INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (1956) - Kevin McCarthy vs aliens...

DIRECTED by Don Siegel.

SCREENPLAY by Daniel Mainwaring based on "The Body Snatchers" magazine serial by Jack Finney.

STARRING - Kevin McCarthy as Dr. Miles Bennell,  Dana Wynter as Becky Driscoll,  King Donovan as Jack Belicec,  Carolyn Jones as Theodora "Teddy" Belicec.

PLOT - Strange things are happening in the small Californian town of Santa Mira. Returning there after being away at a medical conference, town doctor Miles Bennell, finds that people are starting to act strangely. Children seem suddenly afraid of thier own parents, patients with long term medical ailments are suddenly fit and healthy, and most chillingly of all, there are some people in town who are claiming that thier closest relatives are not the people they appear to be. They are something different, something other...

To make matters worse, Miles's friend Jack has found the body of a man in his basement. A man with an unformed, incomplete face. A man who is slowly taking on the likeness of Jack himself...

Very soon, Miles, his girlfriend Becky and the Belicecs are in hiding in thier own town. For Santa Mira has been invaded by strange alien pods from outer space. Pods which hatch to produce perfect copies of the townsfolk, which in turn consume and replace the originals. The good people of Santa Mira are gone, replaced by a ruthless alien intelligence. Can Miles and Becky escape and warn the outside world of the alien menace that is festering unseen in the small town, or is it already too late ?

DIALOUGE  - Miles - "Look you fools, you're in danger ! Can't you see ? They're after you ! They're after all of us...our wives...our children...EVERYONE ! THEY'RE HERE ALREADY ! YOU'RE NEXT !!!"

PERFORMANCES  - This film contains what is probably one of the most iconic performances in the annals of 50's sci-fi cinema in the form of Kevin McCarthy as the films central protaganist - Dr Miles Bennell. McCarthy starts out as your usual calm, mannered, reassuring small town doctor. A homely presence in a homely town. As the story progresses he becomes increasingly crazed as his desperation grows. By the films end he appears to be a wild haired, sweaty, boggle eyed madman - standing in the middle of a busy highway, screaming at oncoming traffic, warning them of the enemy that is out there, closer than they think, waiting to claim them. It's not a subtle performance, but God does it work. McCarthy even went on to have a cameo in the film's 1978 remake - playing a mad eyed crazy man warning of an enemy from the stars...

Dana Wynter as Bennell's sweetheart Becky, has a pretty good onscreen chemistry with McCarthy but her best scenes are at the end when Becky is taken over by the pods. Gone is the sweet natured and friendly girl we've seen throughout the film. In her place is a cold eyed unsympathetic being. It truly brings home the existential, personal nature of the aliens plot against humanity.

I'm not quite sure what was going through King Donovan's mind as he was playing Jack though. It's not a bad performance, it's just that Jack seems really blasé about the astonishing events that are going on around him. For God's sake man, you've got an alien lifeform laid out on your pool table that is slowly taking on your form, at least seem slightly concerned about it. But no, Jack sits back, pours himself a Martini and acts like this sort of thing happens every day. He's apparently a writer of some sort, so this makes him supposedly more open minded than Miles. It's not Donovan's fault as this is just how the character is scripted (he's also pretty much the same in the original story), a man so laid back he's positively horizontal. I'm not sure, if you where in that situation, that you'd find Jack's presence reassuring or weather you'd want to slap some sense of urgency into him.

Carolyn Jones plays Jack's wife Theodora. She doesn't do much really except look horrified and scream. She's the near hysterical counterpoint to Jack's infuriating calmness. Well, they say opposites attract...

SFX - This being a film from the 50's there isn't a lot in the way of effects work, but what there is  works very well. The main effect is that of the pods themselves. They sit there disgorging these alien duplicates in a mass of saliva like foam. It reminds me a lot of 'Cuckoo Spit' that you get on leaves in Springtime, wherein lie nacent Froghopper insects. It looks both natural and somehow unnatural at the same time.

The half formed Pod People are a creepy little effect too. Clearly they are dummies in some shots, yet the half formed likenesses are recognisable. The plasticky look only adds to the sense of something that is manufactured and not real...

SEX & VIOLENCE - Miles skewers his Pod Person duplicate with a pitchfork at one point but that's about it. Most of the violence happens offscreen and is implied. The main point being - what exactly happens to the original humans after they have been duplicated, thier bodies are never seen. Do the Pod People eat them, or are they just dissolved in that mass of Cuckoo Spit ?...

RATING  - 'Invasion of The Body Snatchers' deserves it status in the pantheon of classic sci-fi movies. Whilst it's a bit slow moving in places, when it kicks into gear, it REALLY kicks into gear. The scenes of Miles and Becky being pursued by an entire townfull of alien duplicates are both unnerving and exciting, and Miles screaming on the highway to the oblivious motorists is both memorably harrowing and a deservedly iconic moment.

It's the ideas that the film gives you that will stay in your mind long after the film's final scene. That sense of unease that there could be something out there, that we could be replaced and not even know it, and what DID happen to those human host bodies ?

An existential nightmare and a classic of Cold War era paranoia - 5 alien pods out of 5.