CASTING MacCREADY

               As emblematic as Kurt Russell's performance as MacCready in THE THING has become, his was the last role cast. Early on there were  general discussions about whether we should stay true to the idea of keeping the movie a strictly ensemble piece or lean in the direction of an established star. I think Kurt was always in the back of John's mind but, having worked twice previously together at this stage in their careers both wanted to keep their options open. These general conversations necessarily involved the studio at this point and were only exploratory, with no commitment from either party implied. My notes from the time aren't complete, but they show that availability was checked on the following actors:

Christopher Walken

Jeff Bridges

Sam Shepard

Nick Nolte

Bridges, Nolte and Walken were unavailable or passed without comment very early on. There was the usual initial trouble with the perception that a movie called THE THING could be anything other than a "B" grade sci -fi thriller and it wasn't until actors and agents  actually read the script that they warmed to the idea.We were intrigued with Sam Shepard, whom we were told liked the script but things didn't progress very far and no meeting was held. My notes don't reflect it, but I also seem to remember some early interest in Kris Kristofferson...

John Heard

Ed Harris

Brian Dennehy

Tom Berenger

Jack Thompson

Scott Glenn

Fred Ward

Peter Coyote

Tom Atkins

Tim McIntyre

          These actors met with or read for us for the role of MacCready. John would begin each session with a stern warning about the physical nature of the film and the rigors of working in the cold. Tom Atkins read and was an early favorite of John's when we were thinking solely in terms of  "the group". Others, like Scott Glenn and Ed Harris, met but passed soon thereafter. Both Peter Coyote and Tim McIntyre were openly lukewarm about appearing in a monster movie. Brian Dennehy was initially considered but became for a long while the first choice for Copper (switching like this was not unusual. Richard Masur came in originally for the role of Bennings, but expressed interest in Clark, for example).


               Australian actor Jack Thompson, then currently starring in BREAKER MORANT was a surprisingly strong late contender for MacCready. The film was shown to the studio and he was flown in to read for John in his office, but in the end what seemed to be the best fit and make the most sense was staying with Kurt, a decision no one has regretted since...
  

              John made the decision to cast Kurt on the day we left to film the initial ice field sequences above Juneau in early June, 1981. There he also shot the footage of Mac flying to the Norwegian Camp and the flying saucer ( the helicopter pilot filling in ), an occasion as I think he has pointed out where he filmed the costume before he filmed the actor... 




  



   

THE MEN AND THEIR ENVIRONMENT

  

                    When John was asked recently what the men at Outpost 31 did in their jobs he replied  "I don't know" and this is literally the truth. Running away as fast as we could from the usual stereotype of Dedicated Scientists Engaged in Something Bigger than Themselves, it was essential that our group be bored with their garden variety activities and, more importantly, bored and on edge with each other, a process accelerated by the creature's arrival and it's subsequent manipulations ( This as opposed to the usual dynamic of putting aside one's differences and banding together to fight and destroy a common enemy ). More caretakers really than scientists, keeping the men in the same wardrobe throughout the film serves as a physical reminder of that boredom, and also helps to re-enforce the glacial passage of time.

               "... I suggested putting ceilings on all the sets and bringing the pipes into the frame line to heighten the claustrophobia... I suggested using practical lighting to make it look realistic, so we lit whole scenes with just the flares the actors carried... We ended up using color selectively, with " The Thing " it's most colorful object..." Dean Cundey, Starlog magazine, November, 1982

            The anomaly of an all male ( and indeed, mostly middle aged male ) cast was surprisingly not much of an issue at the time. Once we had decided with Bill Lancaster to stay true to the intent of the original novella we were never asked to re-consider ( John was prepared to use THE WILD BUNCH as an example should the issue come up, and I thought about using THE GREAT ESCAPE ). I think now that probably the biggest factor in our favor was that everyone from the studio on down recognized at the outset that Bill's script worked , the characters and their interaction worked, and why mess with something that good ?

