Nightmarish noir/sf hybrid: the first version is still the best
Added 10/1/2009
This review is from my second viewing: I hadn't seen this classic for years, but here was the perfect opportunity, hard on the heels of THE INVASION, the most recent (4th) film version of Jack Finney's story from two years ago. I liked the new one more than most, and at some point I'll put up a review of it, but it doesn't hold a candle to Don Siegel's exciting thriller, the ultimate bleeding together of film noir and science fiction.
I won't go into huge detail about the plot; surely you know it, and if you don't you should see the movie before reading about it, especially in this case! So just some impressions: the 80 minutes of the running time fly by, but are enough to build a real sense of wrongness and unease, both at what is happening on the screen and at the safe, dull, suburban world these characters live in. The blandness of the pod people is JUST noticeable, much more subtle than in later versions; for the first half of the film, we really can't decide if something is actually happening, or if it's all a dream. The casting is excellent; the female characters don't have a lot to do, alas (certainly this is a pre-feminist vision of women in danger!) but Dana Wynter is certainly charming and easy on the eyes, and Kevin McCarthy really is perfect for the role of the competent, rational hero. The score by Carmen Dragon is entirely appropriate, exciting and keyed to the emotional pitch of the film without being too leading on its own. The vision of sprawling suburbia as a place of dullness - and ready conformity, with its Tiki-torches and swimming pools and secluded back yards - is a compelling one that would be revisited often in both science fiction and more dramatic stories in years to come.
And, as I mentioned above, this is almost as much noir as SF; the long alleys and shadowy, stark black and white photography, the characters on the run throughout, the ambiguous, still somewhat downbeat ending (even the studio addition doesn't ruin things as far as I'm concerned), the late betrayal of the hero by the one he trusted most....
Masterful, and my pick for the best science fiction film of the 1950s.
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Catch your breath while you can, this one's a runaway train.
Added 8/10/2009
The DVD transfers are very good remasters with both wide screen and full screen versions included in the package. (Watch the wide screen version).
From the opening scene with Dr. Miles Bennell (Kevin McCarthy) screaming, "You've got to believe me, I'm not insane" to the horrifying conclusion, this film wastes not a single frame away from the pace that never stops.
Dr. Bennell is finding that his patients are behaving strangely, they keep telling him that a loved one is no longer that person. Bennell is trying to be just a country doctor rekindling a spark with his high school sweetie, Becky Driscol (Dana Wynter) but the oddities continue and at an alarming rate. Good friend, Jack Belicec (King Donovan) calls the Doctor to come over and see what's he's got. It's a partially formed human body which looks a lot like Jack. Jack wife, Teddy (Carolyn Jones of TV's Adams Family fame) is hysterical over the situation. Even Becky's father (Kenneth Patterson) seems changed and he's placed another strange body resembling Becky in the basement of their home. Then we see the cause; giant seed pods opening to expose the lifelike contents, all growing to look like someone close by. Pretty soon, the whole town is changed with only the good doctor and Becky left to flee for their lives.
The gripping script (Daniel Mainwaring) was taken from a magazine serial by Jack Finney. Director Don Siegel's vision is close to perfection and the ensemble cast is excellent.
This "B" movie is too good to keep its "B". This is an "A". You know it's good when Hollywood keeps remaking it. The special effects are kept simple so they are believable. This film works as well today as it did in 1956 and it's much better than the remakes with bigger name stars (like Nicole Kidman
'Invasion of the Body Snatchers' is a classic Sci Fi and a must have for anyone collecting or interested in this genre of film.
Highest recommendation for: Sci Fi fans, suspense and thriller fans, Dana Wynter fans and anyone who wants to take a roller coaster ride while watching a film. A little parental guidance for kids under 8 is probably required.
2 out of 2 people found this helpful.
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UNFORGETTABLE BABY-BOOMER SCI-FI/HORROR FLICK SIMPLY A CLASSIC!
