Hail and Happy (Belated) Birthday to the King :: Presley Punches-Out Prejudice on the Prairie in Don Siegel's Flaming Star (1960)

Nope. I didn’t forget. Always late, but never delinquent: that's my personal finance motto and, turns out, that epitaph also works for terminally late film reviews, too. For it’s that time of year again, where we celebrate my man Elvis Presley’s birthday by throwing one of his fine fractured forays into feature film into the old Bluray player and enjoy the cinematic equivalent of a grilled peanut butter, bacon, and 'nanner sammich. And this year, we’re gonna head out west, where Presley stretches his legs a bit in Flaming Star (1960).

This tragic (and slightly convoluted) tale of an uncivil war that rips a frontier family apart begins with two sons -- half-brothers, returning home to a darkened cabin. And while Clint and Pacer Burton (Forrest, Presley) have pistols at the ready, turns out this greeting of silence was on purpose so those inside, family and friends, could surprise them with a birthday party for older brother Clint. And while the party appears jovial and everyone seems to be having a good time, things take an uncomfortable turn over slices of cake when a backdoor racial slur in the guise of a genuine -- if patronizing, complement is used on the culinary skills of the Burton boy’s mother, Neddy (Del Rio).

Now, as I mentioned earlier, Clint and Pacer are half-brothers. Seems after Clint’s mother died, their father, Sam Burton (McIntire), took a Kiowa woman for a second wife. And while their relationship began over a trade of tobacco and gunpowder to her father for her, over the last twenty years, love has blossomed and bore much fruit for Sam and Neddy, including a second son, Pacer, a fairly successful spread, a sizeable cattle herd, and a relatively peaceful life in the rapidly settling Texas frontier of the late 1880s. And so, aside from a few ignorant comments, prejudice hasn’t been too much of an issue for the Burtons since they’ve settled down. And when it does, both Neddy and Pacer take the hits in solemn silence until the conversation moves on. But make no mistake, these accumulated hits are starting to take a toll on the both of them.

Thus, the Burtons straddle a line between two worlds, belonging not really to either but maintain a peaceful relationship with both the settlers and the natives -- at least they were until the new chief of the Kiowa, Buffalo Horn (Acosta), sick of his people’s land being encroached upon, goes on the warpath and starts massacring several settlements in an effort to drive these encroachers out, including a group of revelers who returned home from the Burton’s party just in time to be butchered and burned alive most horrifically. And to continue this action, the chief needs more braves and efforts to get Pacer to join them, promising him no harm will come to his family if he joins up -- stress on the "if."

And with that, with suspicions aroused by the Burton homestead being spared while all those around them were burned to the ground, and everyone on the prod on both sides, the Burtons -- especially Pacer, are put between a rock and a hard place when asked to swear allegiance to one side or the other. For if they side with the settlers, the Kiowa will wipe them out. And if they side with the Kiowa, the other settlers will have no choice but to consider them hostile and kill them, too. And after a failed attempt to remain neutral, which results in most of their herd being killed or run off, a series of tragic incidents while trying to find a peaceful resolution will force the Burton boys to finally pick a side in this rapidly deteriorating no-win situation...

Back in 1958, 20th Century Fox optioned the rights to author Clair Huffaker’s novel, Flaming Lance; a tale of frontier prejudice in the same vein as Alan Le May’s The Searchers and The Unforgiven. To adapt it to the big screen, the studio turned it over to producer Buddy Adler and director Nunnally Johnson, who helped Huffaker adapt his book into a screenplay under the working title Black Star -- in reference to a Kiowa superstition of recognizing one’s own impending death in the constellations above. In these early stages, Johnson had eyes on Marlon Brando for the role of Pacer and Frank Sinatra for older brother Clint. But several production snags soon followed, resulting in an almost complete turnover in front of and behind the camera.

Sadly, producer Adler unexpectedly died from complications of lung cancer before filming commenced; and so Fox Studios turned the property over to David Weisbart. Around the same time, Johnson also left the project after completing the screenplay for reasons that weren’t very clear. Weisbart, meanwhile, who had cast James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause (1955), saw something similar in Elvis Presley’s performance in Love Me Tender (1956); a raw, untapped potential as an actor just waiting for the proper vehicle to exploit it. More of that potential appeared in King Creole (1958); a near breakout performance but, alas, would be Presley’s last picture before being inducted into the army, which, alas again, kinda stalled Presley’s acting career, damaging this momentum permanently if I’m being honest.