                After Bill came back from the Los Angeles Public Library from doing some basic research on Antarctica he asked us a  question:  how accurate do we want to be in our portrayal of Outpost 31 as a functioning research station?  We decided early on  to go to great lengths to protect the large elements that were essential to the telling of this story - the cold ( sets were originally planned to be built inside abandoned ice houses in the Los Angeles area ) and the sense of isolation leading to paranoia - and if we didn't get some of the details right, well... It's no secret flamethrowers, gun racks in hallways, dynamite in storage rooms, and a commander wandering around with a gun on his hip aren't exactly standard operating procedure, but it is pleasing to see that the film is prized now by those who inhabit the Antarctic research community, and is screened yearly at McMurdo on Winter Solstice ( great reading can be had at http://www.bigdeadplace.com/the_thing.html, a special section devoted to the film from people who ought to know... ).


          One additional note : when John went down to the sound stage to look at the finished Outpost 31 interior several day before filming was to begin it was painted a lighter, almost antiseptic hospital green. He immediately ordered it completely repainted with the cooler grey-blue color you see now - a small change making a big cumulative difference...

THE NORWEGIAN CAMP AND THE POWER OF IMPRESSION

      

                           When I first saw THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD on television in my living room on a hot summer afternoon in the late 1950's, the 16mm print was greyed out, bright sunlight filled the room and I could see no detail  in anything, particularly the creatures face. I realised later this lack of information allowed me to form in my mind my own idea of what THE THING looked like ( a horrible sort of grinning skeleton informed by tons of EC comic books ) which, together with Dimitri Tiompkin' pulse pounding music was enough to send me out of the room, terrified... 

                    With a nod toward Halloween the Norwegian camp as a storytelling device for us was the functional equivalent of a haunted house, a chance to give the audience the impression that the worst kind of hell had broken loose without offering much in the way of specific incident - and have their imagination take it from there...

                 The interior portion occupied the first four the days of production ( to ease the company into shooting mode, with only two principal characters to contend with ) on refrigerated sets in the middle of a white hot San Fernando Valley summer. As filming proceeded John, in characteristic fashion, worked to strip the scene down to its essentials -  a continuing exercise in the elimination of  detail...

                   Bill Lancaster's early drafts had something more of a "spook alley" feel to them, involving incidents with a severed arm caught in a doorway (not filmed) and a partial body hanging upside down in a cabinet ( filmed, thought redundant and not used, although you hear Copper refer to it ). Additionally, Copper was to have found an audio cassette recorder and listen to a small snippet of what would have been the audiences first encounter with the creature ( this was re-written to be included in the videotape review scene, but was ultimately not shot ).

                    After all this was stripped away, what is left to register specifically are three images - the frozen man, the ice block, and the final grotesque discovery outside. We had planned to punctuate the scene with radio static here and there but dropped even that after hearing Morricone's music. The result is a meld of stillness, light, and sound ( knitted together by an ever - present, very even wind ) that is as sensual as it is eerie...

               " Here's the thing: at that particular time I had unleashed this terrible thing about horror movies with HALLOWEEN. All those imitations came out and threw every possible cliche' up onto the screen - the body in the closet, the thing behind the door, all of that stuff. I suppose I was just trying to get away from all that and make this film better " - John Carpenter, Creative Screenwriting magazine

The frozen man was modelled after veteran mold maker ( and member of Rob Bottin's crew ) GUNNAR FERDINASEN, a Norweigan...

                   The Camp exterior was originally going to be built a quarter mile away from Outpost 31 ( down the hill and to the left of the main set ) requiring a separate road. John, who hated cold, snow, and travel declared that if he was going to be forced to take a snow cat up the mountain for two hours just to get to the location he'd be damned if he take another snow cat down the mountain to get to the Camp...bearing that in mind we figured out a way to shoot the back of the Outpost 31 set a couple of days after we blew it up, and saved $250.000 dollars in the process (most of which went to Rob Bottin).

