Invasion of the Body Snatchers / Don Siegel (1956)
For two acts, over more than an hour, Invasion of the Body Snatchers shrinks. It gets smaller and smaller within the frame. Director Don Siegel and director of photography Ellsworth Fredericks use light to create a visual constraint around the main characters, boxing them in. Like a film noir, shadows draw shapes across the frame and cut hard across faces, showing people being boxed in, even when they may not be aware of it themselves.
The opening of the film is shot with the same lighting as a studio sitcom from the same era. (Think: Leave it to Beaver). The town of Santa Mira is depicted in bright, functional light. As the film progresses and the characters recognize the peril, the visual register shifts toward harder contrast and deeper shadow, especially at night.
But Siegel and Fredericks never overdo it. The town never gets gothic or sinister. It is taken over an inch at a time. At the beginning of the film, we're introduced to Dr. Miles J. Bennell (Kevin McCarthy) returning home from a business trip. He's getting calls concerned that his patients aren't quite themselves. They look fine, but they're emotional response and personality is dramatically dimmed.
He initially dismisses the calls, and sends a patient to a psychiatrist, who reaches Bennell's conclusion; it's some sort of mass hysteria and an overreaction. Over time we see what's going on.
##Spoilers for 70 year old Invasion of the Body Snatchers:##
Giant pods are growing exact replicas of Jack's patients and all the citizens of Santa Mira. And, it's suggested, far beyond.
I bet you knew that already.
The reveal and look of this discovery, or discoveries, over several scenes are very well done. The pods themselves appear mundane before it's clear what they are for. Large, oblong seed pods, slightly wet seated in greenhouses and gardens, looking almost like oversized vegetable growths.
Harmless until the pods split open to reveal what's within each pod. The doughy, indistinct, unformed mass that suggests a human shape without being anatomically specific. It's a blank. It has no clear facial features. Pale, waxy, half-congealed body still incubating. Fredericks uses focus and lighting very effectively to obscure what we want to see most and accomplishes what effects of the 1950s could not. The empty space and lack of definition is what is most disturbing, since the viewer's imagination fills in the blanks better than any effect actually of the time could.
The relationship between Dr. Bennell and his old flame, Becky Driscoll (Dana Wynter) plays as a subplot at first. There's a suggestion of something forbidden about their reconnection in the way that old flames can rekindle. Soon, as characters are replaced or disappear one by one, Miles and Becky appear to be the last couple standing. The last people trying to find out what is really going on.
The film has no jump scares. It is all suggested and carefully revealed to the viewer, one step at a time. Every decision of the production, many of which were likely responses to limitations of budget and effects capabilities create a surrounding feeling of unease. Nowhere in Santa Mira is safe. The theater (or your home, where I have watched) closes in the viewers and characters alike.
The mind is a strange and wonderful thing. I'm not sure it will ever be able to figure itself out. Everything else maybe, from the atom to the universe. Everything except itself.
The film is effective because viewers then and now relate to the idea that we can never truly know another person. We don't know what they are thinking. Where they've been. What their true motivation is. Usually, they're not an alien replacement grown in a pod. Like, hardly ever. Still, during the red scare and even in today's fragmented world, the idea that your friend or neighbor has some terrifying secret is not that far from your own mind.
Miles is presented as the classic 50's man. He won't be rattled by this nonsense. He'll keep his wits about him and rely on his medical training and his community to get to the bottom of this. Just as the shadows are deployed to suggest change, Miles character unravels scene to scene. He doesn't remain the stoic leading man. He gets increasingly freaked out, identifying with and signaling to the viewer, this is worse than you think. He is competent. He is trusted. He is terrified.
His final plea calls beyond the town. Beyond the cars on the freeway, suggesting the surrounding towns and country. He calls directly to camera, breaking the fourth wall, "You're next!"
Key scene
Spoilers below.
Becky's transformation. This scene hits like hammer. The film builds Becky as one of the survivors. A proto-final girl. Miles and Becky have the last human bond left in a town that has hollowed out. Becky briefly falls asleep during their escape. She doesn't wake up as herself. The change is up close and intimate. Miles kisses her. She stares blankly. The warmth is gone. This scene that removes the safety the viewer felt. No one in the story is safe. No one in this world. Not even the person you love most. Miles is truly alone. Wynter's acting is incredible here. Her character makes the shift from warm, and caring to a blank replica in the blink of an eye, without any effects work at all.
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