Still, despite the heavy drama elements, King Creole was another backdoor musical -- something that sorely chafed the wannabe actor. And then, when Presley’s hitch was up he returned to Hollywood and the big screen with G.I. Blues (1960); another full-blown raucous musical hootenanny. Seems Presley had been reluctant to do G.I. Blues, feeling he was ready to try something with a little more weight to it. Weisbart agreed; and so, Brando was out and Presley was in. To replace Johnson, Weisbart wanted Michael Curtiz, who had directed Presley in King Creole, and who was supposed to direct G.I. Blues only to be replaced by Norman Taurog due to his own health issues. These same issues would prevent Curtiz from doing the since rechristened Flaming Star as well; and so, Weisbart tapped Don Siegel to sit in the director’s chair.

Weisbart, Parker, Presley, Siegel. 

Siegel’s Hollywood career began in the mid-1930s, where he worked as an editor -- contributing some dazzling montage sequences in things like Blues in the Night (1941) Casablanca (1942) and Now, Voyager (1942). He also served as second-unit director on things ranging from Sergeant York (1941) to All the King's Men (1949), and won two Academy Awards for the short films Hitler Lives (1945) and Star in the Night (1945). Then, it was off to the B-Units in the 1950s, where he churned out rock-solid efforts no matter the genre; be it western -- The Duel at Silver Creek (1952), Edge of Eternity (1959), hard-boiled action -- Riot in Cell Block 11 (1954), The Lineup (1958), film noir -- The Verdict (1946), The Big Steal (1949), and even sci-fi with the seminal tale of alien invaders and red-hot paranoia, Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956).

And while Flaming Star would essentially be Siegel’s first A-picture, it would be far from his last; later teaming up with Clint Eastwood for a series of box-office adventures with Coogan's Bluff (1968), Two Mules for Sister Sara (1970), and Dirty Harry (1971). Strangely enough, Siegel had already directed a musical vehicle for one of Presley's pop-star clones, Fabian (Forte), with Hound-Dog Man (1959) for Fox, who were looking to cash-in on both Presley’s popularity and Disney’s Old Yeller (1957) -- both based on books by Fred Gipson. But despite this ersatz dry-run, turns out Siegel wasn’t quite ready for Presley -- or more to the point, the circus that followed him around wherever he went, directed by the ever present ringleader and head clown -- sorry, “technical advisor," Col. Tom Parker.

As the story goes, during the subsequent production, Presley mistook Siegel’s distaste for his rambunctious entourage and all their distractions [the practical jokes, the constant games of football, Parker’s constant meddling] as a dislike for him personally, feeling Siegel thought of him as nothing more than a hick and rube, which frustrated the performer to no end despite Weisbart’s assurances to the contrary. And so frustrated did Presley get he decided to play up the perceived offending behavior and passive/aggressively stick it to his director a little bit, too, insisting Siegel drive this country-bumpkin’s brand new Rolls-Royce for the duration of the shoot.

Despite this acrimony, Siegel and Presley did agree on a few things; namely axing the majority of the planned musical numbers. At the star’s insistence, over the protests of Parker, there are only two songs in Flaming Star: the title ballad and "A Cane and a High Starched Collar" -- which Pacer strums and sings as a serenade to his brother and his sweetheart, Roslyn Pierce (Eden), at the birthday party. Thus and so, all of the music is wrapped-up in the first four minutes of the film, which seems appropriate given that after these first four minutes there isn’t a whole lot to sing and be happy about -- and could even be considered a tad distasteful and extremely inappropriate given the tenor and levels of Siegel’s signature viciousness and violence during the escalating Kiowa attacks that follow. (The first one’s a real ass-puckering doozy.)

Test audiences agreed, which is why a third song, "Summer Kisses, Winter Tears," sung while Neddy visits the Kiowa village to try but ultimately fail to get the tribal elders to rein in Buffalo Horn, complete with accompanying braves happily beating on some tom-toms, was laughed off the screen. And rightfully so. Another song, “Britches," meant to be sung as a commentary on his girlfriend’s wardrobe while Clint and Pacer ride into town, was recorded for the soundtrack but was never staged or filmed.

