Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)

[Dave]

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) 80 Minutes.

http://uk.imdb.com/Title?0049366

Directed by Daniel Mainwaring.

Novel by Jack Finney.

A small American town is imperceptibly taken over by an alien force... one person at a time. A classic science fiction film. The preposterous plot is made believable by the quality acting and the ordinary settings. An allegory for communism and the McCarthy witch-hunts.



With Kevin McCarthy, Dana Wynter, Larry Gates, King Donovan, Carolyn Jones, Virginia Christine, Sam Peckinpah.

 

[Charlie]

Dave's synopsis, above, sums it up nicely. This is a black/white film that tells the story of an alien invasion . The style is low key and the tension builds gradually to a climatic chase with the hero and his lady trying to flee the friends and neighbours(who have been taken over). A tale of everyday normal folk-- but when they go to sleep- they wake up changed. There were some fine actors in this.

 

[Starbeast]

Spooky film when I was a kid, good movie

 

[Decker]

Many scenes were shot in my neighborhood in LA. A few years ago (well, probably more than 10 now that I think of it...) a local shop owner got a print, a projector and a screen and showed it in the parking lot of one of the buildings that served as an exterior location. He even got Kevin McCarthy to come speak before the screening.

 

[J-Sun]

This one is really really good. The flashback structure is debatable and the voiceovers weren't good (and I understand this is actually not the originally intended structure) but it's great otherwise. It works as a straight thriller, as anti-communist propaganda, and as anti-anti-communist propaganda. I wish the special effects had been better on the pods - should have been layered and plant-fleshy and sort of thwacked instead of being almost smooth, glossy, rubbery, and bouncy but the bubbly stuff was good. This is one that you can see how it made the bang it did and it's still effective.

Highly recommended.

 

[JunkMonkey]

Spoiler

Book SPOILER ahead:


I've seen both the original film and the remake with Donald Sutherland et al (though not the latest version yet). The endings of the films are far superior to the ending of Finney's original story. The book is very well written and builds up a nice frisson which is utterly dispelled when

Spoiler

the pods somehow collectively decide they have met their match with the human race and just f*** off back into to space. Just float up into the air and go away. Honest that's the end. It is one of the flattest endings to a book I have ever read. Just as things are looking at their bleakest and most desperate, the relentless alien invaders just pack it in and go home.

"You're NEXT! YOU'RE NEXT!" or "We may just stop this thing yet...", or Donald Sutherland doing the scary pointing thing

are far far better.

 

[Jethro_Lentle]

Have to agree with JunkMonkey that the films ending's are superior. Really enjoyed the 1956 version - really set a great atmosphere.

 

[JunkMonkey]

There was another version, Body Snatchers made in 1993, that has a 'who are you going to trust?' paranoia ending.

The latest version Invasion (2007) turns out to have probably the weakest ending of the lost with the assembled scientists of the world pulling a plot twist out of their collective arses and coming up with a counter agent which they crop spay over the world. In a way it's truer to the book but it's a pure Mankind is saved! Crappy 'just in time' Hollywood bull***t happy ending.

 

[Abernovo]

A brilliant film and a scary commentary on over-conformism morphing into persecution. Saw the Donald Sutherland remake (1978) first, but the '56 version works just as well, possibly even more so when you consider it was made against the backdrop of McCarthyism and blacklisting in government and the film industry.

Not a fan of the most recent version (the re-remake?) The Invasion (2007) - flashier effects, less substance and I've not read the original Finney novel. The reviews put me off the idea.

 

[steve12553]

Either of the versions with Kevin McCarthy in them are `worth watching. Spooky and paranoid. What a horror movie should be.