High Noon (1952)
8/10

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Fairly suspenseful Western with a good pace. It doesn't really need to be any more complicated, but it's a simple film, demonstrating how people are. Long noted as being an allegory to how Americans turned their backs on those being blacklisted during McCarthy Red Scare.

Cooper is quite good here (Second Oscar win) and enjoyed the brief but effective supporting turns by Otto Kruger and Lon Chaney Jr.

I think this was Lon's best acting performance by leaps and blasts.

It's funny, it took me awhile to realise who the stunning blond was.

True, Grace Kelly was dressed plainly (probably because her character is a Quaker) when she was usually Razzle Dazzle.

RETURN OF THE VAMPIRE (1944). Love Bela Lugosi and he's pretty good as the title creature, but story is pretty bland when he is offscreen (Sound familiar::roll eyes::?) and the Werewolf flunky has got to go! **1/2

I didn't even know this existed. Looks like a good rainy day movie.

I recently - or relatively recently - saw the original Body Snatchers from the 50's; excellent film, and actually one of the best movies ever made (the Nicole Kidman movie was a waste of time, and I don't care to properly watch the 70's version because of how surreal the realism is in the 50's version

The 50's Invasion of the Body Snatchers is excellent. The 70's version is not quite successful with the ending, but it's a worthwhile magic carpet ride.

The Thing from Another World (1951)
8/10

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A US Airforce taskforce is sent to a North Pole scientific outpost to investigate a UFO that has just impacted near by.

The film is aptly shot with an effective quick pace. There's a fair amount of scientific detail and reasoning, where the main scientist is willing to sacrifice anything to bring new knowledge to mankind. This is the main subplot of this sci-fi horror film. Character development is quite light, but as caricatures, they effective move the plot.

Love that movie. Maybe more then the remake, not sure. The Thing is a damn good movie as well.

Watching The Thing from Another World again impressed me with just how many ways the two films are similar; and even how Aliens87 is similar to Thing from Another World.

There's a scene in Another World where they are tracking the creature with their Giger counter, it's clicks speeding up -- just like the scene in Aliens where they're using their clicking-proximity-meter when the creatures get inside the perimeter. Then when the 'carrot-man' bursts into the room, and they light him up with flame... that scene and even the sounds he was making were very similar to those in The Thing82.

Comparing the two, with Carpenter reintroducing the alien's mimicking abilities of the original story, adding deep paranoia, this really amps up the tension to another level. Not only that, there's much more character development in Thing82, not to mention the superb effects. But Another World is it's own version of fun.