‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers’ 1956

 

“They’re here already! You’re next, you’re next… you’re next!”

This Invasion was the first and by far the best of the many versions of this familiar film story. The ’56 Invasion of the Body Snatchers is simply, but strongly told. And the Don Siegel-directed version holds up well, much like that other classic multi-layered paranoia thriller, 1951’s The Day the Earth Stood Still.

Dana Wynter's Becky looks like she's getting her brain washed!

***Subtle spoilers throughout!***

At 80 minutes and for less than a half a million dollars, Invasion of the Body Snatchers makes the most of its running time and low budget. Those involved in this Invasion of the Body Snatchers surely knew they were making more than a B horror film. But they could have no idea that this tale of a town taken over by “pod” people would become such a cult classic.

Dana Wynter & Kevin McCarthy's characters are now in the minority.

Despite varying opinions from the film’s participants, as to whether Body Snatchers was a commentary on the "commie scare," communism itself, or anti-conformism, this movie was made in a time when all this and more was going on in post-war America, and the world. The era most definitely informs the feeling of paranoia this film.

Don Siegel's no-nonsense direction may not be the most stylish, but it also doesn't date the movie, like some of the more heavy-handed directors of the era. The only real flaw of the film was the studio-mandated prologue and epilogue. The original ending depicted McCarthy’s Miles escaping from his hometown to a highway, running among disbelieving drivers as he shouts: “They’re here already! You’re next, you’re next… you’re next!”

Get your pods, right off the truck!

Like the same year’s The Bad Seed, which offered an equally absurd epilogue to show audiences it was “only” a movie, Body Snatchers’ studio suits decided it was too bleak an ending, so a call comes in to where Miles is being treated, and confirms his wild accusations. It nearly feels like a Dragnet parody.

The ‘50s “smart” romantic dialogue seems a spoof by today's standards, but was probably played straight at the time. However, there are some thoughtful, as well as chilling, quotes about humanity and giving up what makes us human.

One of several timeless lines from "Invasion of the Body Snatchers."

Kevin McCarthy is Dr. Miles J. Bennell, who offers this startling line: “I've seen how people have allowed their humanity to drain away. Only it happened slowly instead of all at once. They didn't seem to mind... All of us—a little bit—we harden our hearts, grow callous. Only when we have to fight to stay human do we realize how precious it is to us, how dear.”

Doesn't Kevin McCarthy look a bit like his pal Montgomery Clift here?

I grew up watching Kevin McCarthy play charming creeps, so to see him as the good guy fighting off the eerie pod people was a jolt. McCarthy is one of those actors who had a long career, often typecast as the oily villain, in film and television work of variable quality. Off-camera, the character actor had a fascinating personal life. At age 4, McCarthy lost both of his parents to the Spanish Flu epidemic, just before WWI ended. Kevin’s sister was novelist Mary McCarthy, author of The Group. McCarthy was a co-founder of The Actor’s Studio. For a number of years, Kevin’s best friend was Montgomery Clift, until the actor’s erratic behavior eroded their friendship. Kevin and Elizabeth Taylor climbed into Monty’s mangled car to help him the night of his life-changing car accident. He later reunited with Clift in the legendary The Misfits. Kevin’s breakout role was as Biff in the classic drama, Death of a Salesman. McCarthy loved acting and lived a long, happy life until the age of 96 in 2010. It’s interesting to watch McCarthy, who was in his early ‘40s in Body Snatchers, since he resembled a white bread version of his pal Monty. It was also a given that by this age, if Kevin was not established as a top leading man, he was going to be a character actor. And Kevin McCarthy did, for nearly 60 more years.

Dana Wynter as Becky shouldn't have fallen asleep!

Dana Wynter is perfectly cast as Miles fiancee, Becky Driscoll. Wynter always struck me as the brunette version of the Hitchcock blonde. Dana was usually cool (sometimes ice cold!), smart, classy, and understatedly sexy. Dana’s cool demeanor is unnerving at the film’s finale. I love Miles noir-like narration of the line: “I didn’t know the real meaning of fear until… until I had kissed Becky!”

 Off-camera, I always found it remarkable that Dana Wynter, a movie starlet turned TV actress, was the woman who landed Hollywood super lawyer and eternal bachelor Greg Bautzer for a husband. For decades, Bautzer was Tinseltown’s most eligible bachelor. Greg had romances with many top actresses, and two serious ones: Lana Turner, and most especially, Joan Crawford. "Uncle Greg" was immortalized in Mommie Dearest and the inspiration for Lyon Burke in Valley of the Dolls. Was it coincidence or clever that Anne, who is Lyon's love interest, was played by Barbara Parkins, who looked and acted a great deal like Dana Wynter?

Dana Wynter was married to
super lawyer/ladies man Greg Bautzer.

Barbara Parkin as Anne, who marries
her super lawyer Lyon in the "Dolls" novel.

Carolyn Jones is intense as the petrified friend who finds a pod growing of her husband. Her later role as the mock horror character Morticia Addams can make you forget what an edgy actress Jones could be. Her jittery performance was exactly how I felt watching this film! Given her early dramatic career and later cult status of The Addams Family, I think that Jones would have enjoyed renewed popularity if she hadn’t died so young of cancer, at 53 in ’83.

Carolyn Jones as a woman who finds she may have another husband in the hopper!

Larry Gates, that great character actor who could either be likeable (Martha Hyer’s charming professor father in Some Came Running) or loathsome (the bigot, Endicott, who gets slapped back In the Heat of the Night), gets to be both as Miles’ fellow doctor in Body Snatchers. His memorable line, as Dr. Kauffman: “Love, desire, ambition, faith –without them, life is so simple, believe me.” O-kay!

The ’56 version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers works stunningly as both a straight-forward suspense film and a chilling commentary on mass conformity.

