Short Take: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)

The original Invasion of the Body Snatchers, directed by Don Siegel, is a superb science-fiction film, and one of the great Hollywood thrillers. A small-town doctor (Kevin McCarthy) returns home from a convention, and finds that a number of the townspeople are convinced that relatives have been replaced with impostors. He gradually discovers the reason why. Extra-terrestrial plant spores have landed at area farms, where they've grown into seed pods. Once in the vicinity of a sleeping human, a pod creates a perfect physical duplicate as a step towards infecting and taking over the person's mind. In short order, the pod people take over the town, and from there, they plan to take over the world. Screenwriter Daniel Mainwaring, working from the Jack Finney novel The Body Snatchers, delivers a terrific paranoia scenario: the doctor doesn't know whom he can trust, or for how long, in his efforts to escape the town and warn the outside world. Don Siegel knows to keep out of the story's way. The scenes are staged, shot, and edited with a minimum of fuss. There's only one scene of directorial flamboyance: the climactic moments when the doctor runs onto a busy freeway screaming for help. The only other element that goes out of its way to work the audience is Carmen Dragon's fine score, and its passages of screeching violins and rumbling piano keys. Siegel and Mainwaring aren't fancy, but they deliver a grippingly suspenseful roller-coaster ride. The picture also has some spice for middlebrows. It's very easy to read the material as a satirical allegory decrying the conformist culture of the 1950s U. S., and even the Joseph McCarthy-led communist witch-hunts. The cast also features the beautiful Dana Wynter as the doctor's love interest, as well as Larry Gates, King Donovan, and Carolyn Jones. The black-and-white cinematography, which has some fine moments of noir chiaroscuro, is by Ellsworth Fredericks. Robert S Eisen is credited with the editing. A framing sequence, added at the production studio's insistence, features the veteran character actors Whit Bissell and Richard Deacon. The film has been remade three times: a 1978 version with the same title, directed by Philip Kaufman; Abel Ferrara's 1993 Body Snatchers; and Oliver Hirschbiegel's 2007 The Invasion, starring Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig.