Edge-of-your-seat chiller and one of the high points of the 50s sci-fi craze. A blood-drinking space alien crash lands in the North Pole and wreaks havoc at an American scientific research outpost. The military men and the scientists end up fighting over whether to destroy the alien or study it. In a lot of ways this is the opposite of The Day the Earth Stood Still from the same year. In that film, the alien is a thoughtful pacifist, the military are unfeeling aggressors, and scientists are on a pedestal. Here, the alien (James Arness buried under make-up) rampages like the Frankenstein Monster, the military are charming and funny heroes, and the scientists are cold fish with little regard for human life. Both films are great, though.
Howard Hawks produced and Christian Nyby, Hawks’s editor on several films, directs. However, Hawks supervised the production so closely that he’s often cited as an uncredited co-director. It certainly FEELS like a Howard Hawks film, with its focus on camaraderie among a group of characters (there are remarkably few close-up shots), women who can hang with the men but are still feminine, and overlapping dialogue.
Based somewhat loosely on the novella Who Goes There? by John W. Campbell Jr.