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...

THE PALMER TRANSFORMATION AND THE TWENTY FIVE MILLION DOLLAR FILM

                    I think it was Orson Welles who called a motion picture studio the worlds biggest erector set and John, in this environment for the first time, was determined to take advantage of  whatever Universal had to offer. From his office he could walk to one of the four sound stages housing the sets ( and not just ordinary sound stages but ones that were distinguished by their huge ducting and cooling units ), passing Albert Whitlocks studio along the way - walk to the projection room at lunchtime for dailies, perhaps stop by the editing suite before returning to rehearse or film. Rob's special effects facility, Heartland, was a ten minute drive away. The large scale tools were all there, but expensive to utilize...


                   The original idea in the Palmer transformation was for him to break free from the sofa and run full tilt while standing up the rec room wall to his left ( the far wall in the photo ), continue halfway across the ceiling and then drop down in front of Windows. A great unexpected idea, if it could be made to happen quickly...

                   Universal  happened to own a camera centrifuge, smaller than the one shown above, but operating in much the same way. It was large drum with the set built inside that could rotate 360 degrees with the camera platform locked down ( its use may be best seen in 2001 with the stewardess walking on the ceiling ). The original plan was to replicate the right half of the rec room set in the drum and have a stuntman in Palmer guise do a flat out run while rapidly moving the cylinder 180 degrees, leaving the camera crew upside down but the stuntman standing upright on the ceiling...


                    We loved this idea and were dedicated to its execution well after it became impractical ( it took a crew of  20 to operate and light the drum, plus the cost of the set, upside down hazard pay for the camera crew, ect. ), I think because it was a real movie moment, one you seldom get a chance to try...

                 With financial reality finally setting in, we met on the rec room set to map out a less expensive alternative, and what could be cheaper than a stuntman falling into frame and landing on a mattress covered with a thin layer of painted balsa wood? I proudly contributed the foot stomp that motivated Palmers leap to the ceiling, and a sequence was born...

                   We added  " the ceiling run " as we called it, to the long and growing list of ideas we would save for what we called  the Twenty Five Million Dollar version of  THE THING, a list that already included the first Bennings death on the ice and a complete incarnation of the Blair Monster...

"THE THING" PRODUCT REEL

                      In early 1982 we received word from Universal that there was mounting curiosity among film exhibitors about the mysterious goings on surrounding THE THING. There was a self-imposed embargo in place with photographs and information on the special effects, and very little else had leaked out. With no formidable star power to speak of, exhibitors were looking for some re-assurance that we were an "A" level production capable of attracting and keeping summer audiences in their seats. David Foster and I were asked to put together a show reel of film that would emphasize action, scale, and suspense.


                      The first time anyone outside of the production was to see any footage at all, this was to prove to be an expensive proposition. A separate editor ( Christopher Holmes ) was hired to work alongside the main unit using dupes and whatever else he could get his hands on. Of particular interest to fans and collectors is the use of a number of alternate takes, performance and otherwise, to put this together - there were also extended versions of some scenes that were currently being edited (  the opening gun play, for example ). True to our embargo very little special effects footage was used ( John, while not having an active hand in this process, still resisted the studios request to reveal more ), although we  did feature the Norris chest opening ( but not closing ) and the petri dish blood jumping. The reel, which ran around 20 minutes, ended with McReady's "Yeah, well fuck you too" and the dynamite throw, the screen exploding to reveal "THE THING" in white, with red background... this was professionally mixed, with music ( pre- Morricone ) tracked from Universals extensive library.

      The idea was for us to take this on the road, travelling salesman style - two composite 35mm prints were made, and in mid-march 1982  David headed to NewYork, Boston, Chicago and Atlanta, and I to Detroit, Philadelphia, Denver and Seattle. The setup was always the same - we would host a screening of the reel late morning at some local theatre, followed by catered lunch for everyone at the hotel. Surrounding us on easels were large color blowups of stills from the movie. Reaction by and large was favorable - not unsurprising since the reel leaned heavily on action,  flamethrowers, and fights, with many ( exclusively ) male, primarily middle-aged exhibitors going out of their way to praise the idea of an ( exclusively ) male, primarily middle - aged cast...


                  After my return I received a call from Robert Rehme, Universal's head of distribution. He told me the studio was really counting on THE THING to pull them through the summer. They had just had their first look at E.T. THE EXTRATERRESTRIAL and considered it, in his words "soft", a movie "aimed at children". They thought it would be up to us to appeal to the demographic they most coveted, teenagers on up. We took this pep talk in stride, having no idea what was in store for us the next few months...

  

ON THE JUNEAU ICEFIELD

From right to left : John, myself, Production Manager Robert Brown, Associate Producer Larry Franco
First location scout April, 1981