by Sam Juliano
One of the crowning glories of 50’s science-fiction, Don Siegel’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers, based on a short story by Jack Finney, still enthralls both genre buffs and those riveted by the notion of the fantastic seeming perfectly credible. The story of seed pods replicating living people and changing them into emotion-less conformists who communally work towards a world order without love or compassion, offers no obstacles to believability, and leads to the most unthinkable of nightmares. Allied Artists were themselves so caught up in the hopelessness of this “psychological siege” that they forced Siegel to add a prologue which intimated that mankind would be saved.
The film was re-made in 1977, with Phillip Kaufman at the helm, but it lacked the original’s brilliant pacing, which has the excitement building all the way to the denouement. Siegel employs a number of devices that keep the film in full-throttle, like characters always in motion, racing their cars, and spying each other through windows, blind and glass doors and reaching a level of unbearable tension in the scenes in the cave where the two lead characters hide beneath the wooden boards, after being chased up the steps of a long and very steep hill. Siegel employs subtlety to great effect too, like the scene when the fleeing couple attempt to feign transformation to the soulless beings that are taking over the small town, only to be betrayed by one’s scream as a dog is about to be struck by a car. The race against time and in the instance of this film, the struggle to stay awake, is woven into the fabric of it’s sense of urgency. No less an authority than Jean-Luc Godard quotes the film in his futuristic Alphaville, and Francois Truffaut makes reference to it in Fahrenheit 451. It is even suggested by UCLA Film Professor Maurice Yacowar (whose running commentary on the Criterion laserdisc in the early 90’s was one of the famous and controversial ever recorded) that maybe even the great playwright Eugene Ionesco was thinking of the film’s fearful “pods” when he wrote his absurdist masterpiece Rhinoceros, where humankind turns into thick-skinned, insensitive, conformist rhinos–pods on the hoof.
The idea of dehumanization being a far more horrifying fate than death or destruction is argued by Carlos Clarens in An Illustrated History of the Horror Film (Capricorn, 1968):
“The ultimate horror in science fiction is neither death nor destruction but dehumanization, a state in which emotional life is suspended, in which the individual is deprived of individual feelings, free will, and moral judgement…….Nowadays man can become the machine himself. The automatoned slaves of modern times look perfectly efficient in their new painless state..From this aspect, they are like the zombies of old–only we never bothered to wonder if zombies were happy in their trance. Zombies, like vampires, seemed so incontrovertibly different; the human counterfeits of ….’Invasion of the Body Snatchers’ are those we love, our family and our friends. The zombies are now among us and we cannot tell them and the girl apart any longer.”
In a number of interviews Siegel insisted that the film was intended to be an entertainment, and that it’s message was relatively tepid, intimating that people were becoming ‘pod-like.’ But as Professor Yacowar exhaustively argued in his LD commentary, the film has long been the topic of critical debate for its underlying political implications. The Joseph McCarthy witch hunt is at the center of the allegorical context, but the cold war certainly gave flight to the film being fervently anti-communist, with it’s ‘communal’ suppression of all sensibilities and beliefs that might advance the concept of individuality. Hence, the ‘pod people’ represent a completely regimented society. The idea of these pods growing by first planting seeds is one that is associated with revolution. There is actually a scene late in the film when the pod people are assembled in the town square, where a loudspeaker reads off the day’s orders–it is a powerful symbol of 50’s socialism. The simile that without freedom of thought people are essentially “vegetables” is suggested again by the growth of the pods.
In the film, after the pods begin to take over the bodies of a number of people in the town of Santa Mira, including a number of children, the fear displayed is real, and not paranoia. I remember myself being raised in a school that was staunchly anti-communist. We were taught that communists had no feelings about life or death, and that they didn’t grieve when people died, a most frightening “revelation” at that impressionable time. The entire concept of communist ‘satellites’ which were established after aggressive military interventions, is chillingly conveyed in the scenes where trucks are lined up to bring the malignant pods to bordering towns and cities in southern California, with world domination envisioned by its budding population.
Of course, the position that the film is an allegory on McCarthyism is giving conviction in the warning that “if we’re not careful, oppressive forces in our society will force us into submission and conformity.” There are obvious overlaps in either interpretation, and it surely wouldn’t be all that unreasonable to believe that the film’s themes may have embraced both positions.
