Science Fiction Week Day 4
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)
Remembrance of Viewings Past: First saw on television sometime in the 70’s. Have seen a couple of times since.
After viewing: I’m still a fan of the story, the major flaw in the '1956 version being the unnecessary prologue and epilogue that the studio added to the story. But this was more than a movie of pod people taking over. The author and filmmaker clearly wanted use this story of as metaphor against Communism, McCarthyism and other Totalitarian regimes.
In fact, on the CD I’m listening too there is a quote from the son of Invasion of the Body Snatchers director Don Siegel. I will transcribe it now:
“They were looking at this movie with Fresh eyes. They were bringing all this other stuff to it. Like it was a statement against McCarthyism and other people would say it’s a statement against Communism. But Siegel said that ‘none of that was in my head. That’s all in their imaginations. All I was trying to do was make and interesting scary, movie.’”
As I was saying, Invasion of the Body Snatchers is…an interesting and scary movie that people may at times read a little too much into.
For what it's worth, the audio book version of this is fantastic, and is read by Don Siegel's son. The audio version ends with his remembering his father's time on the set.
ReplyDeleteI didn't mention it, but I also like the 1978 version of Body Snatchers as well. And that one has a great ending!
ReplyDeleteone of my all-time favourites – the 70s version is also good, the 90s one interesting, and the one from 2007 as yet unseen
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