This version (1978) follows the general outline of the earlier version (1956) but suffers from being still another remake in what appears to be a recent cascade of replicants. Talk about pods.
What happens is that these pods grow from seeds that have drifted down from outer space. The seeds produce pods that grow into imitations of individuals human beings, with all of the details of the original but without any emotions such as love or hate. The pods finally seem to win.
Right away, there are questions about just how this business works. At least in this version we know what happens to the old, original bodies when they're replaced. They turn into some ashen fluff that's thrown out with the garbage. The 1956 version left that manhole uncovered.
And yet this one is pretty cavalier with the dynamics of podification too. Both versions show that the target person has to be asleep in order for the pod to replace him or her. But in neither version is it clear that the pods must be in physical proximity to the victim. Much is made here of the victim putting the evil flower next to his bed so it can more easily take over while he's asleep. But sometimes, as in the case of Elizabeth (Brooke Adams), she falls asleep out in the middle of nowhere and her replica arises from nearby reeds, where no pod has ever had any reason to tread.
And this version, unlike the earlier one, has scenes that suggests thin slimy tendrils must creep up a victim's arm and into his sleeping nose and eyes in order to complete the process. At other times the tendrils are evidently superfluous.
Then too, if the replicants are as they say, devoid of emotion, well then how do they -- well, reproduce? Do they pollinate?
Now, this movie, like the successful pods, is a replicant too. But it's not bad for what it is. There's a playful element to the script and the direction that reflects its Zeitgeist, as did the original. If the 1956 version was all about a small community in which everyone knew and trusted everyone else, and everyone was kind and generous, and the conformity was stultifying but satisfying, that's kind of what the 1950s were like -- full of what Emile Durkheim called mechanical solidarity.
Eighteen years that happened to encompass the 1960s is a long time between an original and a remake. And this update is bound to a particular location, San Francisco, a big beautiful wide-open city, not an encapsulated village. The ludic spirit informs this later version, so the script has several jokes in it. When a formless, lifeless dead body with some revolting attributes appears in a mud bath, the proprietress (Veronic Cartwright) warns the others, "Don't touch it! You don't know where it's been!" As if it were a stray cat.
In the original, a treacly Spanish song leads Matt Binnell (Kevin McCarthy there, Donald Southerland here) to believe that anyone listening to such beautiful music must be human. Here, the music Bennell hears is "Amazing Grace" on the bagpipes. That piece is a commercial and artistic cliché by now, but it wasn't in 1974. The fad for the hymn on bagpipes may well have been started by the piper who played every Saturday night at The Edinburg Castle on Geary. Kevin McCarthy, by the way, has a cameo as the guy who flops on the hood of Southerland's car and screams, "They're coming! You're next!" And the director of the 1956 version, Don Siegel, appears as a taxi driver who is a pod person.
San Francisco is a strangely tolerant city and is probably the most suitable American place to develop a contrast between ordinary citizens and those who are emotional black holes like the pod people. Example. An acquaintance of mine, Waldo, who appeared as an extra in this movie, was a successful artist in Berkeley and while I was chatting with him about his work, which IMHO was pretty good, he described how he got his ideas. Whenever he had an interesting dream he would wake up and quickly sketch the images and take a few notes. To wake him up, he wore around his head a band that had jingly bells sewn onto it, in the belief that when he dreamed his head rolled around more actively. His wife, sitting next to him on the couch, remarked laconically, "I guess it works if you say so, Waldo, but it still feels a little weird to sleep next to a guy with bells on his head." She didn't CARE that Waldo wore a fool's cap to bed, and neither would anyone else. That's what I mean when I described the city as tolerant of alternative approaches to life. Nobody cared if Harvey Milk was gay or the Emporer Norton claimed to rule California or a Viennese weight lifter was elected to the post of governor. In 1982 one of the candidates for a city office was a male transvestite, Sister Boom Boom, who wore a miniskirted nun's outfit and sported garish makeup and high heels. Her platform? "Nun of the above." She was on the ballot as an official candidate. You can see, I hope, that there could hardly be a greater contrast between some of these people and the pods. I wouldn't have wanted the remake to be filmed anywhere else.
The movie is a good remake but not without its flaws. Why does it have to end so pessimistically? And that pig-like squeal with which converts point out the unconverted is a bad idea. It's unpleasant to listen to and unsubtle. In the novel the pods sensibly gave up because resistance was too strong. They floated back into space. That kind of discretion is sometimes a perfectly reasonable way to get out of a tight spot.
