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Invasion of the Body Snatchers is a 1956 science fiction film. It stars Kevin McCarthy, Dana Wynter, King Donovan and Carolyn Jones and is based on the novel The Body Snatchers by Jack Finney (originally serialized in Colliers Magazine in 1954). The film has been remade twice and has been selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. Image File history File links 1956 movie poster for Invasion of the Body Snatchers This is a copyrighted poster. ...
Don Siegel (October 26, 1912 - April 20, 1991) was an influential American film director. ...
Walter Wanger (July 11, 1894 - November 18, 1968) was an important American film producer. ...
Jack Finney (October 2, 1911 - November 16, 1995) was an American author. ...
Daniel Mainwaring (February 27, 1902 - 31 January 1977) was a successful novelist/screenwriter. ...
It is proposed that this article be deleted, because of the following concern: Non-notable. ...
Actor Kevin McCarthy in the remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers Kevin McCarthy (February 15, 1914 in Seattle, Washington) is an American actor. ...
Dana Wynter (born June 8, 1931 in Berlin, Germany) was a popular actress in the 1950s. ...
Carolyn Jones (April 28, 1929 - August 3, 1983) was an American actress. ...
Allied Artists Pictures Corporation This subsidiary of Monogram Pictures was founded in 1946. ...
1956 (MCMLVI) was a leap year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ...
See also: 1955 in film 1956 1957 in film 1950s in film years in film film // Events November 15 - The film Love Me Tender starring Elvis Presley (his first film) opens. ...
Poster for The Day the Earth Stood Still, an archetypal science fiction film Science fiction has been a film genre since the earliest days of cinema. ...
Actor Kevin McCarthy in the remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers Kevin McCarthy (February 15, 1914 in Seattle, Washington) is an American actor. ...
Dana Wynter (born June 8, 1931 in Berlin, Germany) was a popular actress in the 1950s. ...
Carolyn Jones (April 28, 1929 - August 3, 1983) was an American actress. ...
The Body Snatchers is a 1955 science fiction novel by Jack Finney, originally serialized in Colliers Magazine in 1954, which describes Earth being invaded by seeds which have drifted to Earth from space. ...
Jack Finney (October 2, 1911 - November 16, 1995) was an American author. ...
Colliers Weekly was a United States magazine that was published between 1888 and 1957. ...
The National Film Registry is the registry of films selected by the United States National Film Preservation Board for preservation in the Library of Congress. ...
The screenplay was adapted from Finney's novel by Daniel Mainwaring (who also wrote the film noir classic Out of the Past), along with an uncredited Richard Collins. It was directed by Don Siegel, who went on to make The Killers and Dirty Harry. A screenplay or script is a blueprint for producing a motion picture. ...
Daniel Mainwaring (February 27, 1902 - 31 January 1977) was a successful novelist/screenwriter. ...
This article is about the 1947 film; there was also a 1998 documentary of the same name. ...
Don Siegel (October 26, 1912 - April 20, 1991) was an influential American film director. ...
The Killers, sometimes called Ernest Hemingways The Killers, released by Universal Studios in 1964, was Hollywoods second adaptation of the Hemingway short story. ...
Dirty Harry is a 1971 film directed by Don Siegel. ...
Plot synopsis
Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow. Set in the fictional town of Santa Mira, California (actually shot in Sierra Madre, a town east of Pasadena), the plot centers on Dr. Miles Bennell (played by Kevin McCarthy), a local doctor, who finds a rash of patients accusing their loved ones of being impostors. Another patient is an old flame, recent divorcee Becky Driscoll (Dana Wynter), who tells him that her cousin has this same strange fear. Sierra Madre is a city located in Los Angeles County, California. ...
Pasadena is a city located in Los Angeles County, California, United States. ...
Assured at first by the town psychiatrist (Dr. Dan Kaufman, played by Larry Gates) that the cases are nothing but "epidemic mass hysteria," Bennell soon discovers, with the help of his friend Jack Belicec (King Donovan), that the townspeople really are being replaced by simulations grown from plantlike pods, perfect physical duplicates who kill and dispose of their human victims. The "pod people" are indistinguishable from normal people except for their utter lack of emotion. The pod people work together to secretly spread more pods—which grew from "seeds drifting through space for years"—in order to replace the entire human race. It has been suggested that Feeling be merged into this article or section. ...