A sub-genre in fifties science-fiction is the “alien takeover” category, of which Invasion of the Body Snatchers, released in 1956, is the best. In Invaders from Mars (1953), It Came From Outer Space (1953) I Married A Monster from Outer Space (1958) and The Attack of the Crab Monsters (1957) the takeovers didn’t have the kind of worldwide ramifications as Body Snatchers either because their fantasy was too far-fetched to believe (who for example would truly fear tentacled creatures with glass bubbles in underground spaceships camouflaged with quick sand or the preposterous idea that a crustacean monster absorbs the minds of its victims, and uses their voices and mental powers to lure other victims?) or their premise was bordering on the ludicrous. Of all the science-fiction titles with this similar central idea, perhaps Invaders from Mars is the most similar one, as, like Body Snatchers,
it contains the ‘realization’ that your own parents have been replaced. But the film’s extravagant set design mitigated the realism of Body Snatchers, which was reliant on the seemingly ordinary domestic events of life in a small town.
The Doctor Miles Bennell, the film’s erstwhile hero, played with an engaging common man and athletic verisimilitude by Kevin McCarthy (whose intermittent narration, delivered with small town twang is most effective) becomes the alienated loner in this conformist society. hence wherever people suppress their emotions and their character differences, you have the kind of ‘pod’ society that threatens here.
The fear is so acute and the ramifications so terrifying that the film’s bookends, illustrating governmental intervention seems like a wise decision by the studio, as the inference of a world takeover would have been a very disorienting and corruptive contention, back in the paranoia-infested years when the film was released, as well as the present, where the film’s believability would leave some deeply disturbed. Still, when the film’s ‘psychiatrist’ hears Miles’s story (which is actually the entire running time of the film) he is laughable when he intones to a group of orderlies and policeman “Alert All Cars, Call All Government Agencies.” What shrink commands those kind of powers?
As Becky Driscoll, Dana Wynter is a perfect companion and co-fugitive of Miles, and her cave transformation scene, when her face is first seen reflected in a puddle, is fear incarnate. Of the rest, the two friends Jack and Theodora, played by King Donovan and Carolyn Jones, are excellent, especially in comparing the before and after. The director Sam Peckinpah plays a bit part as a gas station attendant in the film for trivia buffs.
Ellsworth’s Fredericks’s black and white cinematography seems unremarkable, yet it’s precisely this intended texture of small-town, uneventful existence that is given flight here, and Fredericks is adept at using lighting, shadows and reflections to great effect. Carmen Dragon’s music is most effective in the big chase sequence near the end, but is effectively employed throughout in a minimalist chord.
Over 50 years after it made it’s mark as a B drive-in movie, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, has outdistanced it’s re-make as a film that brings time and place to the forefront with an incomparably chilling message. It’s one of the great 50’s films in any genre.
Well, you finally gave this great film some attention! I grew up with this and have probably seen it more times than any other film. The re-make doesn’t measure of, and in good measure for thye reasons you smartly bring up, especially that pitch perfect pacing. Kevin McCarthy has never been better and all the communist implications make it fascinating on a number of levels. I think it’s the most formidable science-fiction film. The scene in the cave, as you say, is horrifying.
Outstanding work Sam. I have always admired this film, and found it to be a classic genre piece. It’s many levels of meaning were most convincingly presented here. I never forget that warning: “You’re next!”
………..awesome review of a science-fiction classic, maybe the best of it’s kind……….
At a time where horror films exposed the menace early in the procedings and usually with a complete lack of subtlety, “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” proved different. This story unravels at a leisurely pace, and the viewer is prone to ambivalence: Is there a real terror, or is it really a “mass neurosis” as the town’s psychiatrist suggests? First you see it, then you don’t. You’re not sure until the greenhouse scene, midway through the film. The conspiracy of the townfolk, the open acceptance of the alien life form, and the inability of Dr. Bennell and Becky to escape their destiny make for a truly terrifying film. I have a suspicion that the story was so powerful and the acting so believable that the producers felt it necessary to add the prologue and epilogue to leave the viewers with a sense of hope. Kudos to Mr. McCarthy for his believable portrayal of the small town doctor. Watch as his character’s outlook evolves from disbelief to skepticism to amazement and, finally, to stone cold terror. His performance can only be described as brilliant. Who could ever forget the look in McCarthy’s eyes when Dr. Bennell discovers that Becky (played by the exquisitely beautiful Dana Wynter) has become one of “them,” a creature now bent on Bennell’s destruction? The acting of the entire ensemble is flawless. Don Siegel’s superb direction, Carmen Dragon’s wonderfully haunting score, the list goes on and on. It’s one of my absolute favorites.