Added 6/6/2009
INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS [1956], probably Don Siegel's best film, is simply what great movie-making is supposed to be all about. This is an enduring classic that has held strong against the onslaught of the 'in-your-face' gore & viscera cinema that has inundated our senses since Gerorge Romero popped up out of Pittsburgh in 1968. INVASION scared the living daylights out of me as a kid and continues to eerily unsettle me as an adult. This story is about seed pods that "come from the sky" . Once placed in proximity to a person they seem to imbibe that person's phenotype--minus their experiences and emotions--while the person sleeps. The result is that the pod basically 'gives birth' to an exact duplicate of the sleeping beauty minus the moxie, the mirth, the mojo. The real human is extirpated and the emotionally barren replacement--basically an alien--takes over. The new product has no need for love or procreation--not a nice thing. To all you new- generation folk who revel in the carnage of the 'Chainsaw/Hills Have Eyes/Hostel'-type features: your in for a disappointment, but your also in for a lession on the vanishing art of great movie-making. The latter made possible by great direction [those shots!], cinematography [those shadows!], writing [those lines!], and , most importantly, great acting by ALL involved. Devoid of heads flying around or plasma being spilled everywhere, this is an evocative, black-and-white, baby-boomer classic that many of us grew up with. The stark b & w aspect to this movie adds to the strange sense of detachment, alienation and isolation it evokes. The movie begins with Carmen Dragon's sudden-onset sinister score and a look at some clouds that is downright eerie and other-worldly. Your're then taken to a small town that resembles Mayberry complete with town Doc and everybody knowing everybody--pretty earthbound. Then the fun begins. A 'misbehaving' little boy who doesn't feel mom is same old mom. A neice who feels her Uncle is not her Uncle. And everybody with a gripe about things changing come to Doc, played wonderfly by Kevin McCarthy. That look on Virginia Christine's face when she describes how her Uncle Ira is NOT Uncle Ira is unsettling. These are the details that make this film so memorable over the years--the looks, the innuendoes. How about Larry Gates as the 'alienated' town psychiatrist trying to provide a glib and cogent explanation for the "hysteria" going around. Gates, an excellent, scene-stealing character actor who was awesome in the classic greenhouse scene in IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT [1967], was a great pick for this flick. His eyes and countenance alone bespeak of pomposity, deceit , aloofness--perfect for a superior alien. His voice makes you sit up straight in your seat, and has a sort of sinister quality. How about the scene in the bar when, after bar-owner & wife fall asleep, a featureless body that looks like the bar-owner shows up on a pool table then disappears. And the creepy, unconcerned tubby cop who pokes his head through the cellar window to report that the body was found burning in a haystack miles away. Doc, who has his hands full with questions and complaints, gradually begins to understand that something not of this earth is infesting the countryside. The scene where he suspects his girlfriend's [Becky, played by Dana Wynter] dad of not being her real dad [he's been working odd late hours in his cellar lately] and he decides to go down into his cellar is plain scary. He's just looking for hidden pods but those shadows, those steps, those storage bins down there... And how about that 'conceiving' pod ,out in the backyard, bursting out in foam and crud to expulse Doc's replacement. Geez, it's time to hit the caffeine and get out of town. As Doc & Becky flee we bump into Sam Peckinpah and truckloads of pods which are now being systematically distributed to neighboring towns and valleys. Gotta get to the big city now and warn the rest of the world that there seems to be a small problem. The chase scene is harrowing with interesting and atmospheric runs up a rural staircase and hiding under floorboards. Just the pace of the aliens running up those stairs and the sound of their footsteps as they hit the floorboards conveyed such a disturbing and nefarious sense of group urgency and desperation. The now classic scene where Doc leaves Becky for a moment only to return to awaken her--a great face-to-face closeup of Becky's stoic, alienized countenance and Doc's aghast look--still hits paydirt. Amazing what you can do with a low or modest budget, superb "on" acting and the right moviemakers. Nice how the film is narrated by Doc in retrospect to a group of ER docs who think he's loony only to have his veracity supported when a guy reporting an accident describes a victim found under "..some of the strangest things..looked like seed pods". The look of relief on McCarthy's face as the movie ends is memorable. Noteworthy how, back then, this film appeared to reflect America's tacit fear of change, fear of the atomic era, concern over whether aliens do exist [flying saucer craze], ambivalence regarding the slander and demagoguery of McCarthyism, maybe even worry over the inevitability of desegregation in some parts of the country. Call it the mid-late 50's "5-S" fears of suburbia/sirens/saucers/subversion/deSegregation. Interesting how Doc's emotionally sterile and lifeless aliens are probably caricatures of modern industrialized big-city folk who have become desensitized [dehumanized?] by long work hours, long commutes, the rat race, technology and cyberlife. After all, an astute sociologist did once say: man made the city, now the city is remaking man [citation to follow].
2 out of 2 people found this helpful.
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Another Hardcore Classic!!!
Added 5/10/2009
I watched this for the first time a few days ago with my dad. If you've read my reviews before, you'd know that I love the look of horror films that take place in the 50's. The town is Santa Mira, the same town HALLOWEEN III takes place in. People are changing into emotionless things in the town by some pods from outer space! Can Dr. Miles Bennell and his girlfriend, Becky stop the pod people from taking over? If you love classics, you'll love INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS!!!
2 out of 2 people found this helpful.
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No monsters? No robots? No giant bugs?
