Morricone’s film score is a terrific fit with the visuals.
The second or third time I saw the 1982 version, I was at a friend’s house at night. When his dog crawled out from under a couch right next to us, we just about shit ourselves!
Do you know when this happened? I’m wondering because I remember hearing about the movie a long time ago, but 100% as a James Arness trivia question more than anything else. I was thinking I remember it had run on a random Saturday in the 70s in the usual monsters timeslot on our local channel, but honestly, memories from back then are all overlapping with other memories at this point.
No one saying it’s totally unavailable or obscure; it did make money in 1951. But most people do not watch early 1950s monster movies; you are not the normal movie viewer. We’re not talking about The Wizard of Oz or Jaws.
The statement “most people have not seen…” is unquestionably true for the great majority of movies. There is a pretty limited number of movies that more than half of all people (here I am limiting us to the USA/Canada/UK, to be fair) have seen - stuff like Wizard of Oz, or Star Wars, or Jurassic Park have over 50% penetration into people 18 and up. I’m sure we can think of more. But most people haven’t seen, say, The French Connection. Most people haven’t seen Raging Bull. Most people haven’t seen Dances With Wolves. Most people haven’t seen Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Goldfinger, Amadeus, or Hoosiers, and those are all better known movies than The Thing From Another World.
If you did a solid, well structured survey of a cross section of people, how many people do you think would have seen the 1951 movie? I’ll tell you right now I doubt it’s ten percent. I’d actually be quite impressed if it was that high. Poll a bunch of movie critics and cinema obsessives and sure, it’d be higher; poll ordinary folks and it absolutely won’t be. You might be shocked how many people now have no idea who James Arness is, despite his being on “Gunsmoke.”
The failure of the 1982 movie was at least in part because it wasn’t a known property to most people.
Cal specified “Science fiction fans,” not “fans of the movie.” I’d expect self-described science fiction fans to have a higher knowledge of the genre than the average movie goer, particularly in the '80s, when sci fi was still a much more niche interest than it is today.
As someone who saw the 1982 film during its original theatrical release, none of the above sounds right. The 1951 version was a regular feature on TV. I can’t imagine anyone watching TV in the 1970s not being aware of the film if not having actually watched it. Familiarity with the old film was the entire reason for naming the 1982 version The Thing rather than Who Goes There?, which is what the few of us familiar with the Campbell story would have titled it if it were our choice.
Everybody in 1982 knew who James Arness is. And anybody with a trivia book (which were enormously popular at the time) knew that Arness played the the Thing.
FWIW, I was already a big sf fan by 1982, and knew of the existence of the earlier movie, and that Arness played the alien. I had never seen it, though, and don’t recall ever having seen it on TV (even in a late-night creature feature) or in any local theater as a revival.
Hence “Now.” In 1982, of course, he was still a working actor.
Late night horror movie shows were a big thing around 1982 (there was even a chart-topping pop song about them). It’s hard to imagine The Thing From Another World not being shown.
When did you stop talking about 1982 audiences? And for what it’s worth the 1951 film was the top grossing Science Fiction film of the year, outgrossing When Worlds Collide and The Day the Earth Stood Still. In 1982, it was still on most people’s radar.
I’m a little amazed you’d think the statements “Most people who DID go to the movies in 1951 did not see the film” or “many if not most viewers in 1982 wouldn’t have been born in 1951, or would have been very young,” are dubious, because those are objectively true. The fact the movie wasn’t a huge box office sensation in 1951 is just a fact, as is the demographic fact that in 1982, the average American either was not born in 1951 or was a small child (the median age then was about 33.)
Again, it’s important to bear in mind here that the average penetration of a given type of entertainment is WAY lower than you think it is. People tend to greatly overestimate how many people are aware of the entertainment they are aware of - this is true of music, movies, TV, professional sports, you name it. “Titanic” was the most watched theatrical release movie of the last quarter century (I know Avatar made more money but I think only due to inflation) but according to the best sources I can find, it sold about 145 million tickets - which means, even if every single one of those tickets was sold to a different person, fewer than half the moviegoing public in the English speaking world saw the movie. And of course it sold many multiple tickets to the same people, as all popular movies do.
“The Thing From Another World” made $1.9 million at the box office (that was pretty good back then) which means it sold about 3.5 to 4 million tickets - pretty good, but a very small portion of the moviegoing public.
True, but again, the original claim was “science fiction fans,” not “the general public.” How many self-described sci-fi fans in the 1980s were aware of the James Arness film? I’d venture to say it was a significant portion.
I guess that explains why all of us under 90 are ignorant of The Wizard of Oz. The original film was on TV for decades before the 1982 film came out.
A movie I specifically called out as a rare exception. You can’t seriously think it’s comparable to “The Thing From Another World.” It’s like comparing “Star Wars” to “The Last Starfighter.”
And you underestimate the power of TV exposure when there were less than ten channels to choose from.
It is comparable, especially since The Wizard of Oz was traditionally only broadcast once a year. There were far more opportunities to see The Thing on TV, especially since almost every local channel had a showcase for Horror and SciFi films.
I was born in 1968. I think I probably saw The Thing From Another World on The Son of Svengoolie show on WFLD Fox 32 Chicago.
My dad took me to see Carpenter’s The Thing when I was 14. I was into Starlog and Fangoria magazines at the time, so I was aware of the history of where the story came from.
The very end is great. With MacReady and another guy sitting around a fire not knowing if the other is a ‘Thing’. They share a bottle of whiskey and just kinda watch each other.
They hoped they would both die and not infect the rest of civilization.
Or one is a Thing.
Or both.
Or what?
Ba-dum. Ba-dum.