INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS

   1) Film (1956). Allied Artists. Prod Walter Wanger. Dir Don Siegel, starring Kevin McCarthy, Dana Wynter, Carolyn Jones, King Donovan. Screenplay Daniel Mainwaring, Sam Peckinpah (uncredited), based on TheBody Snatchers (1955) by Jack FINNEY. 80 mins. B/w.

   PARANOIA was the dominant theme running through much sf cinema of the 1950s. Nowhere was it better realized than in this subtle and sophisticated movie, directed by B-film veteran Siegel, about vegetable pods from outer space that turninto emotionless replicas of human beings, in the process replacing the usually sleeping originals. Whether the film reflects right-wing paranoia about a secret takeover by communists or left-wing paranoia about the increasing power of the McCarthyists has been much argued; either way, the theme is loss of individual identity and of human feeling. The original downbeat ending, in which the pods are victorious, was diluted by the addition of a prologue and epilogue set in hospital, the latter showing the authorities finally believing in the existence of the pods. These scenes are often cut in modern prints. The film has been very highly praised: it is possibly the most discussed B-movie in the history of US film, and was the first of many 1950s sf films to be remade.

   2) Film (1978). Solofilm/United Artists. Dir Philip Kaufman, starring DonaldSutherland, Brooke Adams, Leonard Nimoy, Veronica Cartwright, Jeff Goldblum. Screenplay W.D. Richter, based on the Finney novel. 115 mins. Colour.

   This unusually interesting remake shifts the emphasis from political to sociological, from cohesive small town to alienating big city (San Francisco), where it is more difficult at the best of times to tellwho is a pod and who isn't, a point made by the psychiatrist (Nimoy). The script is witty, making satirical points about Californian society in the late 1970s, so intent upon development and change that becoming a pod is almost a logical next step. Kaufman's direction is confident, but sometimes too ominous.

   PN

   3) A second remake was BODY SNATCHERS (1993), (which see).

   See also: CINEMA; INVASION; MONSTER MOVIES.