What happens is that these pods grow from seeds that have drifted down from outer space. The seeds produce pods that grow into imitations of individuals human beings, with all of the details of the original but without any emotions such as love or hate. The pods finally seem to win.
Right away, there are questions about just how this business works. At least in this version we know what happens to the old, original bodies when they're replaced. They turn into some ashen fluff that's thrown out with the garbage. The 1956 version left that manhole uncovered.
And yet this one is pretty cavalier with the dynamics of podification too. Both versions show that the target person has to be asleep in order for the pod to replace him or her. But in neither version is it clear that the pods must be in physical proximity to the victim. Much is made here of the victim putting the evil flower next to his bed so it can more easily take over while he's asleep. But sometimes, as in the case of Elizabeth (Brooke Adams), she falls asleep out in the middle of nowhere and her replica arises from nearby reeds, where no pod has ever had any reason to tread.
And this version, unlike the earlier one, has scenes that suggests thin slimy tendrils must creep up a victim's arm and into his sleeping nose and eyes in order to complete the process. At other times the tendrils are evidently superfluous.
Then too, if the replicants are as they say, devoid of emotion, well then how do they -- well, reproduce? Do they pollinate?
Now, this movie, like the successful pods, is a replicant too. But it's not bad for what it is. There's a playful element to the script and the direction that reflects its Zeitgeist, as did the original. If the 1956 version was all about a small community in which everyone knew and trusted everyone else, and everyone was kind and generous, and the conformity was stultifying but satisfying, that's kind of what the 1950s were like -- full of what Emile Durkheim called mechanical solidarity.
Eighteen years that happened to encompass the 1960s is a long time between an original and a remake. And this update is bound to a particular location, San Francisco, a big beautiful wide-open city, not an encapsulated village. The ludic spirit informs this later version, so the script has several jokes in it. When a formless, lifeless dead body with some revolting attributes appears in a mud bath, the proprietress (Veronic Cartwright) warns the others, "Don't touch it! You don't know where it's been!" As if it were a stray cat.
In the original, a treacly Spanish song leads Matt Binnell (Kevin McCarthy there, Donald Southerland here) to believe that anyone listening to such beautiful music must be human. Here, the music Bennell hears is "Amazing Grace" on the bagpipes. That piece is a commercial and artistic cliché by now, but it wasn't in 1974. The fad for the hymn on bagpipes may well have been started by the piper who played every Saturday night at The Edinburg Castle on Geary. Kevin McCarthy, by the way, has a cameo as the guy who flops on the hood of Southerland's car and screams, "They're coming! You're next!" And the director of the 1956 version, Don Siegel, appears as a taxi driver who is a pod person.
San Francisco is a strangely tolerant city and is probably the most suitable American place to develop a contrast between ordinary citizens and those who are emotional black holes like the pod people. Example. An acquaintance of mine, Waldo, who appeared as an extra in this movie, was a successful artist in Berkeley and while I was chatting with him about his work, which IMHO was pretty good, he described how he got his ideas. Whenever he had an interesting dream he would wake up and quickly sketch the images and take a few notes. To wake him up, he wore around his head a band that had jingly bells sewn onto it, in the belief that when he dreamed his head rolled around more actively. His wife, sitting next to him on the couch, remarked laconically, "I guess it works if you say so, Waldo, but it still feels a little weird to sleep next to a guy with bells on his head." She didn't CARE that Waldo wore a fool's cap to bed, and neither would anyone else. That's what I mean when I described the city as tolerant of alternative approaches to life. Nobody cared if Harvey Milk was gay or the Emporer Norton claimed to rule California or a Viennese weight lifter was elected to the post of governor. In 1982 one of the candidates for a city office was a male transvestite, Sister Boom Boom, who wore a miniskirted nun's outfit and sported garish makeup and high heels. Her platform? "Nun of the above." She was on the ballot as an official candidate. You can see, I hope, that there could hardly be a greater contrast between some of these people and the pods. I wouldn't have wanted the remake to be filmed anywhere else.
The movie is a good remake but not without its flaws. Why does it have to end so pessimistically? And that pig-like squeal with which converts point out the unconverted is a bad idea. It's unpleasant to listen to and unsubtle. In the novel the pods sensibly gave up because resistance was too strong. They floated back into space. That kind of discretion is sometimes a perfectly reasonable way to get out of a tight spot.