MAGNET contributing writer Jud Cost is sharing some of the wealth of classic films he’s been lucky enough to see over the past 40 years. Trolling the backwaters of cinema, he has worked up a list of more than 500 titles—from the silent era through the ’90s—that you may have missed. A new selection, all currently available on DVD, appears every week.
Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (1955, 80 minutes)
It’s not much of a stretch to see parallels between 1955 science-fiction classic Invasion Of The Body Snatchers and the rampant paranoia, a few years earlier, of those who felt a “Communist menace” had America in its death-grip. Instead of “a Red under every bed,” a shibboleth of Senator Joe McCarthy during his brief reign of terror, the Body Snatchers cast found a large pod—every bit as treacherous.
A wailing sheriff’s squad car brings a doctor to the emergency hospital of Santa Mira, a small town in southern California. As the doctor enters he hears the screams of a patient: “Will you let me go while there’s still time? Make them listen to me before it’s too late!” “I’ll listen to you. Let him go,” says the newly arrived doctor. “I’m Dr. Hill from the State Mental Hospital,” he tells the agitated patient. “I’m not insane!” insists the restrained man. “I’m a doctor, too.”
Persuaded to tell his story, Dr. Miles Bennell (Kevin McCarthy) takes a deep breath and begins his tale. “It started last Thursday. I’d hurried home from a medical convention because of a message from my nurse that something was wrong. At first glance, everything looked the same. But it wasn’t. Something had happened to this town.”
Dr. Bennell tells of slamming on his brakes to keep from hitting a young boy darting out into a country lane. “Come back here, Jimmy!” shouts his grandma, running after him. That afternoon, the sobbing boy is brought into Bennell’s office. “You’ve got to be more careful, Jimmy,” warns the doctor. “I almost ran you down this morning. School isn’t that bad,” he comforts. “School doesn’t upset him,” says his grandmother. “It’s my daughter-in-law. He’s got this crazy idea she isn’t his mother.” Jimmy cries out, “She isn’t! She isn’t! Don’t let her get me!”
At the request of old flame Becky Driscoll (the gorgeous Dana Wynter), Bennell visits Wilma Lentz (Virginia Christine), who has an unusual complaint. “Let’s have it. What do you think?” asks Wilma. “It’s him. He’s your uncle Ira, all right,” assesses Bennell, as uncle Ira mows the front lawn. “He is not,” states Wilma firmly. “How’s he different?” asks Bennell. “That’s just it. There is no difference you can actually see,” says Wilma. “He looks, acts and remembers things just like uncle Ira would. But there’s something missing. Always when he talked to me, there was a special look in his eye. That look’s gone. There’s no emotion, none, just the pretense of it. He’s not my uncle Ira!”
“In the back of my mind a warning bell was ringing,” Bennell tells the psychiatrist in the emergency room. “A boy who said his mother wasn’t his mother. A woman who said her uncle wasn’t her uncle. But I didn’t listen.”