As it stands then, funnily enough, one could read Flaming Star as another polemic by Siegel on the scourge of McCarthyism, using race instead of alien assimilation to draw the line between “us” and “them”. Here, the Burtons have no answer to the hate and fear-fueled “you’re either for us or against us” ultimatums of allegiance from both sides. Unfortunately, Siegel lays this on a little thick as an interesting premise soon gets hung-up on a very convoluted plot to resolve it with about two too many unnecessary subplots -- looking at you, grab-fanny trappers, and you, kidnapping the town doctor’s daughter to blackmail him into giving medical treatment to Neddy after she is accidentally shot by a lone survivor of the opening massacre, who had been wandering the wilderness for days, when the other townsfolk won’t let him go.

And strangely enough, the film contrives to absolve everyone of their culpability and guilt as both the death of Neddy and Sam are, essentially, accidental, which only makes the bloodshed that follows worse. (Neddy succumbs to her wounds, Sam is killed by a band of renegades looking to join up with Buffalo Horn, not knowing he was under the chief’s protection at the time.) And so, with one parent killed by the settlers and another by the Kiowa, Clint and Pacer finally choose and wind up on opposite sides of this battle. But when a distraught Clint tries to avenge his father, taking out Buffalo Horn, he is gravely wounded. Pacer, who had been riding with the Kiowa, and unaware of what happened to his father, helps his brother narrowly escape and takes him back to the family cabin -- now dark and empty for real in an eerie callback to the opening sequence. And when Clint reveals what happened to their father, Pacer lashes his brother to a horse and aims him for town, staying behind to hold the trailing Kiowa off long enough for him to escape.

Come the dawn, Clint awakens in town, bandaged-up and alive thanks to Roslyn. Knowing his brother needs him, despite his injuries, Clint goes in search of a horse but stops when he and the others spy a lone rider headed into town. It’s Pacer, mortally wounded, who conveys the Kiowa war party will no longer be a problem because he’s killed them all. (Strangely off-screen.) Of course, they’ve also killed him. And while Clint offers to get him some help, Pacer declines, saying he’s seen the flaming star that foretold his death -- just like his mother had, tells his brother not to follow, and then rides off into the wilderness to fulfill his destiny alone.

Unlike Le May’s books or their film adaptation -- The Searchers (1956), The Unforgiven (1960), there is no happy resolution or easy answers to be found in Flaming Star. And while it is a bit of a mess, one thing I can definitely say about Flaming Star is this: it isn’t predictable. From the get go, the star essentially plays the second banana and yet the film is completely dedicated to making the movie about him. I also half-expected a love triangle between Clint, Pacer and Roslyn that, thankfully, never really materialized.

And while on that subject, one of the more interesting tidbits unearthed while doing research on this movie was how Barbara Eden came to be involved in the first place -- make that, second place. Seems Eden was a last second replacement for none other than Barbara Steele. Seems the British actresses’ contract was recently sold to Fox by the Rank Organization because they didn’t know how to use her. Turns out Fox really didn’t know what to do with her either but made all sorts of efforts to mold Steele into some kind of clone of Janet Leigh, including making her a blonde. Flaming Star was meant to be Steele’s first film for Fox, but then, according to which story you believe, Weisbart felt her accent was too pronounced and replaced her; or, she was taller than Presley and that couldn't stand; or, she had a terrible fight with Siegel that got her kicked off the picture and fired from the studio; or, the woman hated where she was, just panicked, and fled -- and fled all the way to Italy, where Mario Bava was waiting to make La maschera del demonio a/k/a, Black Sunday (1960). Thus and so, a true Queen of Horror was born thanks to the tumultuous production of Flaming Star. And for that, Boils and Ghouls, I know I will always be eternally grateful. Wow.

As for our leading man, though the script does him no favors and a few Elvis-isms still leaked through (-- I mean, the whole tiger speech, really?), I think Presley really tapped into something here -- especially with Pacer’s defining “man without a country” character arc. For, despite his entourage and popularity, as the old saying goes, it’s lonely at the top because there is no one who can relate to someone whose popularity is so molten hot it’s impossible to touch let alone comprehend. 