The film climaxes with Bennell attempting to escape the pod people, flee the town with Driscoll and warn the rest of humanity. (The scenario of a hero trying to escape from an isolated town where he has learned that the inhabitants are not truly human is reminscent of the plot of H.P. Lovecraft's "The Shadow Over Innsmouth.") Howard Phillips Lovecraft (August 20, 1890 – March 15, 1937) was an American author of fantasy, horror and science fiction, noted for combining these three genres within single narratives. ...
The Shadow Over Innsmouth is a novella by H.P. Lovecraft, written in 1931. ...
The film was originally intended to end with a crazy-seeming Bennell screaming desperately to unheeding motorists, "You're next!" The studio, wary of such a downbeat conclusion, insisted on adding a prologue and epilogue to the movie that suggested a more optimistic outcome to the story, with the FBI being notified and presumably saving the day. These scenes were deleted in a 1979 re-release after the first remake appeared, paring the movie down to 76 minutes. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is a Federal police force which is the principal investigative arm of the United States Department of Justice (DOJ). ...
Themes The film has been read as both an allegory for the loss of personal autonomy under Communism and as a satire of McCarthyist paranoia about Communism during the early stages of the Cold War. (Given that the screenwriter was a target of the blacklist, the former message is unlikely to have been intended.) Siegel has suggested that the film's central theme is the loss of individuality in modern life: This article is about communism as a form of society and as a political movement. ...
Sen. ...
For other senses of this word, see paranoia (disambiguation). ...
The Cold War was the protracted geopolitical, ideological, and economic struggle that emerged after World War II between the global superpowers of the Soviet Union and the United States, supported by their military alliance partners. ...
A blacklist is a list or register of entities who, for one reason or another, are being denied a particular privilege, service, or mobility. ...
Individualism, in general, is a term used to describe a theoretical or practical emphasis of the individual, as opposed to, and possibly at the expense of, the group. ...
- Many of my associates are certainly pods. They have no feelings. They exist, breathe, sleep. To be a pod means that you have no passion, no anger, the spark has left you.... Of course, there’s a very strong case for being a pod. These pods, who get rid of pain, ill-health and mental disturbances, are, in a sense, doing good. It happens to leave you in a very dull world but that, by the way, is the world that most of us live in. It’s the same as people who welcome going into the army or prison. There’s regimentation, a lack of having to make up your mind, face decisions.... People are becoming vegetables. I don’t know what the answer is except an awareness of it. That’s what makes a picture like Invasion of the Body Snatchers important. [1]
This theme is directly expressed in the film by McCarthy's character, who says at one point: - In my practice, I've seen how people have allowed their humanity to drain away. Only it happened slowly instead of all at once. They didn't seem to mind...All of us--a little bit--we harden our hearts, grow callous. Only when we have to fight to stay human do we realize how precious it is to us, how dear. [2]
Later, the psychiatrist Gates, himself turned into a pod person, gives a speech that sounds like Siegel's musings on the attractions of conformity: - Your new bodies are growing in there. They're taking you over cell for cell, atom for atom. There is no pain. Suddenly, while you're asleep, they'll absorb your minds, your memories and you're reborn into an untroubled world...Tomorrow you'll be one of us...There's no need for love...Love. Desire. Ambition. Faith. Without them, life is so simple, believe me. [3]
Related works - Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)
- Body Snatchers (1993)
- The Visiting (2006) - Not a remake, but based on the same novel
- An episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show titled "It May Look Like a Walnut!" was a parody of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. First aired February 6, 1963, the episode depicted Rob Petrie's nightmare about aliens who replace his friends and family with emotionless replicas--with walnuts taking the place of pods.
- The 2005 television series Invasion and Threshold explore the same themes.
- The paranormal mystery show Martin Mystery had an episode called "Attack of the Slime People" which had a story similar to Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
Invasion of the Body Snatchers is a 1978 science fiction film based on the novel The Body Snatchers by Jack Finney. ...
Body Snatchers poster, 1993 Body Snatchers is a 1993 science fiction film, a remake of the 1956 film Invasion of the Body Snatchers. ...
The Visiting is the new name of the movie Invasion, staring Nicole Kidman ...
The Dick Van Dyke Show was an American television situation comedy which aired on CBS from October 3, 1961 to September 7, 1966. ...
Invasion is an American science fiction television series that began airing on September 21, 2005 on ABC. Similar to Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the show tells the story of the aftermath of a hurricane in which water-based extraterrestrials infiltrate a small Florida town and begin to take over...
Threshold was a science-fiction drama television series that first aired on CBS in September 2005. ...
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