The remains of the Outpost 31 set shot two days after "the Big Blow"...

  

THE MAN IN THE SUIT : ARNESS UNMASKED

A rehearsal for the climatic scene in THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD. I haven't seen them before - courtesy of Life Photos...

A PIECE OF FILM YOU WILL PROBABLY NEVER SEE

                  ... and with good reason. The script originally called for the Norwegian helicopter to veer out of control, crash and explode with the lone survivor (the pilot) emerging to follow the dog into camp. We couldn't responsibly figure out a way to do this practically so very early on in pre-production it was decided to try to do the crash with MINIATURES. A scale snow scape set was designed by John Lloyd and constructed on stilts on the back lot, designed to work with a very expensive remote control helicopter flown by our mechanical effects coordinator, Roy Arbogast.

                 The very first film shot on THE THING, John, although skeptical, directed an all -star crew that included Dean Cundey, Albert Whitlock and Bill Taylor. Despite everybody's valiant efforts the result looked like something out of TEAM AMERICA : WORLD POLICE...


               We looked at other alternatives. Several pilots connected with the production in Stewart offered to crash a helicopter for real - an offer not accepted because of the dangers involved. We gave five seconds consideration to the idea of having the helicopter simply disappear below the glacier and play the explosion off camera before we burst out laughing - the idea was a cliche', an audience cheat... The script was finally re-written to accommodate the action you now see, below  - the burning chopper is a shell dragged up the mountain in Stewart and set on fire...

Norbert Weisser as the Norweigan pilot

THE THREE BENNINGS DEATHS

                 I have been repeatedly struck by the ease in which the word assimilation has found its way into casual conversation and broader popular culture today ( THE THING "ASSIMILATION" MAZE at Universal Studios). Now accepted vernacular and taken for granted, when discussing this movie  the debate has moved on to the when, the where, and the why, but in 1981 one of the biggest storytelling problems John faced was how to effectively communicate the idea of assimilation in terms clear enough an audience would understand and accept. With this as preface, we turn to the variety of ways we dreamed up to kill off our friend Bennings... 



          

        OUT ON THE ICE

             

  



                Originally a set piece of Bill Lancaster's first two drafts, this terrific scene had McCready, Childs, and Bennings giving chase to infected dogs ( in this draft Blair didn't kill them all ). Bennings at one point was to be pulled under the ice by the creature, quickly bobbing up in different areas in progressive states of assimilation. Action was also to include one of the dogs leaping at Mcready while changing in mid-air.  Original plans called for a large exterior ice scape set to be built on stilts on one of  Universal's largest sound stages, running half  its length and continuing up the wall, creating a cul-de-sac.


                  The only exterior that would have been shot indoors the scene, although written for day, was switched to night to make it both more dramatic and easier to shoot. It was to be lit by the headlights on the snow cats, catching nightmarish glimpses of what we needed to see ( and in the process hiding what we had to ). In full operational mode, the set would have featured an army of effects people working both above and below, wind machines, snow cats, real and fake dogs, flamethrowers, explosives, a ton of goo and rubber, sophisticated hydraulics ( at one point I remember a tentacle was to grab a snow cat and fling it into the night) all done in an environment cooled to 40 degrees for good measure.


                   Although we made some attempt to simplify the scenes workings, it became clear as we prepared the rest of the film that it was increasingly unaffordable, with a cost estimate of close to two million dollars and a month to set up and shoot  ( a small movie in itself ).  






       IN THE KENNEL

 

                                                                       

                 Conceived as a relatively simple way to dispose of a major character without involving any effects work ( Rob was well underway by this time on the other sequences, and did not have the time and money to take it on ) this second attempt was written by Bill Lancaster as a straight "Halloween " style  murder scene. It involved just two people, with Bennings being stabbed in the back with an icepick by an unseen assailant  ( intended to be Blair, whom you were to never see ). As you might imagine it was filmed very effectively by John, but when it came time to look at a first rough cut of the movie it felt aberrant, out of place, almost as if it belonged in a different film. But there was a bigger problem looming...