And so, it’s easy to draw a line between Presley the entertainer -- a former dirt-poor hillbilly turned megastar, who doesn’t quite fit in anywhere, not belonging to his new social stratus and unable to return to his old, and Pacer the half-breed. No one understands them but their respective mamas, and once they’re gone, so is their moral compass. They are lost, full of anguish, and lonely, with nowhere to go and no one to relate to, no one to confide in, and the only outlet left is to lash out and engage in some pretty self-destructive behavior. And this, this connection, is why I think Flaming Star and Pacer Burnton is often singled out as one of Presley’s finest and most affecting performances.

Siegel, of course, tries to focus this internal conflict, but doesn’t make it easy as he shows us both sides of this debacle -- something he would later abandon with his other anti-heroes. And so, there really are no bad guys in this film -- or good guys either. Everyone does wrong and makes terrible choices no matter how right the motivation. But Presley is helped out immensely by a supporting cast of rock-solid character actors. Steve Forrest never quite reached the heights of his brother, Dana Andrews, but he knew what he’s doing and doesn’t seem to mind letting his co-star take the spotlight -- though by all rights he deserved a little more screen-time. In fact, everyone could’ve used a little more fleshing out, but I’m sure Parker was pressing to keep things focused on his boy. 

Thus, the only other real standout is Dolores del Rio, who nearly steals the movie out from under Parker's ever meddling nose. Also littering the cast and elevating things considerably are John McIntire (-- love the scene between him and Presley, when the father says he’ll still love him not matter what choice he makes), Karl Swenson, Rodolfo Acosta, Richard Jaeckel and L.Q. Jones.

Thus and so, in Flaming Star, Elvis doesn’t really sing, he doesn’t get the girl, and he essentially dies at the end. And while Presley thought this would be a first step toward more serious and straight roles, his fans weren’t all that enamored with this somber and downbeat movie. The film was released only one month after G.I.Blues, which was the second highest grossing film of 1960 while Flaming Star didn’t even crack the top ten. And then, when Wild in the Country (1961) also failed to impress fans or critics, Col. Parker used these back to back box-office disappointments to convince Presley audiences didn’t want to see him act as another character, they wanted to see him be Elvis Presley.

This, of course, led to the Action-Man phase of Presley’s film career, where he basically played himself as a racecar driver, a stuntman, or a deep sea diver (-- all you had to do was change the accessories and move him into a different playset), and a return to the musical slapstick formula, beginning with Blue Hawaii (1961) and Kid Galahad (1962). And from there, the precedent was pretty much set for the rest of his film career and, for better or worse, Presley’s notion of being a serious actor were over and done -- like a flaming star falling out of the sky. See what I did there?

Flaming Star (1960) 20th Century Fox / P: David Weisbart / D: Don Siegel / W: Nunnally Johnson, Clair Huffaker (novel) / C: Charles G. Clarke / E: Hugh S. Fowler / M: Cyril J. Mockridge / S: Elvis Presley, Barbara Eden, Steve Forrest, Dolores del Rio, John McIntire, Rodolfo Acosta

The Celluloid Zeroes Proudly Present: The Political-Science Fiction Roundtable :: Who Do You Trust in Don Siegel's Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)

Cutting short his stay at a medical conference, Dr. Miles Bennell (McCarthy) heads back to the sleepy southern California town of Santa Mira, where his practice has been so suddenly inundated with insistently frantic patients his nurse, Sally Withers (Wiles), was forced to call him home early. But when Bennell checks in he’s told almost all of those patients have since cancelled their appointments. This sacrifice wasn’t a total loss, however, when one of those appointments that bothers to show up turns out to be Becky Driscoll (Wynter), Bennell’s old high school sweetheart. And as the flickering flame of romance quickly rekindles between these two, Becky reveals she’s come for some advice about her cousin, Wilma (Christine). Seems she’s become convinced their Uncle Ira, isn’t really her uncle any more.

Now, this man, this Ira, may look like Ira, he may sound like Ira, and he sure does act like Ira, but Wilma cannot be convinced otherwise: there’s just something off about him, she insists; and so, whoever that is it definitely is NOT her uncle. And since this is out of his bailiwick, all Bennell can do is refer Wilma on to see a psychiatrist friend of his, a Dr. Dan Kauffman (Gates). And that would seem to be the end of that, except Bennell’s next patient is a hysterical young boy, who is also convinced his mother isn’t his real mom anymore and fears he’s going to be “gotten” and replaced, too. But replaced by what? That, the child cannot answer but his fear is palpable.

