It begins!
Welcome back to another October run at the Third Row. As discussed last time, this year the series of choice is that evergreen (no pun intended) sci-fi thriller staple, the Body Snatchers series. Further, as the title suggests, we're kicking things off today with the one that started it all (cinematically, anyway. Regrettably I hadn't gotten around to tracking down the original novel in a timely fashion for this one.)
It had been years since I really sat down and gave this a proper watch. In fact, I think the last time I saw it in its entirety before this was back when I wrote about it for the '31 days, 31 horror movies' formula. I haven't actually looked back at that entry because I wanted to go into this just off of the current impressions.
There's a particular aspect of this movie I want to get into, as it was one thing that struck me more on this viewing than it has in the past. But before I really dig into that, I just want to sound off on the movie on its own merits first.
times over the years. And this is the first time in all
of that I've really actually thought about, and got,
the significance of that handprint on it.
Having said that, this is still a very strong movie in its own right. It's one that sometimes tends to get overlooked given how large a shadow is (deservedly) cast by its successor, but it is still a movie well worth seeing in its own right. Siegel's version plays itself as a bit more low-key compared to what comes later, partly the benefit that comes from being the first in line and not having an audience that has a sense of what to expect (and whether you've seen the movies or not, the idea of a pod person is now pretty common knowledge thanks to pop cultural osmosis.)
The one area where the version can be said to stumble on its own merits is with regards to the movie's book-ending – a decision mandated by the studios to give the movie a more definitive ending.
The first part isn't particularly troubling, for the larger movie – though, again, the knowledge it imbues the movie with does undercut the movie's slow reveal by giving you something to expect.
How about just a little tease of what's coming, huh?
Just a little to let the audience get interested?"
The bigger problem comes with the movie's epilogue, an ending that feels very tacked on to give the movie a happier conclusion. In adding this in, the studio's undercut the original ending scene, where an utterly terrified Kevin McCarthy (who has already given a good performance prior to this scene, but knocks it out of the park here) frantically tries to warn others of the invasion he knows is coming, ending on his haunted expression as he shouts, both to the drivers and the audience, “YOU'RE NEXT!" It's a genuinely great scene – and a good cap on McCarthy's performance – that loses a lot of its bite with the studio-mandated finale appending it.
If you only get to watching just one movie from this run, 78 is probably the best bet, but I'd be lying if I said 56 wasn't well worth your time just as a general watch (though again, feel free to consider skipping past the opening and ending – it won't be perfect as there is still narration, but you'll at least get the genuinely effective final scene as Siegel intended it.)
One of the more curious side effects I've accepted from living in 2020:
The realization that if I somehow travel backwards in time, this is
how I will probably come across to anyone I meet.
Before I conclude, there is one other thing I do want to go into – it's something that will be touched on with the other movies as well, but is of particular interest for me in the context of this first movie.
As I said last time, and alluded to above, Body Snatchers is a fascinating property because it's one that consistently speaks to the times it's made in. Even when all the versions have the same core concept, the differences in culture at the times of each new version give them an incredibly different feel.
This stands out even more given that this first attempt was a movie that was, as far as most of the people involved were concerned, apolitical. Per interviews with many of the people involved (among them McCarthy, movie's scriptwriter and the author of the original novel the movie was based on) they all simply saw this movie as being a straightforward sci-fi thriller with no real undertone to it.
Despite that intention, the movie was soon made into a rallying point by people on both sides of the political spectrum – with reads of the movie being both anti-Communist and anti-McCarthy in its presentation. Of the people involved in the making of the movie, director Don Siegel was the only person who really acknowledged a political factor going in – and even to hear him tell it, it was less a conscious effort, and more an acknowledgment that the paranoia sparked by Joe McCarthy's anti-Communist witch hunts was going to make its way into the film whether they wanted it to or not.
"It's...it's either reading Karl Marx or naming names to the HUAC.
Depends which the audience finds scarier, but it's one of the two!"
In an age where people have debated the idea of politics in pop culture and horror specifically (an oftentimes disingenuous argument that ignores the subtext of many earlier classics of the genre), the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers remains one of the more interesting examples to bring up – it wasn't designed to be political, but it became that way just by sparking the right ideas at the right time.
Ideas that, to the movie's credit, still resonate now (watching the scenes of Santa Mira's children talking about how their older relatives have changed but never quite being able to explain it has a certain extra degree of haunting familiarity after you hear enough stories of people who've become estranged from loved ones that went down the rabbit holes of pundits, conspiracy theories, or oftentimes both.)
Again, I will be the first to admit, the 1978 Body Snatchers will likely always remain the gold standard of this property. Having said that, I'm pleased to see that the 56 still carries itself well now and still manages to feel like it has something to say for itself even now.
Pretty impressive for a movie that didn't feel like it was trying to make a statement at the time.
So far, so good. And if you're not sick of me singing the praises of the remake, check back here soon when we jumped ahead to the Philip Kaufman movie that solidified this series as pop culture shorthand.
Till then, this is your resident huma—Guy in the Third Row reminding you to take care of your plants and get lots and lots of sleep.
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No reason. They just might like them.
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