I've discovered a timeframe discrepancy, consider:
Sgt. Barnes took over the storeroom shift from Lt. MacPherson to watch The
Thing in the iceblock at 2200 hrs. (10PM) November 2nd, himself to be
relieved by Bob The Crewchief at 2400 hrs. (12AM). The Thing escaped during Barnes' shift, sometime between 2200 and 2400 hrs. Shortly after
the escape, Hendry and crew recovered The Thing's right hand and forearm
after it had been torn off by a sled dog outside the compound. Dr. Carrington subsequently got seedpods from the fleshy part of The Thing's
palm and cultivated them by feeding them human blood plasma. Later, sometime on November 3rd, Carrington revealed his actions to fellow scientists and stated that he'd planted them at 9PM, and that by 2AM, they
had started to sprout (one of the scientists remarked "Five hours!"), and
by 4AM, they had taken definite form. This is not possible according to
the given times because The Thing did not escape until after 10PM (2200 hrs). Of course, we could presume Carrington make a simple conceptual
error, after all, he admitted to them that he was tired from lack of sleep
and wasn't talking (or thinking) clearly.(2) Eskimos.
(3) Lee; "Coffee, Captain?".
(4) We can only assume that he eventually got a photo of The Thing, but
only after it had melted into a smoldering lump of vegeflesh; in the aftermath of The Thing's destruction, Capt. Hendry said Scotty could now
take a picture, but Scotty fainted and the scene changed without us ever
actually seeing him take a photo. A few minutes before, as The Thing
approached on the electric grid, Scotty stood ready with camera poised,
but the lights went out, preventing him from snapping a picture. Scotty
also missed two earlier opportunities to snap a photo: during the scene
where The Thing was set on fire by kerosene (Scotty fell back over a bed
as he snapped a shot, but missed getting The Thing); and during the scene
where The Thing stood at the greenhouse door as Capt. Hendry opened it
(Hendry slammed the door shut before Scotty get take a picture).
However, in an early scene where the crew stands a short distance from the
buried spacecraft, Scotty takes a picture of the overlying, round demarcation in the ice and the stablizer fin protruding upward. He also
takes a picture of the thermite bomb detonation at the crash site, but
not the spacecraft explosion which resulted from the thermite detonation.
Incidentally, Scotty had multiple opportunities later to take photos of
The Thing's severed hand and forearm and the seedpod plants, but we are
never shown or told this. The hand/forearm and plants are burned after
The Thing is destroyed.(5) Billy Curtis; he played the part of The Thing as it shrank from the
heat generated by the "electric flytrap".(6) "Once a man named Noah saved the world with an ark of wood, here at
the North Pole, a few men performed a similar service with an arc of
electricity."(7) Associate Producer, Edward Lasker. Lasker the chessmaster was a
prominent player in the early part of the 20th Century; not to be confused
with Emmanuel Lasker, the World Champion from the 1890's to 1921.(8) At the fin, Dr. Carrington instructed Dr. Vorrhees to collect filings
for analysis. Vorrhees had just remarked he'd never seen a metal as such
before, perhaps a new alloy. Before the camera shifts, Vorrhees is seen
filing away at the top of the fin as Carrington walks away. The camera
then shifts away to Capt. Hendry, as he talks to Scotty and Carrington -
Dr. Chapman stands alone behind them at about 30 or so feet. Carrington
leaves Hendry and Scotty, joining Chapman in the background. Then Vorrhees
is shown joining Carrington and Chapman. They briefly huddle together and
it appears that Vorrhees hands Chapman something, possibly the filings, the
file, or both. The three men then stroll to their right about ten to twenty feet and stop, still conversing - nothing is discernable in their
hands. Bob The Crewchief consults with Capt. Hendry about setting the
thermite bomb detonation and the camera shifts back over to the fin as
Bob and Lt. MacPherson start to run wire and thermite to the fin. They instruct all
crewmembers to clear the site, which the crew does.
We are left only to speculate if any filings were obtained, perhaps the
metal was too hard, perhaps Vorrhees only gave Chapman the file. It would
seem that if any filing samples were taken, their analysis would have
certainly been important enough to warrant attention in a later scene. At
any rate, no mention whatsoever was made again of the filings in the film.
No flame intended, but why do you have so much interest in such a forgettable film?And yes I've seen it.
A nostalgia thing. That "The Thing" is forgettable for you and memorable
for me isn't an unusual type of occurrence. "One man's trash is another's
treasure". I'll give you a prime example: back in late 1978, two movie
pundits in the Siskel-Ebert tradition, presented their respective best and
worst films for the year on TV; ironically, one pundits number one best
film was rated as the worst by the other pundit, and vice versa. The
show ended with both yelling and calling each other "stupid"! I couldn't
stop laughing.
For my views on "The Thing", reference my archived review, "The Thing:
The 1951 Original Vs The 1982 Remake"; dated 10-04-99.
Nostalgia is fine with me! Although I'm more of a cult movie fanatic myself. I did read your original comments on the Thing and as a matter of fact, recently ran across an old issue of Cinefantastique that did an in-depth feature on this film. I found it interesting from the perspective that it was Howard Hawks single entry into science fiction, and because of its use of "real" dialogue. Still, for my money, Forbidden Planet easily ranks as the best example of 50's-style sci-fi, with honorable mention going to Day the Earth Stood Still.
"Forbidden Planet" is my fave sci-fi movie of the 50's; see my review in
the archives on this site; it's also at the InternetMovieDatabase site
www.imdb.com, along with a nostalgia piece I wrote concerning it. Just
click on my email address at imdb and it will list all my reviews of various
films for easy access.
Here is a list of my faves (in order) of the scifis of the 50s:
(1) Forbidden Planet
(2) The Thing (From Another World)
(3) Invasion of the Body Snatchers
(4) The Day The Earth Stood Still
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