JUST FOR VARIETY
By ARMY ARCHARD
GOOD MORNING: The "Top Secret" word is out all over Universal on discussing THE THING, but they needn't bother. A visit to the set - when "the thing" wasn't in sight - got a universal response from all who've seen and worked with it: there's no way to describe it! Even Kurt Russell, who stars in John Carpenter's film for Turman-Foster, joined a prop crew of 17 working "the thing" in a scene attacking a Malamute dog. And Russell couldn't find words to describe it. By the way, the American Humane Association, on hand to assure safety for animals, is also sworn to secrecy. And the hacked-up hound we viewed was - stuffed . . . The $1,500,000 "thing" is the brain child of Rob Bottin, who predicts the film "will be the STAR WARS of the monster movies." He uses new techniques in which is takes on different forms. "It's more like a nightmare." The inspiration was by the trio of Bottin, director Carpenter and screenwriter Bill Lancaster. "People who read what it did in the script wondered how we could make it. I found the solution in - a nightmare!" . . . The 1982 THING is not a remake of the 1951 Howard Hawks pic directed by Chris Nyby. "I couldn't imitate it," says Carpenter. Hawks was Carpenter's favorite filmmaker and the pic his alltime choice . . . This version of the original 1938 John W. Campbell WHO GOES THERE? story will have no femmes in the cast. And for this $13,000,000 production, Carpenter says he may seek someone other than himself to music. Dimitri Tiomkin did the 1951 pic which also launched Jim Arness, you recall.
