During my many decades—or is that centuries?—living on this planet I have encountered a number of people who’ve shared the same childhood nightmare. In it, they awaken one morning to discover that their mother is not their mother, or their favorite uncle is no longer their uncle…or sister, or father, or whomever. More than likely these folks, as kids, saw the same movie—the 1956 classic sci-fi thriller, Invasion of the Body Snatchers. (See my post, “They’re Here Already!”) Or perhaps the excellent 1978 remake of the same name. (See my post, “Is ‘Outstanding Remake’ An Oxymoron?”)
Both these films, plus two subsequent ones in 1993 and 2007, have their origins in a novel titled, The Body Snatchers, by Jack Finney. First published in 1954 in serial form by Collier’s magazine, the story came out in book form a year later, and a revised edition appeared in 1978, likely to coincide with the release of the second movie. Though panned by critics of the day, the story had enough chops to spawn adaptations as much as half a century later.
DID ANY OF THE FILMS ECHO THE NOVEL?
Fans of the 1956 version, which starred Kevin McCarthy and Dana Wynter, would find the novel quite familiar, the others, not so much. The film’s setting is different—the fictional Santa Mira, near L.A., replaces the real Mill Valley, north of San Francisco, though both represent Small Town U.S.A. Otherwise, we have town doctor Miles Bennell approached by old flame Becky Driscoll, whose cousin, Wilma Lentz, has a delusion that her Uncle Ira is not her Uncle Ira, and a boy who says his mother is not his mother, and so on. Miles’s friends, mystery writer Jack Belicec and his wife, find an “unfinished” body on their pool table, and ultimately they join Miles and Becky in trying to learn what is happening in Mill Valley.
There are minor differences throughout, as one would expect. The more significant ones occur in 1) the explanation by “pod person” Dr. Kaufman as to who/what these aliens actually are, and 2) the ending. In fact, counting the novel and the four films, there are five different endings. I’ll talk about that shortly.
HOW DID EARTH GET SO LUCKY?
In the novel, Kaufman and another pod person, Budlong, explain how these alien organisms—“seeds,” to simplify things—left a dying planet to drift through space for millions of years, occasionally taking root upon planets that had life. For adaptability and survival they took on all of the characteristics of their hosts, duplicating them down to the last molecule while they slept, then turning their bodies into “gray fluff,” or dust. They would drain each planet of its resources before moving on. Now, it was Earth’s turn, its destiny for everyone to be transformed into emotionless pod people, to simply—survive.
BUT—that’s a big but—because these aliens cannot duplicate reproduction, their time on our world is limited. In about five years they will have drained this planet of everything before moving on, leaving another dead world behind. Holy crap, Miles and Becky think.
The 1956 film did not go this far. It sounded like the pod people would go on living their ordinary lives indefinitely, with no love, no hate, no wars—no joy. That was enough for the screen Miles and Becky to try and stay awake forever.
DUST TO DUST
Yes, and speaking of “dust to dust,” I always wondered why, in the 1956 movie, we never saw what happened to the original body after the alien took over. The book does mention that, once drained of everything, the body becomes a pile of gray fluff, or dust, and can be disposed of easily. Given the nature of Hollywood censorship back in the day, they might’ve thought such a scene might prove too gross.
But that sure as heck didn’t stop the filmmakers in the 1978 version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, or the next remake in 1993, simply titled, Body Snatchers. In each, the newly formed pod person is shown the next day standing at the curb with a small trash bag, waiting for a garbage truck that inevitably shows up. And both films ultimately show the bodies disintegrating after the transformation—seriously shocking in 1978, even more gross but commonplace by 1993.
THE ENDINGS
I’ll call a spoiler alert here, just in case you want to explore any of this on your own. In the novel, to state it simply we could say, EARTH 7, ALIENS 0. Earlier, Miles told Becky they might try to reach Highway 101 and warn motorists that the aliens are here, but he then figures that people will think they’re nuts. (Sounds a bit like the 1956 film, no?) Instead, they flee into the hills around Mill Valley, and when they see pods growing in farmers’ fields they set fire to as many as they can. Resistance is probably futile, they figure, but they’re not going down without a fight.
Well, resistance is NOT futile, because no one has ever stood up to the aliens before, and they decide to hit the space trail. As Miles and Becky watch, thousands of pods rise in the sky. The remaining pod people, confined to Mill Valley, die off in five years or less. Bottom line: everything is back to normal, thanks to good old American grit.
In the 1956 film, the original screenplay had Miles reaching the highway (Becky has become a pod person) and shouting his warning, a crazed look on his face. No one believes him; uh-oh, the Earth is doomed. Thinking this too negative, the studio had the filmmakers add a prologue and epilogue, so that once they finally believe Miles’s story a call goes out to local and state law enforcement, and the military, to stop the threat. We don’t see the results, but bottom line, the ending is—hopeful.
Not so the 1978 version, which takes place on a much larger stage: San Francisco. Dr. Matthew Bennell (Donald Sutherland) has escaped throngs of pod people, has seen pods loaded onto ships to be sent all around the world, and has watched his girlfriend crumble into dust as her naked double appears. I won’t say exactly how it ends (it’s awesome), but the bottom line is, the Earth is fucked!
The low-budget, 1993 Body Snatchers did poorly at the box office but garnered some decent reviews. Its setting is an Alabama military base, and none of the characters have names similar to any of those in the novel or first two films. In fact, the main protagonist, Marti, is a teenaged girl. But there are still pods, and gross transformations, and pod people. As Marti and helicopter pilot Tim, the last humans standing, escape the base, take out a few truckloads of pods, and try to land at another base, a voiceover tells us, “Where you gonna go, where you gonna run, where you gonna hide? Nowhere…’cause there’s no one like you left.” Bottom line: the Earth is doubly fucked!
ODD FILM OUT?
The 2007 film, The Invasion, starring Nicole Kidman, was the last remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Tell the truth, it was not a remake at all. Okay, some of the names are the same: Kidman plays Dr. Carol Bennell, Daniel Craig is Ben Driscoll, the Belicecs are a couple of European diplomats, and a woman named Wendy Lenk (Remember Wilma Lentz?) is the first to say that her husband is not her husband. But that’s where the similarities end.
This time, the alien organism is a fungus that reaches Earth when a space shuttle explodes upon re-entry. It changes people, makes them emotionless, but it does not duplicate the body and destroy the original. Carol Bennell of the CDC spends most of the film running from the zoned-out people and trying to reach her young son, who had a brain-related illness and is immune to the takeover. The aliens, who have witnessed the violence on our world and want to do away with it, would “eliminate” all those with the immunity. Carol saves her son and helps prepare a vaccine to reverse the alien virus. Everyone is cured, and they remember nothing. Bottom line: life on violent Earth goes on; business as usual. Boring.
The Invasion bombed at the box office, and the reviews were brutal. But I found it watchable, especially since Nicole Kidman is on-screen for almost all of its ninety-nine minutes.
So are we done with all of the film adaptations of Jack Finney’s slim sci-fi novel? I would not hazard a guess, given Hollywood’s penchant for beating a good idea to death. Don’t wait around to find out. READ THE BOOK.