               " I don't think they (the studio) quite got the uniqueness of the imitation aspect." John Carpenter - Creative Screenwriting magazine





                     John's first look at a rough cut occurred during a five week hiatus the company took between the conclusion of principal photography on stage and the resumption of work in Stewart. Although some of the film played well, an early overriding concern was the need to effectively dramatize the nature of assimilation and it's consequences. With three already designed to be off - camera ( Blair, Palmer, and Norris ), the audience had only the Kennel to see the act in progress and that involved dogs, not humans. We had plenty of transitions back out once the creature was discovered, but was the essential defense the creature employs to disguise itself explained clearly enough? Time to go on the record. It was decided  to go back to the drawing board to come up with a scene that would unambiguously show Bennings in the process of being assimilated....   

        

                                                                                                                             

     

                   ... but how to accomplish this ? We had completed interior filming in Los Angeles and there was no more Outpost 31. Rob and his crew were behind schedule with the effects on his plate and couldn't afford to be involved in any way - whatever John came up with would have to be shot on location in Stewart and added to the busy schedule there, with very little preparation...

                The resulting scene, written by John between the end of filming in Los Angeles and the beginning of location work in Stewart, accomplishes its goal in very simple ways. A new storeroom set and partial corridor were constructed on location inside the Outpost 31 exterior, the only interior scene shot there ( one small portion of the set was used to film the tie -in  where Jed sees the helicopter land ). Robs' shop sent up some miscellaneous rubber tentacles, orange dye and KY jelly as well as the same pair of slip on gloves stunt coordinator Dick Warlock wore in his "flight" to the ceiling as Palmer... 


    

                    A testament to his storytelling skills, John makes full use out of very little and fashions a sequence, from the foreground blanket raise to Bennings strange wobble and tortured final scream that efficiently and without elaboration does what it needs to - make the physical connection between man and monster.

Peter Maloney wearing the same pair of slip - on  gloves that stunt coordinator Dick Warlock wore as Palmer in his "flight" to the ceiling...

                 And just to make sure the audience understands what has just happened and the stakes involved MacCready in the very next scene tells Garry " that was one of those things out there, trying to imitate him"...


               This short scene, also written by John, was filmed at Heartland the same day the alternate McMurdo ending with Kurt was done. Its purpose was to hammer home verbally the idea of assimilation to the audience. No subtlety or shaded references here, just lay it on the line and mission accomplished  (for now, but we'll return to this theme later ).

                An additional note - those that picked up the fact that Windows dropped the keys off - camera as he runs to get MacCready are correct, and we did lift the sound of them hitting the floor in post production for emphasis...

                                                                                                                

                       

                          

                                                                  

THE ENDING YOU ALMOST SAW




There were three endings shot and / or edited for THE THING. They are: 
   


           
   

       (1) The ending as it now exists, little changed from Bill Lancaster's first draft...   

  
        (2) McCready awaiting a final blood test at McMurdo Station.
                    This was actually one long shot filmed at Rob's special effects facility, Heartland, on a day sometime after principal photography when Kurt was available ( we also did two additional scenes with him that day, but that's another story ). I was there when John filmed it, and what I remember was a very deliberate camera dolly down a deserted industrial hallway, slowing panning left and eventually coming to a stop at an open doorway to reveal McCready alive, alone, and shivering seated on a gurney at the far end of the room. I think he was dressed as he was in the final scene, with the same blanket wrapped around his shoulders. No Childs, and no other actors or extras.


                  My impression at the time is that this was an honest but half-hearted attempt to provide closure ( and clarity ) for those who were clamoring for it (see below ), and John was never serious about using it. For one thing, the corridor used at Heartland had a sort of harsh tech whiteness to it - we didn't bother to paint it, and after spending the entire film carefully crafting the use of color this didn't look like the sort of image John would want to end on... Never tested or screened, I last saw this piece of film sitting off by itself at the end of an editing room bench... 
   