Brought in by his concerned grandmother, and thinking he’s got a burgeoning case of mass-psychosis on his hands, Bennell consults with Kauffman, who confirms he has been swamped with similar cases as Santa Mira has been seemingly overrun with paranoid folks claiming someone close to them has been replaced with an insidious doppelganger. Convinced by Kauffman this delusional neurosis is nothing to worry about and will eventually play itself out, Bennell suggests the boy spend the night with the grandmother. And if the hysterics continue, they will contact his parents and look into it further tomorrow.

As for that night, Dr. Bennell has got himself a date with Becky. Both are surprised to find the most popular nightclub in town nearly empty, the owner saying business has gotten so bad lately he’s had to let the house band go. But they only get as far as ordering drinks before Bennell gets a message from his answering service, relaying that another close friend needs an urgent house call. And so, the couple head to the home of Jack and Theodora “Teddy” Belichick (Donovan, Jones), where they are led into the basement and presented with a startling sight: a dead body laid out on the pool table.

Well, at least it appears to be a body as on closer examination the corpse is more like a featureless template of a man -- it even lacks fingerprints. However, it being a small town and all and full of free-flowing gossip, they’re all fully aware of the epidemic of alleged duplicates, which is why Teddy is convinced by the general build this “thing” was meant to replace her husband.

So now they have definitive proof that something screwy is going on, and Bennell concludes this unsettling interlude by telling the Belicheck’s to keep an eye on the body while he takes Becky home with a promise to bring the authorities back in the morning. But things get even more sinister long before the sun rises as the frantic Belichek's rush into Bennell's house, saying the blank changed while they were asleep and is now a perfect duplicate of him -- right down to the sustained cut on his hand, suffered AFTER they had initially discovered the body! (Love that bit when its eyes open.) And then something hits Bennell right in the gut. Something Becky had said when he dropped her off, how her father hadn’t been himself lately either.

And so, he hustles over to the Driscoll house and checks the cellar, where her father has been spending odd hours doing secretive things, and sure enough, he finds a near exact duplicate of Becky! But by the time they call in the authorities, including Dr. Kauffman, both bodies have mysteriously disappeared. And with no concrete evidence, the police quickly write them off and Dr. Kauffman once more calmly and coolly and logically convinces them they’re all suffering from some kind of mass hysteria or auto-suggestion; there were no bodies, he says, they only imagined it; and this notion that the entire town is being invaded, replicated and repopulated by a horde of cold and emotionless automatons just isn’t possible. Only they aren’t imagining it, the town really is being invaded and replaced by duplicates, with no way out, with no way of knowing who to trust, and with no way to tell who’s been converted to the other side and who hasn’t...

When film critics and historians talk about the allegorical Red Scares and the Horrors of Communism of 1950s era science fiction films, Don Siegel’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) is usually Exhibit A. Based on a story by Jack Finney that first saw print as a three part serial in Collier’s Magazine, which ran from November through December in 1954 as The Body Snatchers, producer Walter Wanger was so impressed he began negotiations for the movie rights after only reading part one.

And while the film itself can be interpreted or dissected on many allegorical levels, with some calling the vegetative assimilation plot acutely anti-Communist, while others see it as a not so thinly veiled poke in the eye at Red-baiting McCarthyism in general -- hell, there’s even an argument to be made the film is pro-McCarthy as their really was something under the bed in the cellar all along, making the resulting hysteria and finger-pointing of our protagonists justified, this was apparently not the intention of the original author, the film’s producer, the director, or the adapting screenwriter, who all intended it as a pure thriller and nothing else. And though I find that hard to buy, let us sift through the evidence.

Alien invaders who assimilate and infiltrate was nothing new in the 1950s. In It Came from Outer Space (1953) the xenomorphs were just hiding in plain sight; in Invaders from Mars (1953) the Martians were infiltrating their way to world conquest; but as written Invasion of the Body Snatchers was less about insidious motives and more about happenstance and collateral damage as the Earth fell victim to the natural order of an alien spore’s life-cycle, which blew from planet to planet on cosmic winds, assimilating planetary ecosystems until they were dry (a five year cycle) and then the plant-people seed-out and die, leaving both a dead world behind and their expunged spore to find the next host world to latch onto.

