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Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)

Director(s) Don Siegel
Producer(s)

No producer listed for this movie
Top Genres Film Adaptation, Horror, Science Fiction
Top Topics Aliens, Book-Based
More Films Directed by Don Siegel More Films from 1956 More Films from the 1950s Top Classic Movies of the 1950s Top Aliens Films

Invasion of the Body Snatchers Overview:

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) was a Horror - Science Fiction Film directed by Don Siegel .

SYNOPSIS

This is the height of paranoid science-fiction terror made at the height of McCarthy-era paranoia. A small-town doctor (McCarthy) becomes the last man with a conscience when pods from outer space begin to reproduce inside their human hosts, draining all humanity from them. When he gleans the truth, a race begins to get the word out before it's too late. Long seen as a parable about individuality and the danger of conformity and group-think. Breathless, suspenseful, and the best of its kind. Remade successfully in 1978. The laser release includes a wide-screen version, commentary, including an interview with director Siegel, and trailers. Based on the serialized story in Collier's magazine by Jack Finney.

(Source: available at Amazon AMC Classic Movie Companion).

Invasion of the Body Snatchers was inducted into the National Film Registry in 1994.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers BlogHub Articles:

Silver Screen Standards: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)

By Jennifer Garlen on Jun 8, 2023 From Classic Movie Hub Blog

Silver Screen Standards: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) Many remakes have followed in the wake of the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), the iconic science fiction film adapted from a serialized novel by American sci-fi writer Jack Finney, but the first outing for this terrify... Read full article

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956, Don Siegel)

By Andrew Wickliffe on May 6, 2019 From The Stop Button

The longest continuous stretch of Invasion of the Body Snatchers is about fifteen minutes (the film runs eighty). Small California city doctor Kevin McCarthy and his long-lost lady friend Dana Wynter have just spent the night holed up in his office, hiding from their neighbors, who have all been rep... Read full article

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956, Don Siegel)

By Andrew Wickliffe on May 6, 2019 From The Stop Button

The longest continuous stretch of Invasion of the Body Snatchers is about fifteen minutes (the film runs eighty). Small California city doctor Kevin McCarthy and his long-lost lady friend Dana Wynter have just spent the night holed up in his office, hiding from their neighbors, who have all been rep... Read full article

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956, Don Siegel)

on May 6, 2019 From The Stop Button

The longest continuous stretch of Invasion of the Body Snatchers is about fifteen minutes (the film runs eighty). Small California city doctor Kevin McCarthy and his long-lost lady friend Dana Wynter have just spent the night holed up in his office, hiding from their neighbors, who have all been rep... Read full article

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956, Don Siegel)

on May 6, 2019 From The Stop Button

The longest continuous stretch of Invasion of the Body Snatchers is about fifteen minutes (the film runs eighty). Small California city doctor Kevin McCarthy and his long-lost lady friend Dana Wynter have just spent the night holed up in his office, hiding from their neighbors, who have all been rep... Read full article

See More Invasion of the Body Snatchers Articles

Invasion of the Body Snatchers Quotes:

Wilma Lentz: There's no emotion. None. Just the pretense of it. The words, the gesture, the tone of voice, everything else is the same, but not the feeling.
Jack Belicec: Stop trying to rationalize everything, will ya? Let's face it, we have a mystery on our hands!
Dr. Dan 'Danny' Kauffman: Sure you have. A real one! Whose body was it, and where is it now? A completely normal mystery. Whatever it is, it's well within the bounds of human experience, and I don't think you ought to make any more of it.
Dr. Miles J. Bennell: Look, I wouldn't if I hadn't looked in Becky's cellar! How do you explain away the body I saw there?
Dr. Dan 'Danny' Kauffman: I don't think you saw one there.
Dr. Miles J. Bennell: You don't think I saw one here, either?
Dr. Dan 'Danny' Kauffman: I know you did because three others saw it too.
Dr. Miles J. Bennell: But I dreamed up the second one?
Dr. Dan 'Danny' Kauffman: Doctors can have hallucinations too.
Dr. Miles J. Bennell: And so I ran. I ran, I ran, I ran! I ran as little Jimmy Grimaldi ran the other day.
[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.
[last lines]
Dr. Hill: Get on your radios and sound an all points alarm. Block all highways, stop all traffic, and call every law enforcement agency in the state.
[on phone]
Dr. Hill: Operator, get me the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Yes, it's an emergency!
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Invasion of the Body Snatchers Facts
Throughout the years, Sam Peckinpah (who appears briefly in the film as the meter reader) claimed that he had done work on the script ranging from modifications to major overhauls. Those who worked on the film claimed that if Peckinpah had made any changes to the script, it was limited to a few lines of dialog. Peckinpah's claims became so inflated that the actual writer, Daniel Mainwaring, threatened to file an official complaint with the Writers Guild of America, so Peckinpah backed down. When Peckinpah died in 1984, many of his obituaries still carried the claim that he had rewritten the screenplay for this film.
Becky and Miles paraphrase Shakespeare twice. "I know a bank whereon the wild thyme blows, Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows" is from A Midsummer Night's Dream. "That way madness lies" is from King Lear.
The film originally ended with Miles J. Binnell on the highway shouting to the people driving by, "You're next, you're next!" However, the studio wanted a happier ending that would assure the audience that the hero's efforts were not in vain, so scenes were added to the opening to show Miles in a hospital recounting his story to two other doctors and to the end when the other doctors find out about the pods and one of them contacts the FBI.
Ranked #9 on the American Film Institute's list of the 10 greatest films in the genre "Sci-Fi" in June 2008.
Universal's UK DVD (824 346 1.11) comes with a choice of the original black and white or a colorized version. The black & white's running time is 1hr and 20 mins while the color version has an added five minutes to its running time.
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