Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956 film)

I'm sure you can help them sort it out, Dunban. ― Fiora, Xenoblade Chronicles

This article is about the 1956 film.. You may be looking for the 1978 film of the same name.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers
This film has been preserved in the National Film Registry in 1994.
Genre: Sci-fi "Horror" Directed by: Don Siegel Produced by: Walter Wanger Written by: Daniel Mainwaring Based on: The Body Snatchers 1954 stories in Collier's by Jack Finney Starring: Kevin McCarthy Dana Wynter Larry Gates King Donovan Carolyn Jones Jean Willes Ralph Dumke Virginia Christine Photography: Black and White Cinematography: Ellsworth Fredericks Distributed by: Allied Artists Pictures Release date: February 5, 1956 (United States) Runtime: 80 minutes Country: United States Language: English Budget: $416,911 Box office: $3 million

Invasion of the Body Snatchers is a 1956 American science fiction horror film produced by Walter Wanger, directed by Don Siegel, that stars Kevin McCarthy and Dana Wynter. The black-and-white film, shot in Superscope, was partially done in a film noir style. Daniel Mainwaring adapted the screenplay from Jack Finney's 1954 science fiction novel The Body Snatchers. The film was released by Allied Artists Pictures as a double feature with the British science fiction film The Atomic Man (and in some areas with Indestructible Man).

It was selected in 1994 for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."

Plot

In Santa Mira, California, Dr. Miles Bennell (Kevin McCarthy) is baffled when all his patients come to him with the same complaint: their loved ones seem to have been replaced by emotionless impostors. Despite others' dismissive denials, Dr. Bennell, his former girlfriend Becky (Dana Wynter) and his friend Jack (King Donovan) soon discover that the patients' suspicions are true: an alien species of human duplicates, grown from plant-like pods, is taking over the small town.

Why It Rocks

1. With an extremely potent storyline, this film remains one of the most influential horror films of the 1950s, despite its very low budget, to the point where it was remade several times.
2. A key reason the film works so well is that it's not really a horror movie at all. It's more like a murder mystery or a film noir from the previous decade. The grim, shadowy qualities shouldn't be very surprising considering what the screenwriter he previously worked on.
   • The film differs from other horror films as there are few special effects, no monsters and no violence. The story's structured like a mystery, but said mystery has no real solution. Where impactable fate was the source of Jeff Bailey's problems in Out of the Past, in this film, society Itself was to blame, along with the "mass hysteria", engendered by an unknown force operating somewhere in the cosmos.
3. Like Finney's story, there's an interesting premise where seed pods are replacing human personalities with alien ones, and even the lead's (Dr. Miles Bennell) former friends are being infected and trying to transform him, and him having to flee town with his girlfriend Becky. The film arrived as part of an explosion of science fantasy and science horror in mainstream popular culture, fueled by the atomic age, advent of space rocketry, and Cold War anxieties.
4. The film offered its many imitators a blueprint for how to create shocks.
   • Cinematographer Ellsworth Fredericks employed the same slatted shadows and distorted angles that could be found in noirs like Double Indemnity.
   • Siegel’s background as a montage editor is shown in the film’s crisp, confident pacing, especially during the chase sequences.
   • A four-minute sequence in which Bennell breaks into a basement is an expertly assembled collection of tracking shots, red herrings, and trick jolts, within gloomy, menacing shadows.
5. Siegel’s low-key, realistic style is essential to the impact of the story, along with gradually eliminating everything that could help Bennell and Becky.
6. The film had a widespread influence over the horror genre. Half the episodes on The Twilight Zone seem to be based on its premise.
7. A lots of cast included Kevin McCarthy, Dana Wynter, Larry Gates, King Donovan, Carolyn Jones, Virginia Christine, Ralph Dumke, Kenneth Patterson, Guy Way, Jean Willes, Eileen Stevens, Beatrice Maude, Whit Bissell, Richard Deacon, Bobby Clark, Tom Fadden, Everett Glass, Dabbs Greer, Sam Peckinpah, which is amazing.
8. Interesting and compelling characters:
   • Bennell is a very interesting protagonist.
   • Plenty of great side characters like Becky, Dr. Kauffman, Jack, Teddy, and Chief Grivett.
   • The Pod People are pretty neat villains and their designs are neat as well.
9. The music is very well composed and disturbing.

Bad Qualities

1. It's pretty vague regarding how the Pod People function and what happens to the original person.

Reception

Invasion of the Body Snatchers was well-received by critics and audiences alike and is widely regarded as a classic film and one of the best films of 1956. The film holds a 98% approval rating and 9/10 rating at the film review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes. The site's consensus reads: "One of the best political allegories of the 1950s, Invasion of the Body Snatchers is an efficient, chilling blend of sci-fi and horror.".

Trivia

• The film was almost called "The Body Snatchers" after Jack Finney's serial, but it sounded too similar to the Val Lewton film The Body Snatcher (1945). After several such titles as "They Come from Another World", "Better Off Dead", "Sleep No More", "Evil in the Night" and "World in Danger", the studio finally settled on "Invasion of the Body Snatchers".
• The film's action required leading man Kevin McCarthy to run for days on end. In numerous scenes, his character sprints for dear life over every possible terrain. "I got charleyhorses [cramps]," admitted McCarthy. Just before the film draws to a close, Dr. Bennell runs through traffic in a panicked frenzy, screaming "They're here already! You're next! You're next!" Since the exhausted actor hadn't been sleeping well, Don Siegel told his stunt drivers to remain extra alert in case McCarthy tripped without warning. "I was terrified that his timing would be off and he might fall down under the wheel of the cars and trucks," Siegel admitted.
• Production designer Ted Haworth came up with a fairly simple and inexpensive (about $30,000 total) idea for creating the pods. The most difficult part was when the pods burst open, revealing the likenesses of the actors. The actors had to have naked impressions of themselves made out of thin, skin-tight latex. Making the casts, which involved being submerged in the very hot casting material with only a straw in their mouths to breathe through, was grueling for the actors, especially Carolyn Jones, who was claustrophobic. Dana Wynter recalled, "I was in this thing while it hardened, and of course it got rather warm! I was breathing through straws or something quite bizarre, and the rest of me was encased, it was like a sarcophagus. The guys who were making it tapped on the back of the thing and said, 'Dana, listen, we won't be long, we're just off for lunch [laughs]!' In the end, we had to be covered except for just the nostrils and I think a little aperture for the mouth."
• During test screenings, much of the film's original humor and humanity was cut when the audience found it difficult to follow and laughed at all the wrong moments. The studio insisted on edits because it wasn't policy to mix humor with horror.

External Links

• Invasion of the Body Snatchers at the Internet Movie Database
• Invasion of the Body Snatchers on Rotten Tomatoes

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