Here, these parasitic vegetables mimic their human hosts while they sleep, absorbing memories and character traits. Once the cycle is complete, the host body disintegrates, leaving the duplicate to take over without the need for emotions or individuality. And I think that’s one of the main points Finney tries to get across: humankind’s penchant for callously using up resources, wiping out indigenous populations and destroying the planet with nary a second thought. We are them, and they are us.

There’s also plenty of non-political metaphors at work like the obvious fight to hold onto one’s humanity. And as the 1950s progressed, before Rock ‘n' Roll knocked it on its ass, America was drinking the Kool-Aid of push-button technology and cultural homogenization, with everything pre-fab and cookie-cutter neat, resulting in a definite loss of self -- or as the psychologist says in the film when he makes his pitch to let go, give in, and "abdicate from human responsibility in an increasingly complex and confusing modern world."

At least that’s what director Siegel claims he latched onto, saying, “People are pods. Many of my associates are certainly pods. They have no feelings. They exist, breathe, sleep … It just happens to leave you in a very dull world but that, by the way, is the world that most of us live in. It's the same as people who welcome going into the army or prison. There's regimentation, a lack of having to make up your mind, face decisions. People are becoming vegetables. I don't know what the answer is except an awareness of it. That's what makes a picture like Invasion of the Body Snatchers important."

Siegel also stated the political inferences to Senator McCarthy’s witch-hunt and totalitarianism were inescapable but he tried not to emphasize this, not wanting to get too preachy. In fact, the director had intentionally added a lot of humor to help defuse some of the film’s heavier elements and scares. “I felt that pods growing into a likeness of a person would strike the characters as preposterous,” Siegel said. “I wanted to play it that way, with the characters not taking the threat seriously."

However, the brass at Allied Artists were not amused, laying down an edict that there was no room for humor in a horror film and axed all the comedy bits out. (Though I do find the pod props themselves rather comical -- that is until they start to hatch.) I do find it interesting that the last two surviving humans in Santa Mira are the two recent divorcees, whose previous marriages were both train-wrecks, and what little humor remains in the film is their all too brief courtship, punctuated by their passionate kisses that would come into play again during the harrowing climax.

From the beginning of the film, the viewer gets a sense something’s not quite right in Santa Mira with plenty of hints and clues that said the invasion wasn’t coming but already here and, in a sense, the war was already lost. And as all of those who insisted someone had been replaced keep happily recanting, Bennell can’t seem to quite put it all together -- at least in time to do anything about it.

For as a cookout with him, Becky, Jack, and Teddy is ruined by the gruesome discovery of four half-gestated pods hatching out in a nearby greenhouse, all attempts to contact the authorities outside the city limits are thwarted by the Snatchers, whatever they may be. And after disposing of the duplicates with a pitchfork, Bennell and Becky stay behind as bait, hoping to give their friends the distraction they need to flee Santa Mira and bring back help.

But the Belichick's never make it and are turned, leaving only Bennell and Becky. (The scene where he checks in on nurse Sally, only to see she’s turned and is putting a pod in her toddler’s playpen, saying there will be no more tears, will send chills up your spine.) Then, through pluck and some luck, the couple manage to make out of the city limits and take refuge in an abandoned mine, where they must hide until the pursuing army of pod people move on. 

At this point, Dexedrine boosters or not, the lack of sleep is definitely catching up with our two heroes. And when they hear some music, thinking there might be someone else left, Miles leaves Becky behind to investigate. He traces the music to an arriving truck at a massive greenhouse that is surrounded by even more trucks -- trucks ready to transport more pods to the surrounding communities. And when the driver disappears, so does the music.

Knowing their only chance to stop this invasion is to make it to the main highway on foot and then Los Angeles, Miles heads back to the mine to collect an exhausted Becky, who appears to be on the verge of falling asleep. Working quickly, Miles grabs her and tries to bring her around with the kiss heard round the world, which proves Becky wasn’t about to fall asleep but new Becky was just waking up.

All alone, a frantic and distraught Miles once more evades capture and makes it to the highway, where he bounces from car to car like a lunatic, desperately trying to warn the other passing motorists of what is happening and who will be next to seemingly deaf ears!