Of course Sam did explain in his review why Allied Artists added the prologue and epilogue to the film, and it’s understandable.
Excellent treatment.
Invasion of the Body Snatchers is one of my all time favorite Horror, Sci-Fi pictures of all time and one of the best of the genre from the 50s. I just love the concept of the movie and everything here works to near perfection. While not as scary or suspenseful today as it once was, Invasion of the Body Snatchers actually holds up rather well and while dated in spots again holds up rather well overall.
The screenplay by Daniel Mainwarning is rock solid with a great bunch of characters; I really liked all the characters and the two leads were excellent. The script has some good light moments and delivers with the chills.
I LIKE THE REMAKE BETTER!
IT’S MORE GRAPHIC!
What marvelous comments by all of you, and I especially want to thank Bill Riley for his comprehensive appraisal, which I wholeheartedly endorse, Frederick’s ultra-enthusiastic assessment, and Bobby’s lifelong affinity for the film, which I can testify to first-hand.
Similarly, thanks Bill H. and Frank A. for your appreciated support!
The most chilling 1950s science-fiction film of them all, and honestly a truly great film with more layering to it than, say, many of the Best Picture winners of its time (or ours, I might add). You, as always, cover all the bases here, Sam. I agree that the other sci-fi films lack the verisimilitude and eerie, psychologically complex plausibility of this picture. Likewise, Siegel’s command of mise-en-scene here enlivens every moment, artfully communicating the film’s festering horror. Gosh, I need to re-watch this one yet again. Thanks again, Sam.
Absolutely Alexander! The ‘psychological complexity’ of the film is of course it’s substance and lure. It’s what (indeed) sets this one apart.
“Likewise, Siegel’s command of mise-en-scene here enlivens every moment, artfully communicating the film’s festering horror.”
Beautifully stated! Thanks very much for this superlative response.
Allan, what a shock and a pleasant surprise to find that you rate this movie so highly in what must be the most lengthy and detailed review in this series yet. This is my favorite sci-film of all time and one of my personal top-10 favorites. I remember when it was shown on TV on a Sat. afternoon when I was in grade school, only a few years after it was released. It was all the kids at school could talk about on Monday!
I can’t really add much to your review, since you covered just about everything so thoroughly. Did you know that the gasman is Sam Peckinpah? My favorite line in the movie: when the parents put a pod in the baby’s crib and intone affectlessly, “No more pain.” As I recall, this scene is witnessed by Miles and/or Becky through a window. My favorite scene: when they stab their slimy pod doubles in the greenhouse with a pitch fork.
What a movie, and what a review!
R.D. Allan did not review this film. I did (check above. LOL!!) Simultaneous to Allan’s 50’s countdowm, I am adding my own two cents to certain featured films. I will be write a lengthy review of my #1 film of the 50’s Mizoguchi’s SANSHO THE BAILIFF in the upcoming days as well, and THE RED BALLOON is on tap too.
Indeed on Sam Peckinpah. I actually mentioned it in my third to last paragraph. Your enthusiasm and acute remembrance of this film is thrilling. I grew up with it and have seen it countless times, beginning on television. I see you have your own television indoctrination to it as well….Thanks for teh great response!
R.D., you do realise that Sam Juliano is not a nom de plume and actually the better half of the WitD staff. You can tell I didn’t write it for two reasons; one, it’s lengthy and two, it’s well written.
My pieces have my name on them, and generally a number after them in the countdown. Invasion didn’t quite make my top 50, though I do love the film dearly.
Sam, my sincere apologies. For some reason I got the impression that it was in the top 50 of the 50’s series. (Maybe that’s why I was so surprised to see the review.) I guess I got so excited at the review that I didn’t read the title and author closely enough before commenting. (And I should have read it closer before making that comment about Peckinpah, since most enthusiasts know this! How embarrassing. But again I plead guilty to over-enthusiasm.) But everything I said about the writing holds true nevertheless. Sam, you wrote a great piece on a wonderful movie. And I look forward to reading more of your excellent posts. Also, I suppose you could look at it this way: Allan is such a good writer that it is not exactly a put-down to be mistaken for him. To have TWO such outstanding writers at one blogsite (and your occasional contributors are pretty impressive too) is almost miraculous.