                                                                                            

  

  

                                                                      

           (3) Childs disappearing forever into the snowy night, leaving McCready alone.
                 John has alluded to this version on his DVD commentary, but I don't think its generally known that this ending was approved  and was going to be the way you would have seen THE THING in its initial theatrical release, and perhaps beyond. Here's how it happened...    

  


     

                The first preview of THE THING was held on a Friday night in late May 1982 at the Red Rock theatre in Las Vegas, Nevada with CONAN THE BARBARIAN ( I wonder if the prequel was previewed with the remake of CONAN - the more things change, the more they stay the same...). The day began promisingly enough - we received word that we had received an "R" rating, which meant no recutting ( we were worried about an X ). I flew up early with the tech crews to check both sound and picture. My seatmate was Rob Bottin, who was in the process of decompressing and wanted to see how the movie played with an audience for the first time. Arriving at the theatre, I was dismayed to see  that the arc-driven projectors were producing way to dim an image - potentially disasterous, since the studio executives would also be arriving by private jet for their first look at the film - we were able to get a barely acceptable picture only by removing the glass ports separating the projectors from the auditorium, at the expense of hearing their racket throughout the screening.

              There had been some advertising in the local papers and on radio, but come showtime at 8:00 P.M. the theatre was not filled, a very bad sign for a Friday night As the film began John took a seat on the aisle in the back and was handed a box with the master volume control for the theatre ( a little like handing a match to a pyromaniac ). Modest applause for John's name and the title, and then... silence. The first notable rise was on the insert of the needle in arm - John serving early notice that this movie was not to be trusted. The kennel sequence received loud, sustained applause, the most we were to receive that night - I looked over at Rob and caught him smiling... then followed a large crack! which made the crowd jump and sounded like a rifle shot but was actually Blair breaking off a piece of the creature - I looked over at John who was laughing, having goosed the sound ( he was particularly good at getting the audience to jump by raising the " sting " when the hallway shadow passes Fuchs  - this is probably about the only fun you can have at a preview ). It was during Blair's autopsy that the cumulative effect of what Kurt Russell described as the "ick" factor began to show itself as there were a number of walkouts - this would be repeated at the preview the next night in Denver. The audience quieted down after that, and slipped into an uneasy silence for the rest of the movie, broken only by applause ( and some nervous laughter) at the conclusion of the major effects sequences ( Rob was a very happy camper that night ). Light scattered applause at the end, with nearly everybody up and out of their seats while the credits were rolling. In the lobby afterward, it was clear that something about this film made the audience deeply uncomfortable, not what Universal, currently basking in the glow of E.T.s bright light, was expecting.

                  We convened in a small conference room in the bowels of Caesar's Palace hotel after the screening for the post - mortem. There were a few cards marked "excellent", a larger number good or very good, but the majority fell into the average or "fair" category. Although there was almost unanimous praise for the effects, many were offended  by the amount of violence and gore perceived  to be inherent in their execution ( a number of people spoke of  the Norris transformation as a slow-motion human decapitation ). John was asked politely whether he would consider editing these scenes. He responded just as politely that the effects had to be that strong in order for the movie to work - and that was the last we heard from the studio on that particular topic.

                    But the largest block of criticism was reserved for the ambiguity inherent in the film, which seemed to have taken a mounting toll on people and deposited itself squarely on the doorstep of the final scene. Many were confused, and seemed really angry at their confusion, which took us all aback. Did the two men prevail over the monster or did they not ? Was it really dead ? Who was who ? What about this Mexican stand-off ? Were we deliberately keeping things open ended because we were planning a sequel ? Or, to put more succinctly by a frustrated studio executive,  does anybody in this movie win ? Well no, actually, but this would have been the wrong debate at the wrong time so a promise was made to continue working to see if we could find a way to provide a more affirmative, satisfactory conclusion to the film. We continued on to Denver the next night with essentially the same results, although at least the theatre was full...

