The skeleton crew at the South Pole Telescope station have a tradition every winter-over of watching this movie, and the other two adaptations on the very first night after the departure of the final plane of the season.
Originally, it was intended to make the creature a shapeshifter, as in the novel, but the limited budget forced the filmmakers to drop the idea. Early conceptual sketches depict a very plant-like looking creature, with one of its limbs seemingly undergoing a transformation into a human hand.
Close-ups of "The Thing" were removed. It was felt that the make-up could not hold up to close scrutiny. However, the lack of close-ups gave the creature a more mysterious quality.
Partly filmed in Glacier National Park, and at a Los Angeles ice storage plant. The latter was used to show the actors' breath condensing in the cold in interior shots; that was one special effect that Hollywood never successfully accomplished.
This film was based on the novella "Who Goes There?" by Don A. Stuart. The credits on this film list the author by his real name, the science fiction editor and writer John W. Campbell, Jr.