Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)
Synopsis: A small-town doctor learns that the population of his community is being replaced by emotionless alien duplicates.
Dr. Miles Bennell returns to his hometown, Santa Mira, California, to find that many of his patients are suffering from a mysterious but similar malady. They are coming to him insisting that family members and loved ones are impersonators, devoid of emotion, and not the people they used to know. Miles at first tends to believe a fellow psychiatrist’s diagnosis that it’s all a case of mass hysteria. But after discovering a half-formed replica of his friend Jack, and later giant seed pods in his greenhouse, Miles and his girlfriend Becky confront their worst fears – that these mysterious pods are in fact replacing the humans of the town when they sleep. In the midst of the invasion, Miles and Becky try to escape and warn the authorities.
Director: Don Siegel
Producer: Walter Wanger
Writer: Daniel Mainwaring, from the novel “The Body Snatchers” by Jack Finney
Cinematography: Ellsworth Fredericks
Editing: Robert S. Eisen
Production Design: Ted Haworth
Original Music: Carmen Dragon
Cast: Kevin McCarthy (Miles Bennell), Dana Wynter (Becky Driscoll), King Donovan (Jack Belicec), Carolyn Jones (Teddy Belicec), Larry Gates (Dr. Dan Kauffman).
BW-80m.
