ALL SCI-FI

[Pow]

John Dierkes, six-foot & six-inches tall (1905~1975) who played Dr. Chapman was an agent of the U.S. Treasury Department. He was sent to be an advisor on a film in Hollywood, and ended up staying to pursue an acting career.

Ten actors & twenty-seven crew members were sent to Cut Bank, Montana to shoot the scene where the alien flying saucer is discovered encased in ice. The naturally occurring snow required for the scene kept getting blown away by high winds. It became necessary to film most of the saucer scenes again in the San Fernando, Valley.

Budget for the movie: $1,257,327.

Scenes for the film were edited. The scene where the Thing kills 2 scientists and a sled dog and then injures another scientist (Eduard Franz) in a green house was cut from the final print. The scene included seeing the 2 dead scientists hanging from rafters and the Thing drinking blood from the throat of one of the murdered scientists.

Censors and preview audiences rebelled at this gruesome scene.

Also excised was a scene where the Thing hurls a guard into the base's oil pipeline, which plugged up the system.

[Bud Brewster]

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Isn't it strange the way audience in the 1950s were deeply troubled by those graphic scenes, while modern audience frequently watch more more graphic violence . . . aren't overly bothered by it! ;?

I think Hollywood has desensitized us by presenting increasingly graphic scenes over the years, and our emotional "skin" has toughed up from the constant exposure to all that blood and guts!
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Pow]

If I was a conspiracy theory believer, it almost seems like it was a orchestrated plan by the government to make the public less and less affected by violence so that we'd have ample military recruits for our endless wars.

[Bud Brewster]

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An interesting idea, Pow.

Even if it isn't actually a deliberate plot by the government, I think the movie violence does indeed have that affect on the population.

We've also been desensitized to violence by disreputable police officers, fatal school shootings, and destructive rioters like the one on January 6th.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Andrew Kidd]

At Bud's request, I'm posting my own personal fan theory regarding the film, one that may help resolve nagging problems with certain, seemingly illogical character decisions: not only can The Thing read minds, but it can reach out to them, the way the one in the novella can. It was able to mentally "grab" not just Carrington but Barnes as well, specifically because they were sleep deprived. Carrington had a temporary moment of lucidity (not unlike John Emery's in Kronos) in which he was seemingly behaving out of character but was really briefly relived of alien influence; the alien was using him to help it reproduce on Earth and protect it from hostile actors. Barnes, meanwhile, only did something as foolish as putting an electric blanket on the frozen alien because he himself was also mentally commanded to do so; once he fulfilled his purpose he was allowed to sleep and control was broken.

[Bud Brewster]

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Thanks, Andrew!

Here's the reply to your post that I made on the Classic Horror Film Board.
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Andrew, that's brilliant! You've explained one of the scenes that has always bothered me — the idea that Barnes was foolish enough to put a warm electric blanket over the block of ice, and then not hear the sound of several hundred gallons of dripping water during the hours he was in the storage room.

And, as you said, Carrington was aware of the danger the alien posed, and he could have delayed his experiment with the seed pods until after the alien was captured or killed. But he was (as you proposed) driven to cultivate the alien offspring because of the telepathic influence the alien was having on him.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)