Rish's Reviews
Director Siegel, who went on to direct The Shootist, and Dirty Harry, made this, what I consider the greatest horror movie of the 1950s. Now, considering what I said against Horror in the '50s, that may be taken as small praise, but then let me add that this is also one of the best horror movies ever.
In Invasion of the Body Snatchers, a small town doctor returns home to find his patients claiming that people they know have been replaced with exact duplicates that they DON'T know. At first he's skeptical, but eventually learns that PODS! are responsible. "They're like huge sea pods!"
Kevin McCarthy is unbelievably likeable as Doctor Miles Bennell, the town doctor in the perfect little American town. I wish I grew up in a place like that (even though I suppose I did). Dana Wynter, who plays Becky Driscoll, is a babe! Later director Sam Peckinpah appears briefly as the gas guy.
This seems to have been a cheap film to make. Probably because of the budget, but perhaps not, it features a lot of long continuous takes . . . the best kind. Yet at the same time, it's filmed in "Superscope," which is widescreen 2.35:1 format. It utilizes REALLY great lighting and the black and white photography makes the settings of the coastal town all the more beautiful. The film makes use of a lot of day-for-night shooting, but in Black & White it's less noticeable.
Hey, here's a potential new Skull–Body Mysteriously Vanishes. What do you think? I liked (and didn't like) how the shrink tries to convince them they're seeing things, that even the doctor is hallucinating it all. The script is very well-written, with conspiracy theories and paranoia that haven't dated a bit. The romance is believable and well-developed, and for once in a film like this not at all tacked on or unwelcome. It also lends itself to one of the most powerful moments in the film, with a line so resonating and true it couldn't be uttered in the soulless apathetic pit that is the 21st Century.
Another thing that really works is that EVERYBODY is in on the conspiracy . . . even Nick, "the fat policeman" . . . even your closest friends. This film doesn't bother me ("bother" in the "frighteningly disturb" sense of the word) as much as the 1978 version, but this movie is REALLY scary! There's something innately terrifying about change, change in relationships, change in surroundings, change in other people. The Evil of beings who seek to replace you, who consider emotions and feelings inferior, it chills most people to the bone (and well it should). I've tried writing variations on this theme a few times, but I never manage it so successfully as this film (and its 1978 remake) did.
Unfortunately, the ending doesn't fit what went before. The original ending ("They're here already! YOU'RE next!") is SO much better. I've seen the movie both ways--with the added "happy" ending and the original "you're next" version--and the darker, bleaker ending is SO much better, so much in line with the tone of the film, and much more disturbing. I can fully understand why the happy ending would be necessary and more popular, but sometimes a happy ending isn't deserved. I recently watched the DVD of Supernova, which included the original ending and the revised happy ending (that was ultimately used). In the original, not only was Earth destroyed, but the ENTIRE UNIVERSE. Talk about bleak. I could see why the studio would want a pleasanter one, but considering the film made no money and will be forgotten ten minutes from now, I wonder if it might have had more success with the horribly bleak finish. People might have talked about an ending that was more downbeat than The Empire Strikes Back and Seven, and even nearing that of The Last American Virgin. I sure would've been curious.
That reminds me of my all-time favourite episode of "Tom & Jerry." As a kid, I was a big fan of the cat and mouse cartoons, but always felt the cat should win, instead of being burned, maimed, squashed, and eviscerated. So it was with utter shock that one afternoon, sitting on my grandpa's old chair in my grandma's house, I saw an episode where at the end, Tom 'got' both Jerry the mouse and the little yellow duck. It ended with them believing they were safe, then Tom came out from behind, laughing evilly. My mouth dropped open. For years, I told others about this cartoon, but I don't think I ever saw it again. We are a society brought up on happy endings and there are so few filmed unhappy endings that when we see one, it shocks us--stays with us--makes an impact.
Believe me, in a roundabout way, this all has to do with Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
I'd Recommend It To: All Horror and Sci Fi fans, especially those who think that the old movies have nothing to offer modern audiences.
Note: How is this picture possibly representative of the Red Menace as people always insist? Just because of McCarthy's name? I can see it being a commentary on the apathy and amorality of modern society (there's a nice conversation about dehumanization in our lives that supports that theory), but the other What It's Really About theory doesn't seem to hold water.

The tyranist's thoughts
I saw the 1978 remake of this well before I finally saw the original. I was always unsure how people could praise any piece of sci-fi horror from the '50s and how they could claim that the remake was more of a sequel than anything else. I shouldn't have waited so long to see it though. It turned out to be not only good sci-fi/horror, but one of the better movies I've seen from the '50s.
I found the level of paranoia in the movie to be good and the tension as the plot builds and there are fewer people to trust nice. As a big fan of "The X-Files," this kind of conspiracy plot has always been something I like and it is very well done here. In fact, I'm going to have to see the remake again soon, just in case to see if it wasn't as good.
The acting is nice, although a bit melodramatic at times. The pods are cool and remarkably effective. We look at the '50s thinking of bad special effects, but when they wanted to they could do some pretty neat things. Just look at The Fly and Creature from the Black Lagoon in addition to this one. And if they could make effective pods then, we have no excuse for bad effects now.
I really enjoyed this one. Kevin McCarthy was effective as our haunted hero and Dana Wynter was about as hot as they came in the '50s. If you like the remake of this one or even just a similar movie like The Faculty , then you should give this one a shot.