Thanks for the glowing compliment, but your legacy Allan, speaks for itself at this site.
Being prolific is more than half the battle, methinks.
Thanks very much R.D. No apology needed, both Allan and I are grateful to have you at this site. And your knowledge of every facet of cinema is simply extraordinary.
WitD readers are urged to go over to THE MOVIE PROJECTOR to see superlative writing wedded to brilliant film criticism. It’s essential stuff.
A fantastic review of one of the all-time classic sci-fi films that was not unseated by the later remake. You really got to the bottom of this.
The horror in Body Snatchers comes in part from the fact that we can’t tell our friends from our enemies. In 1955, that probably resonated with the anti-communist sentiments in the United States. You can’t tell a commie just by looking. They could be anywhere!
Another part of the horror is the oppressive conformity (kind of like a zombie movie, but less so). Those who’ve been assimilated lose their identity and their will, and worst of all, they don’t even know it.
The whole notion of a political subtext to “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”–that people can be turned into automatons by totalitarianism either from the left (communism) or from the right (McCarthyism)–is an inescapable interpretation, given the political context of the early 1950’s. But I wouldn’t discount Siegel’s more general explanation, which Sam refers to. When Pauline Kael wrote her capsule review of this movie for the New Yorker, she wrote something like, “People are being replaced with soulless pods, and no one can tell the difference.” This view would seem to echo Siegel’s, that communism or McCarthyinsm aside, Americans are already becoming personality-free blanks because of societal pressures to conform. Of the three prevalent intepretations, this would seem to be the one that still has the most potency today, given all the things that have happened since 1956, with technology, commercialism, consumerism, and mass marketing making the entire world a more homogeneous place. Perhaps it is this possibility that the movie is both a reflection of its time and a cautionary warning for the future against conformity for whatever reason that gives the film its still amazing dramatic power. And the real dilemma is are people forgoing their individuality voluntarily, or are they being lured or pressured into it?
It’s interesting that Sam also writes about “Invaders from Mars,” another movie with a similar theme. The striking vision of director (and master set designer) William Cameron Menzies creates a highly stylized look that emphasizes the bizarre nature of the story, and Sam makes a good contrast of this to the absolute ordinariness surrounding “Body Snatchers.” This would also support the view that with most of the people in the film there isn’t a great deal of difference before and after. It’s those four main characters, with all their well-developed individuality, that we really care about and whose transformation affects us so deeply.
I am just now getting ready to school, but I will gleefully attend to this latest magisterial comment by R.D. as soon as I get a break later this morning.
Siegel always complained about Allied Artists interference once the film was completed. Would love to see a ‘Director’s Cut’ – shorn of the comfortingly safe bookends and the silly, empty narration imposed on him.
For me, Carmen Dragon’s music is the only weak link, at time over-emphantic and ‘mickey-mousing’ the emotions that the audience must feel. That the film is a bona fide SF classic, despite the music and the interference is a testamount to it’s achievement.
‘Invaders from Mars’ is sci-fi, this is Science Fiction.
The remake is one of the best dozen remakes of any film, but being set in the city and wanting to create paranio in a post Watergate world from the start, misses out on the more preferable slow build of creeping terror.
I prefers Finney’s original title ‘The Bodysnatchers’, but I think the film’s provisional title ‘Sleep No More’ was even more evocative of an element of the film’s horror – that no one can escape, that they’ll get you in your sleep.
Bobby: I wouldn’t at all regard the deliberate minimalistic strains of Carmen Dragon’s music as a ‘weak’ link. For the most part it was inobstrusive and serviceable, insomuch as it never really drew attention to itself, nor should it have.
The famous studio interference oddly served the film well enough as far as the bookends (it certainly made some of us young lads rest at ease) but I do agree with you that some of the narration does push too far. I’m with you on the dream of a ‘director’s cut.’ Now that would be a find!
Your last paragraph, which I completely agree with is brilliance incarnate, my friend!
