Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)

A small-town doctor learns that the population of his community is being replaced by emotionless alien duplicates.

Director:

Don Siegel

Writers:

Daniel Mainwaring (screenplay), Jack Finney (Collier's magazine serial),

Stars:

Kevin McCarthy, Dana Wynter, Larry Gates

1 win.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Kevin McCarthy	...	Dr. Miles J. Bennell
Dana Wynter	...	Becky Driscoll
Larry Gates	...	Dr. Dan 'Danny' Kauffman
King Donovan	...	Jack Belicec
Carolyn Jones	...	Theodora 'Teddy' Belicec
Jean Willes	...	Nurse Sally Withers
Ralph Dumke	...	Police Chief Nick Grivett
Virginia Christine	...	Wilma Lentz
Tom Fadden	...	Uncle Ira Lentz
Kenneth Patterson	...	Stanley Driscoll
Guy Way	...	Officer Sam Janzek
Eileen Stevens	...	Anne Grimaldi
Beatrice Maude	...	Grandma Grimaldi
Jean Andren	...	Eleda Lentz
Bobby Clark	...	Jimmy Grimaldi

Storyline

Dr Miles Bennell returns his small town practice to find several of his patients suffering the paranoid delusion that their friends or relatives are impostors. He is initially skeptical, especially when the alleged dopplegängers are able to answer detailed questions about their victim's lives, but he is eventually persuaded that something odd has happened and determines to find out what is causing this phenomenon. This film can be seen as a paranoid 1950s warning against those Damn Commies or, conversely, as a metaphor for the tyranny of McCarthyism (or the totalitarian system of Your Choice) and has a pro- and epilogue that was forced upon Siegel by the studio to lighten the tone.

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Plot Keywords:

small town | delusion | doctor | psychiatrist | cold war | 

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Taglines:

Collier's Magazine called it "The Nightmare That THREATENS THE WORLD"

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Genres:

Horror | Sci-Fi

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Certificate:

Approved

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

5 February 1956 (USA)

Also Known As:

They Came from Another World

Filming Locations:

1200 N. Virgil Avenue, Los Angeles, California, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$417,000 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Allied Artists Pictures, Walter Wanger Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

80 min

Sound Mix:

Mono (Perspecta Sound encoding) (Western Electric Recording)

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Only $15,000 of the budget was spent on special effects.

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Goofs

Upon discovering two pods in the trunk of his car after visiting the gas station, the hero pulls them from the trunk and sets them on fire with a highway flare whereupon they burst into flame. Nowhere else in the film is there any suggestion that these pods are flammable nor would they be if germinating into a human replica.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Dr. Harvey Bassett: Oh, Doctor Hill.
Dr. Hill: Dr. Basset. Well, where's the patient?
Dr. Harvey Bassett: I hated to drag you out of bed at this time of night. You'll soon see why I did.

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Crazy Credits

THE END comes up on the final shot of the film of Miles looking relieved that Dr Hill has believed his story, and is calling the FBI about the alien invasion of Santa Mira.

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Connections

Referenced in Remington Steele: Steele Searching: Part 1 (1985)

User Reviews

The simplicity of the horror is what "makes" this film so brilliant...

What must be considered one of the most original of all the science fiction films emanating from the '50s is INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS, a low-budget sci-fi film about a sleepy Southern California town infested with a bunch of pods that are replicating the town's humans in physical form hatched from alien pods and taking over mind and body.

It doesn't waste any time in getting to the core of the horror element, with McCarthy as a doctor invited to a friend's house where he sees the first evidence of a sleeping pod form taking on the shape and identity of another. He and his sweetheart (the beautiful DANA WYNTER) are soon aware of the situation enveloping the small town residents and make an effort to alert the authorities, but find that no one can be trusted to be whom they claim to be--and are soon on the run themselves.

It easily remains one of the most gripping of these films with an excellent score by Carmen Dragon. KEVIN McCARTHY, DANA WYNTER, VIRGINIA CHRISTINE, WHIT BISSELL, KING DONOVAN and CAROLYN JONES all deliver fine performances and director Don Siegel keeps the suspense taut until the final scene.

Summing up: Alien invaders have always been a big part of sci-fi stories but never quite as creepily as depicted here. Terrific suspense.