Added 5/3/2009
In the world of 1950's sci-fi Invasion of The Body Snatchers stands out mostly for its lack of special effects. There are some plasic seed pods, a few dummies that look like the stars, and some soap bubbles, but beyond that it's all about writing and acting. Most of which plays upon the atmosphere of the cold war and the xenophobia of outsides coming to get us. To one up this tension, it's when we're sleeping the transformation takes place--Shut your eyes for even a second and you're no longer you, your uncle is no longer your uncle, and the woman you love is a cold, emotionless stranger--one of them.
There's good reason why this movie has stood the test of time. While the cold war politics that spawned it may have faded into history, those same tensions have always and perhaps will always be a part of humanity. The "Them" may change, but our basic fears are a part of what makes us human.
On second thought, perhaps that should be bad reason this movie has stood the test of time, but which ever it may be, this film's power is in its simplicity and its basic knowledge of human nature.
1 out of 1 people found this helpful.
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Nightmarish noir/sf hybrid: the first version is still the best
Added 10/1/2009
This review is from my second viewing: I hadn't seen this classic for years, but here was the perfect opportunity, hard on the heels of THE INVASION, the most recent (4th) film version of Jack Finney's story from two years ago. I liked the new one more than most, and at some point I'll put up a review of it, but it doesn't hold a candle to Don Siegel's exciting thriller, the ultimate bleeding together of film noir and science fiction.
I won't go into huge detail about the plot; surely you know it, and if you don't you should see the movie before reading about it, especially in this case! So just some impressions: the 80 minutes of the running time fly by, but are enough to build a real sense of wrongness and unease, both at what is happening on the screen and at the safe, dull, suburban world these characters live in. The blandness of the pod people is JUST noticeable, much more subtle than in later versions; for the first half of the film, we really can't decide if something is actually happening, or if it's all a dream. The casting is excellent; the female characters don't have a lot to do, alas (certainly this is a pre-feminist vision of women in danger!) but Dana Wynter is certainly charming and easy on the eyes, and Kevin McCarthy really is perfect for the role of the competent, rational hero. The score by Carmen Dragon is entirely appropriate, exciting and keyed to the emotional pitch of the film without being too leading on its own. The vision of sprawling suburbia as a place of dullness - and ready conformity, with its Tiki-torches and swimming pools and secluded back yards - is a compelling one that would be revisited often in both science fiction and more dramatic stories in years to come.
And, as I mentioned above, this is almost as much noir as SF; the long alleys and shadowy, stark black and white photography, the characters on the run throughout, the ambiguous, still somewhat downbeat ending (even the studio addition doesn't ruin things as far as I'm concerned), the late betrayal of the hero by the one he trusted most....
Masterful, and my pick for the best science fiction film of the 1950s.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
|
Catch your breath while you can, this one's a runaway train.
Added 8/10/2009
The DVD transfers are very good remasters with both wide screen and full screen versions included in the package. (Watch the wide screen version).
From the opening scene with Dr. Miles Bennell (Kevin McCarthy) screaming, "You've got to believe me, I'm not insane" to the horrifying conclusion, this film wastes not a single frame away from the pace that never stops.
Dr. Bennell is finding that his patients are behaving strangely, they keep telling him that a loved one is no longer that person. Bennell is trying to be just a country doctor rekindling a spark with his high school sweetie, Becky Driscol (Dana Wynter) but the oddities continue and at an alarming rate. Good friend, Jack Belicec (King Donovan) calls the Doctor to come over and see what's he's got. It's a partially formed human body which looks a lot like Jack. Jack wife, Teddy (Carolyn Jones of TV's Adams Family fame) is hysterical over the situation. Even Becky's father (Kenneth Patterson) seems changed and he's placed another strange body resembling Becky in the basement of their home. Then we see the cause; giant seed pods opening to expose the lifelike contents, all growing to look like someone close by. Pretty soon, the whole town is changed with only the good doctor and Becky left to flee for their lives.
The gripping script (Daniel Mainwaring) was taken from a magazine serial by Jack Finney. Director Don Siegel's vision is close to perfection and the ensemble cast is excellent.
This "B" movie is too good to keep its "B". This is an "A". You know it's good when Hollywood keeps remaking it. The special effects are kept simple so they are believable. This film works as well today as it did in 1956 and it's much better than the remakes with bigger name stars (like Nicole Kidman
'Invasion of the Body Snatchers' is a classic Sci Fi and a must have for anyone collecting or interested in this genre of film.
Highest recommendation for: Sci Fi fans, suspense and thriller fans, Dana Wynter fans and anyone who wants to take a roller coaster ride while watching a film. A little parental guidance for kids under 8 is probably required.
2 out of 2 people found this helpful.
|
UNFORGETTABLE BABY-BOOMER SCI-FI/HORROR FLICK SIMPLY A CLASSIC!