I read the Finney novella in high school (it was actually on a reading list) and thought it was excellent. I agree with you that the Kaufman re-make, while not matching the original for the reasons you provide, was indeed one of the best remakes ever, no doubt about that.
Thanks again Bobby for your continued brilliance at this site. I can’t tell you appreciated you are! And yes, I fully see what you are saying there with the differentiation in categorization with the Siegel and INVADERS.
R.D. The social conformity argument (which I indeed referred to) is the preferable interpretation, methinks. Excellent mention there of the Pauline Kael capsule quote.
Thanks very much for the mention of the great set designer William Cameron Menzies, who I did not mention by name in my review.
And this R.D. is beautiful:
“It’s those four main characters, with all their well-developed individuality, that we really care about and whose transformation affects us so deeply.”
Thanks so much for bringing this site to enriching life.
Superb review of a wonderful film. Irrespective of the genre this stands as one of the greats. Perhaps one of the best ‘realizations’ of a somnambulant nightmare captured on celluloid.
“Perhaps one of the best ‘realizations’ of a somnambulant nightmare captured on celluloid…”
Well, Ric, in that sense only THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI contends. Thanks so much for the kind words and for reading!
Yes Sam. Very true. The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari does meet that criteria also.
Following your review I did some scouting around for interviews from various cast and crew members. I was lucky to find one of Kevin McCarthy. He revealed that he never saw the film as an allegory to communism. Also in the same interview it was cited that Jack Finney never wrote Invasion Of The Body Snatchers with this intention in mind either. To me that’s incredible. I wonder if the collective consciousness prevailed with this film? Oh and just thought I’d mention that the first time I saw this film on T.V. The BBC aired the U.K. release, which had Siegel’s original cut. Stella stuff.
Hey Ric! I also find that rather unbelievable, though I’m more inclined to believe Finny’s intentions. But the filmmakers seemed to have a clear agenda here, as the anti-communism fervor was at its absolute peak in the mid-50’s when this film appeared. I like that suggestion that “the collective consciousness prevailed” though! That UK release was the correct one, although oddly over the years I’ve come to respect (and I rarely do!) the decision to provide some hope, as I do remember as a young person being absolutely terrified by this film, which I saw so many times. But now I would say that the Allied Artists interference was artistically reprehensible. The interview you speak of sounds great. BTW, the communism angle was discussed by Prof. Yacowar on that Criterion LD of the film. I wish I still had a copy of that.
Thanks again.
Should you respond again, I will check later tonight, as I am now taking my wife and five kids to see THE ROAD (based on Cormac McCarthy’s novel) at a nearby multiplex.
Reading this piece after the demise of Mr. Kevin McCarthy, I can see the love for this movie is present in you and many of these other commenters, Sam. And I think I can love this a bit more now, even if I already find it essential and just unforgettable in every sense of the word.
Regarding its message, I find it difficult to see any other than the anti-communist agenda, maybe because I didn’t live McCarthysism (funny how Kevin McCarthy and well… forget it).
Maybe that’s the reason I don’t consider it a favorite of mine, besides all the praise I can give it on its technical perfection, it is because I think the anti-communism, according to me, was exagerated, specially since my upribing.
My parents both lived a “communist” society, well… kinda, just for two years and change, and yesterday (September 11th) we mourned another anniversary of the dark day in which the military overthrew Salvador Allende’s government, killing him and thousands of communists in the process, a day that it’s dark in our history due to the dictatorship that began after that, resulting in the death of many artists and people that were innocent.
Both of my parents were in the verge of being killed during those years, they were lucky. My mom left the drama school before all of their members where threatened with death. My dad was identity controlled by militars in the street while he was with some friends, one of them had gone away, and when he came back he said that they were lucky, he had a necklace that may had not been of the liking of those militars: A man handcuffed and blindfolded, tied against a reproduction of Chile, as a stake.
That’s why I have to say that communism is really unknown for people that haven’t lived it, or are sons of those who lived it, they had a better time when the socialist government was in charge than when the fascist militars where there. My mom had difficult times, and you can say she was hungrier with militars than with Allende, it was really difficult for them to earn money to eat. With socialism, they had their food assured.
Now, I’m not trying to convince anyone about anything, it was just a rush of memories that passed through me as I remembered this movie and its (maybe misunderstood by me) message.