Axiom's Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy

Our ongoing series reviewing the greatest Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror movies. Note that these reviews may contain spoilers.

Directed By: Don Siegel
Produced By: Walter Wanger
Written By: Jack Finney (Novel), Daniel Mainwaring (Screenplay)
Starring: Kevin McCarthy, Dana Wynter, King Donovan, Carolyn Jones
Original Release: 1956

Reviewed By: John J. Joex

Rating: 4 ½ out of 5 Stars

Synopsis: Town doctor Miles Bennell (Kevin McCarthy) returns to the California suburban town of Santa Mira after a short trip to find many of his patients eager to see him because they believe one or more of their friends or family are acting very strange, not like themselves. Several plead with him to help them, but when he observes the “afflicted” people he sees nothing out of the ordinary. He talks with his psychologist friend who dismisses the claims as an “epidemic mass hysteria”. But while on a date with a former flame of his (Becky Driscoll played by Dana Wynter), another friend of Miles tracks him down and urges the doctor to come to his house. There, they see what looks like a dead body, but it has almost no discerning features including no fingerprints. Miles notes that it resembles Jack, the friend who called him, in height and weight and they decide not to call the police and instead wait to see what happens with the body. Later that night, it opens its eyes and now appears to be a near duplicate of Jack. With his wife, Jack flees from his house to find Miles, who had taken Becky home and they discover large seed pods apparently of alien origin that appear to be growing duplicates of the townspeople that will replace them with emotionless replicas of their former selves. The four must find a way to warn the outside world while also not falling asleep, which is the point when the seed pods take over their minds.

Review/Comments: The original movie version of The Invasion of the Body Snatchers is widely recognized as a classic of Science Fiction cinema as well as a seminal film in the alien invasion sub-genre. But despite its reputation, modern day viewers should go into it understanding that this is a B-Movie through and through, with all cheesy acting and production short-cuts that entails. Of course the producers had little choice but to go this route because the film’s subject matter demanded that format at the time it was made. However, it does not resort to the exploitation tricks typical of that class of films as it tries to present a tale with some depth and substance, though not necessarily striving for a grand social statement even if it does end up stumbling into that territory. It flirts with horror movie standards (something unknown and sinister is pursuing the heroes) while also adding in the aliens from space twist, though without the expected rubber-masked, bug-eyed creatures more common of the matinee fare of the time. And it takes both of these elements right into the heart of suburban America, in the backyards of the audience watching the film, thus bringing a distant and nebulous thing of terror close enough to make the audience uncomfortable. They see the sleepy little town of Santa Mira, a mirror of the American ideal of the 1950’s, and they watch in horror as its people transform into soulless facsimiles of humanity.

Though not the first choice for the role, Kevin McCarthy is perfect as Dr. Miles Bennell with his expressive, wide-eyed visage and his inner frenzy boiling up just beneath the surface. As the film starts, he appears the picture perfect calm, cool, and rational doctor, but his inner angst quickly reveals itself and by the end he is a man at the edge of sanity. And while he and his former flame Becky Driscoll (Dana Wynter) know the pains of love from their tumultuous prior relationship, they ultimately decide they would prefer consequences this entails rather than sacrifice their emotions and humanity to meld with the soulless hordes.

People have looked back on this movie as an allegory commenting on the world of its time. Some see in the alien pods the specter of the alleged Communist threat that pervaded much of this country’s psyche at that time. Others see it as an indictment of the era of McCarthyism. For me, neither of these allusions quite fit the film which appears more to key off the vapidity of the conformity that suburban life represented in that era (and still today for that matter). The creative team, however, insist that the movie carried no allegory at all and that they just wanted to make a good scary movie. They succeeded at that, but they did so by tapping into the undercurrent of paranoia and tension seething beneath the surface of 1950’s America. The contrast of the idyllic small town, suburban life, that was more myth than reality, with the terror of an invasion from outside worked perfectly within that context giving us both an excellent horror/sci fi film along with a distillation of the underlying tensions of that seemingly simple though ultimately more complex age.

Thus, Invasion of the Body Snatchers can be enjoyed as the first-rate B Move it is or as a cultural testament of sorts with multiple layers to peel away and reveal the sub-consciousness torment in its sub-text. Finney’s book has received several more big screen adaptations since the 1956 version, though none have quite melded the themes of terror with the consciousness of a nation as well as this one. Better than providing a straight history lesson, this one explores the Id of its era.

As a bit of trivia, a young Sam Peckinpah, who would later go on to become a legendary filmmaker, had a brief appearance in the movie as Charlie the meter reader.  He had worked as an assistant to director Don Siegel on this and several other films and claims to have done an extensive rewrite of the screenplay, though this has never been confirmed.

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