n ominous boiling cloudscape fills the screen as the credits roll, informing us that this picture is
derived from "a serial in Collier's magazine by Jack Finney." Then we are plunged into a world gone disturbingly awry. Dr. Miles Bennell (Kevin McCarthy) is being held at a hospital by the police as doctors strive to determine whether he's crazy or not. A detective appears to question him, launching us into the extended flashback with occasional voice-over that forms the main narrative.
Dr. Bennell, returning to his hometown of Santa Mira, finds a disturbing pattern of behavior proliferating. People complain that those nearest and dearest to them are being replaced by imposters. But then, just as oddly, they will insist a day or two later that nothing's wrong. Bennell attributes this to some kind of modern psychosis brought on by anxiety over current world events—until his friends Jack (King Donovan) and Teddy (Carolyn Jones) Belicec drag the doctor away from a date with his old flame, Becky Driscoll (Dana Wynter), to view an odd corpse.
This half-formed body resembles Jack, and Bennell is puzzled but agrees not to call the police. Leaving the Belicecs to monitor the body, Bennell brings Becky home. Later that night he receives a wild visit from the Belicecs: the corpse has stirred into life and is definitely intended to replace Jack. Alarmed intuitively for Becky, Bennell races to her house, finds her duplicate growing in the basement and rescues her.
Now begins a desperate attempt to determine the exact nature of events and convince the authorities of the dangers represented by these "pod people." But the authorities are surprisingly nonchalant about the invasion. When Bennell, Becky and the Belicecs discover four pod duplicates of themselves growing in Bennell's greenhouse, the outlines of the plot and the conspiracy of at least some of the townspeople hit them fully. The Belicecs race away to summon out-of-town help, while Bennell and Becky remain behind to stall pursuit.
But soon the pair in Santa Mira are the object of a manhunt by the substitute citizens. Taking refuge in Bennell's office, they pass a sleepless night, but in the morning are discovered. They frustrate an attempt to grow pods for them and flee town on foot. Hiding in an abandoned mineshaft, they plan their exhausted escape. But in a moment of separation, Becky falls asleep and succumbs to takeover. Now alone, Bennell finally achieves the security of a busy highway. He attempts to solicit help from passing motorists, but is rebuffed. We surmise that Bennell is taken into custody, and his narrative rejoins the moments that opened the film. Having now listened to his full story, the detective and medical men still remain doubtful of Bennell's sanity. But reports of a fortuitous auto accident involving a shipment of pods galvanizes them into believing him and launching countermeasures to isolate Santa Mira, as we fade out on Bennell's relieved but emotionally wracked face.
Better pod than Red
Viewing Siegel's taut, atmospheric film in the new century has the effect of completely undercutting old theories about it being a parable of Communist takeover of America. Perhaps it's just that with
global Communism waning, such readings no longer sound as convincing or imperative as they once did. But
certainly anyone seeing this film for the first time in the current geopolitical-cultural-environmental climate will no longer immediately leap upon the "Red under the bed" interpretation. Other readings—certainly always there, albeit overlooked—seem paramount.
First off, we must acknowledge Body Snatchers as a noir masterpiece. Its shadowy black-and-white cinematography by Ellsworth Fredericks and its shrieking brass-and-strings score by Carmen Dragon would have served just as well for any script by, say, John D. MacDonald or Jim Thompson. In fact, Body Snatchers might be noir carried to the logical extreme. True, there are no lowlifes or hard dames or bribery in this film. Yet there is murder aplenty (the death of each individual as his or her pod duplicate takes over). And we face the ultimate in corruption, noir's major theme. After all, not only are a few cops and politicians "crooked," but every single citizen as well.
Then there's the environmental aspect. Until one of the pod people informs Bennell that the invaders have arrived as seeds from space (and why should this necessarily be the truth?), Bennell tends to believe they're a natural menace, some animal or plant transformed by atomic radiation. As Gaia's revenge on mankind for devastating the earth, the pods make more sense today than ever.
Finally, the theme of a wrongfully abandoned holistic secular humanism must be acknowledged. (Note
that religion plays no role at all in this film; there are no appeals to God, no preachers or ministers
apparent.) Bennell, as a doctor, a scientist, is also a person of deep feelings. (McCarthy's unconventionally handsome face is a perfect vehicle for a wide range of emotions, from mild bachelor lust to terror and dismay.) Thus he unites heart and mind, soul and intelligence, the ideal of the mid-century responsible citizen. But those who have "let their humanity drain away, slowly, not all at once" bear their share of responsibility for the ongoing tragedy, almost as if they have psychically invited the pods to Earth, to fill the vacuum in their consumerist, isolationist lives.
Visually, this film is beautifully composed, with unforgettable scenes such as the assembly of the pod people in the town square to receive more pods for dispersal, and the discovery of the pods in the
greenhouse, all seething with alien vitality. (True, some plot holes remain, such as how Becky was so
quickly replaced, even in the absence of a pod.) And the minimal SFX are testament to just how cleverly science fiction can be conveyed without zillion-dollar budgets. The symbolical moments are pure mature genius as well: Jack's pod duplicate resting on a home pool table, that archetypical Eisenhower-era recreational device. Bennell forced to pitchfork himself as pod (killing the evil in himself for the good to flourish). The way Bennell and Becky have to bury themselves in the mineshaft to escape detection. The famous highway scene, Bennell shouting for help in traffic, where that 1950s miracle, the interstate freeway system, becomes simultaneously a refuge and a kingdom of speed and blind obliviousness.
