what if the alien could assimilate people in this version?

Like in the original book, but Howard Hawks hated the assimilation and paranoia, finding it boring and confusing. Imagine if he understood the concept and tried pulling it off in the 1950's. That would've been absolutely revolutionary. Kinda like The Quatermass Xperiment, i'd imagine.

This is a great movie for its time period but the monster, instead of being incredibly unique, is just some Frankenstein-looking humanoid that looks like a random dude in light makeup. As a kid I never believed it was an otherworldly alien creature; very little effort is made into making the creature appear otherworldly at all. It would've been awesome if they at least tried to capture the shapeshifting alien from the original book in the 1950's.