Added 6/6/2009
INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS [1956], probably Don Siegel's best film, is simply what great movie-making is supposed to be all about. This is an enduring classic that has held strong against the onslaught of the 'in-your-face' gore & viscera cinema that has inundated our senses since Gerorge Romero popped up out of Pittsburgh in 1968. INVASION scared the living daylights out of me as a kid and continues to eerily unsettle me as an adult. This story is about seed pods that "come from the sky" . Once placed in proximity to a person they seem to imbibe that person's phenotype--minus their experiences and emotions--while the person sleeps. The result is that the pod basically 'gives birth' to an exact duplicate of the sleeping beauty minus the moxie, the mirth, the mojo. The real human is extirpated and the emotionally barren replacement--basically an alien--takes over. The new product has no need for love or procreation--not a nice thing. To all you new- generation folk who revel in the carnage of the 'Chainsaw/Hills Have Eyes/Hostel'-type features: your in for a disappointment, but your also in for a lession on the vanishing art of great movie-making. The latter made possible by great direction [those shots!], cinematography [those shadows!], writing [those lines!], and , most importantly, great acting by ALL involved. Devoid of heads flying around or plasma being spilled everywhere, this is an evocative, black-and-white, baby-boomer classic that many of us grew up with. The stark b & w aspect to this movie adds to the strange sense of detachment, alienation and isolation it evokes. The movie begins with Carmen Dragon's sudden-onset sinister score and a look at some clouds that is downright eerie and other-worldly. Your're then taken to a small town that resembles Mayberry complete with town Doc and everybody knowing everybody--pretty earthbound. Then the fun begins. A 'misbehaving' little boy who doesn't feel mom is same old mom. A neice who feels her Uncle is not her Uncle. And everybody with a gripe about things changing come to Doc, played wonderfly by Kevin McCarthy. That look on Virginia Christine's face when she describes how her Uncle Ira is NOT Uncle Ira is unsettling. These are the details that make this film so memorable over the years--the looks, the innuendoes. How about Larry Gates as the 'alienated' town psychiatrist trying to provide a glib and cogent explanation for the "hysteria" going around. Gates, an excellent, scene-stealing character actor who was awesome in the classic greenhouse scene in IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT [1967], was a great pick for this flick. His eyes and countenance alone bespeak of pomposity, deceit , aloofness--perfect for a superior alien. His voice makes you sit up straight in your seat, and has a sort of sinister quality. How about the scene in the bar when, after bar-owner & wife fall asleep, a featureless body that looks like the bar-owner shows up on a pool table then disappears. And the creepy, unconcerned tubby cop who pokes his head through the cellar window to report that the body was found burning in a haystack miles away. Doc, who has his hands full with questions and complaints, gradually begins to understand that something not of this earth is infesting the countryside. The scene where he suspects his girlfriend's [Becky, played by Dana Wynter] dad of not being her real dad [he's been working odd late hours in his cellar lately] and he decides to go down into his cellar is plain scary. He's just looking for hidden pods but those shadows, those steps, those storage bins down there... And how about that 'conceiving' pod ,out in the backyard, bursting out in foam and crud to expulse Doc's replacement. Geez, it's time to hit the caffeine and get out of town. As Doc & Becky flee we bump into Sam Peckinpah and truckloads of pods which are now being systematically distributed to neighboring towns and valleys. Gotta get to the big city now and warn the rest of the world that there seems to be a small problem. The chase scene is harrowing with interesting and atmospheric runs up a rural staircase and hiding under floorboards. Just the pace of the aliens running up those stairs and the sound of their footsteps as they hit the floorboards conveyed such a disturbing and nefarious sense of group urgency and desperation. The now classic scene where Doc leaves Becky for a moment only to return to awaken her--a great face-to-face closeup of Becky's stoic, alienized countenance and Doc's aghast look--still hits paydirt. Amazing what you can do with a low or modest budget, superb "on" acting and the right moviemakers. Nice how the film is narrated by Doc in retrospect to a group of ER docs who think he's loony only to have his veracity supported when a guy reporting an accident describes a victim found under "..some of the strangest things..looked like seed pods". The look of relief on McCarthy's face as the movie ends is memorable. Noteworthy how, back then, this film appeared to reflect America's tacit fear of change, fear of the atomic era, concern over whether aliens do exist [flying saucer craze], ambivalence regarding the slander and demagoguery of McCarthyism, maybe even worry over the inevitability of desegregation in some parts of the country. Call it the mid-late 50's "5-S" fears of suburbia/sirens/saucers/subversion/deSegregation. Interesting how Doc's emotionally sterile and lifeless aliens are probably caricatures of modern industrialized big-city folk who have become desensitized [dehumanized?] by long work hours, long commutes, the rat race, technology and cyberlife. After all, an astute sociologist did once say: man made the city, now the city is remaking man [citation to follow].
2 out of 2 people found this helpful.
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