In Finney’s novel the invading aliens are beaten back, with Bennell and friends leading the charge, burning greenhouses full of pods, which convince the Snatchers to bug-out early and look for less resistant and belligerent hosts elsewhere. In the original cut of the film, Siegel ended it right there on the highway, with Bennell seeing several trucks full of pods heading to parts unknown, with his desperate, maniacal pleas for help ignored completely until he breaks down the fourth wall and impeaches the audience, saying we will be the next to go. Here, the studio stepped in again after a couple of disastrous early screenings and demanded a new wraparound segment to lighten things up a bit, where Bennell is able to convince the authorities of what is happening, who make moves to stop the invasion. No guarantee of victory, mind you, but a little more optimistic.

Siegel and screenwriter Daniel Mainwaring were more satisfied by the pessimistic ending and felt the film was nearly ruined by all of Allied Artists’ dickering. Wanger was also very much against the changes, but in order to protect the film he managed to convince both men to write and shoot the new prologue and epilogue -- because if they didn’t do it, the studio probably would have found someone else who would.

With the shooting title of The Body Snatchers the film was shot in-and-around Sierra Madre, California, over the course of 23 days with a budget of $350,000. Not wanting any confusion between their film and the old Val Lewton thriller, The Body Snatcher (1945), the studio tried They Came from Another World but that didn’t stick. Siegel suggested they change the title to Sleep No More or Better Off Dead but the studio finally went with the more exploitable Invasion of the Body Snatchers. 

Originally, Wanger wanted more bankable stars, too, eyeballing the likes of Dick Powell, Joseph Cotten, Donna Reed and Vera Miles for the romantic leads but a last minute budget cut meant the roles went to two relative newcomers, Kevin McCarthy and Dana Wynter, who kind of come off as Rob and Lora Petrie, adding even more frisson to my eyes. (Sharp eyes will also spot future director Sam Peckinpah as a meter-reader.)

And while the story itself holds up remarkably well, it’s the work of Siegel and cinematographer Ellsworth Fredericks that really gives this film its lasting legs. Shot with a solid noir flare and a claustrophobic mentality, with stark lighting, crazy quilt shadows and a constant sense of eternal blackness invading the screen, this movie hits the ground at a sprint and never really slows down, giving it a clipped, documentary type feel -- especially when you add Bennell’s constant narration, which makes the film come off as one of those anti-Communist docudramas of the same era. (The constantly sounding sirens and the meeting in town square to organize the spread of pods is right out of Red Nightmare.) And all the while they impend the dread and ratchet-up the paranoia and tension, with startling bursts of creepy, eerie, and the brazenly bizarre. (The scene where the prongs of the pitchfork hovers and lingers over the newborn pods is just downright disturbing.) And with no humorous reprieve or outlet, having been axed out, there is no room to catch a breath.

As Michael Dodd of The Missing Slate put it so beautifully: “[The film is] one of the most multifaceted horror films ever made … simultaneously exploiting the contemporary fear of infiltration by undesirable elements as well as a burgeoning concern over homeland totalitarianism in the wake of Senator Joseph McCarthy's notorious Communist witch hunt, it may be the clearest window into the American psyche that horror cinema has ever provided.” 

You never really know how precious your humanity is until you have to fight to keep it, says this movie. And 2016 marks the 60th anniversary of Invasion of the Body Snatchers and lo these many decades later the film still resonates and the main reason why is because those damnable pods and the resulting dehumanization are so open to drawing infinite parallels and multiple interpretations, be it political, zealot or heathen, making it timeless and ever relevant. I mean, just sub in Libtard or Republikant for Commies and Commie-Baiters and there ya go and here we are. 

That’s right, We were next all along.

This post is part of The Celluloid Zeroes' Political-Science Fiction Roundtable, where you, me, all of us try to survive the crucible of this dastardly election day. So please feel free to check out these other entries, please and thank you: Checkpoint Telstar takes a look at The Paralax View ::  Web of the Big Damned Spider gives A Report on the Party and Guests :: The Terrible Claw Reviews drops a bomb on Shin Godzilla :: Psychoplasmics gets caught up in The Mist.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) Walter Wanger Productions :: Allied Artists / P: Walter Mirisch, Walter Wanger / D: Don Siegel / W: Daniel Mainwaring, Jack Finney (novel) / C: Ellsworth Fredericks / E: Robert S. Eisen / M: Carmen Dragon / S: Kevin McCarthy, Dana Wynter, Larry Gates, King Donovan, Carolyn Jones, Jean Willes