    


                    At the studio on Monday amid a steady trickle of downbeat news ( it was clear Universal was disappointed in the preview results ) the ending was scrutinised again. A version was tried that eliminated most of the early part of the scene ( Childs' evasive answers to McCready's questions ), in an attempt to make him seem less suspicious. Alternate takes were parsed for more affirmative line readings - with John's permission, Universal's Verna Fields headed to the editing room to give it a try at the behest of the studio ( this is not as odorous as it sounds. Verna was the editor on AMERICAN GRAFFITI and JAWS, and her opinion was respected by all ). These were all attempts to provide clarity and resolution to a scene that really wasn't supposed to have any, so the idea came to create what is in essence a new scene - eliminate the final confrontation entirely by having Childs disappear completely, leaving McCready alone to ponder his fate.

                This ending was tested on the Universal lot that Friday night to a recruited audience - Two small screening rooms were used, one showing the film with the ending intact and the other the new version. This screening was all about the ending - everything else had been fought through and decided. The lab had to begin making prints on Tuesday to make the release date, so time was short. Only two questions were on the cards : (1) do you like / dislike the ending ? (2) Do you like / dislike this film? Gathering in John's office afterward were Universal Motion Picture President Ned Tanen, our production executive Helena Hacker, David Foster, John, myself, and the editor, Todd Ramsay. The cards indicated a slight preference, by three or four percent, for the new ending, enough of an edge it seemed at the time to convince a studio very eager for an uptick in positive news to want to try it, so we all reluctantly signed off on this decision...


                  In trying to convey an accurate sense of the environment we were in I realise now that there was a movie being made at the same time a half - mile to our East with ending problems of its own, and for some of the same reasons - BLADE RUNNER. Ridley Scott felt pressured  to end his film on an artificially optimistic note, which marred its initial release. In any case, as the meeting broke up that night it had been decided to release THE THING with this ending.

                    Over the weekend, none of us could sleep - the ending was flat, a betrayal of everything the movie stood for. On Monday morning I spoke to Helena Hacker, our Universal executive (and friend of the film ) who was having the same feelings herself. She promptly set up a meeting with Ned Tanen, and we arranged for John to be available by phone from North Carolina (he was there beginning to prepare what was to be his next film for the studio, FIRESTARTER ) In Ned's office late that morning we made the case that there wasn't that much difference in the preview numbers and that we felt strongly that we would rather leave the audience with a question than with nothing at all. After taking a moment to confer with John and grumbling that it was probably best way out of a ditch with two bad options, he gave his approval to restore the original ending, some 10 hours before release printing was to begin. As a last request, we added the scream heard over the exterior of the final camp explosion to resolve the monsters death for those "who choose to believe it" as Tannen put it.

                    I think now that if  THE THING had been released with the new ending several things would have happened. First,  it probably have made almost no difference in box-office revenue. Second, within a year or two with the films release on cable and tape there would have been rumors of the famous unused ending, and a groundswell would develop to restore things as they were, a la BLADE RUNNER if  the film could be found..

                    Well, enough boilerplate. Most of you want to know who was who in the final scene. Unsurprisingly, there is no definitive answer but I can tell you what Bill Lancaster thought when he wrote it - he believed both men were human. He felt this was the most poetic way to end things -  two individuals moved beyond exhaustion, framed in a tableau of fire and ice, having a last drink in the Antartica night before freezing to death. I subscribe to this view. I can not, however with 100% certainty tell you that John agrees with this - what I can say is that given the fact this scene still bears the remnants of this massive re-working with many hands it is counterintuitive for me to think that there exists a hidden level of meaning that offers clues to identity (The J&B bottle being passed back and forth, Childs lack of breath in several cuts, ect. ). Believe me, all we were trying to do was keep the scene in the movie...