My look at that other sci-fi classic with an underlying message, 1951's The Day the Earth Stood Still: https://ricksrealreel.blogspot.com/2020/06/dire-message-of-day-earth-stood-still.html

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Every era has its own nightmare, it seems!

Laura 1944

Gene Tierney's "Laura" and her men: Vincent Price, Clifton Webb, & Dana Andrews.

What is left to say about 1944’s Laura, one of the most celebrated film noirs? So much has been written, that I can only comment that Laura is one of my all-time favorite films, regardless of genre.

When I was younger, I found dark, nightmarish film noirs fascinating and very adult. As I’ve grown older, this genre usually grates on my nerves, especially those with stories that hinge on incredible coincidences or characters who seem to be telepathic. For instance, my eyes roll routinely if I catch The Postman Always Rings Twice, where Leon Ames’ D.A. is on to John Garfield and Lana Turner’s illicit lovers from the start—before they even consider wrong-doing! The same goes for Double Indemnity, when scheming couple Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanywck can’t catch a break with Fred’s insurance company boss Edward G. Robinson around.

Dana Andrews as the detective who seems to be love with a portrait of a dead woman.

For me, what makes Laura such a great film noir is not about the plotting and double-crossing, it’s about the mood and characters. Frankly, I never thought there was much mystery regarding Laura’s killer. While every character in the film is crazy about lovely Laura, you wonder what she sees in them—they’re mostly a pit of vipers.

'Laura' and the men in her life: the columnist, the playboy, and the detective!

The much-imitated story revolves around Laura Hunt and her social circle after it is thought she has been shot to death, right in her beautiful face. No-nonsense detective Mark McPherson is on the case and while sifting through the evidence and Laura’s life, becomes infatuated with her. There’s also a stunning portrait of Laura over her fireplace to inspire him. Mooning over the dead beauty while sorting through the case, he falls asleep at her apartment, only to be awakened by Laura, who isn’t dead after all. The murdered woman turns out to be a co-worker, with everyone a suspect—even Laura herself. The fun isn’t in the mystery, but the motives of each character, and the detective sizing them all up, to determine whodunit.

Clifton Webb in the role that made him a star, as the aptly named Waldo Lydecker.

Clifton Webb is routinely cited as stealing Laura. A former Broadway performer, Clifton created a classic character as catty columnist Waldo Lydecker, who’s obsessed with Laura. While Webb’s way with cutting comedic lines gets most of the praise, he also gives a great dramatic performance as the older man drawn to an ideal young woman, who knows that he can’t truly have. With Laura, the acidic, flamboyant Webb became an unlikely but big movie star, moving on to dramas like The Razor's Edge as well as the classic Mr. Belvedere comedies and the family favorite, Cheaper by the Dozen.

One of the great beauties of '40s films, Gene Tierney in literally her signature role as 'Laura.' 

Gene Tierney is usually touted for her great beauty, and rightly so. During her heyday, critics weren’t often kind, and a few felt that Tierney wasn’t all that Laura was touted to be, by the other characters. Gene wasn't as dynamic of an actress, as say, Vivien Leigh. Yet, Tierney radiated class and intelligence, something that studios went to great pains to give the illusion of in many of their actresses. However, like Leigh, Gene’s picture perfect, placid beauty had an undercurrent of emotional tension, which gave an extra dimension to her performances. Both actresses had turbulent personal lives and struggled with emotional illness, and worked hard to keep an even keel. I think Gene’s background and persona made her perfect as Laura Hunt. Consider that Hedy Lamarr was an early choice for Laura, and it’s easy to see how well Gene Tierney works in the role.

Vincent Price as the weak charmer, Shelby, the type of role that made him a character star instead of a matinee idol.

Vincent Price became typecast after co-starring as Gene's smarmy, slightly campy second-string love interest in both Laura and the next year in Leave Her to Heaven. Yet, Price plays the type so well! Vincent is sly and self-deprecating as boy toy Shelby Carpenter. And Judith Anderson is both sympathetic and sinister as Ann Treadwell, Laura’s aunt and rival for Price’s Shelby.

Dana Andrews is effortlessly natural as the street-smart detective Mark McPherson.

However, the unsung hero of Laura is Dana Andrews as detective Mark McPherson. Andrew’s gumshoe is street smart and tough, but with a tender side, which causes him to fall for Laura's bewitching portrait. Dana Andrews is a bit like Humphrey Bogart, but without the more obvious mannerisms. Andrews is the perfect every man in which audiences can view lovely Laura and her circle of friends. Amidst the movie’s intrigue and baroque characters, Andrews is the movie's rock.

Movie composer David Raskin wrote Laura’s theme, a recurring refrain throughout the film, and became justifiably famous. Later, lyrics later added by the great Johnny Mercer, and became even more popular.

Azadia Newman, wife of the original director of 'Laura,'
was a portrait painter. This was her take on Joan Crawford;
her portrait of Gene Tierney as Laura was not used!

This film is so smooth and near flawless, that it’s hard to fathom that Laura had such a fraught production. Fox’s head honcho Darryl F. Zanuck first refused to let Otto Preminger direct, but only produce. Rouben Mamoulian was brought in, but nobody was happy with his vision of Laura. So Rouben was given the boot, along with his painter wife Azadia Newman’s portrait of Laura. Even with Preminger now on board, Zanuck, a notoriously “hands on” mogul in more ways than one, called for a change in Laura’s ending. That is, until he showed it to columnist pal Walter Winchell, who basically commented, “Great picture, except for the ending!” I’m giving you the Reader’s Digest version, as my Mom likes to say, because the behind the scenes drama is a movie in itself.

Dana Wynter as Laura in '55's 'Portrait of Murder.'

This sublime slice of cinema was hilariously remade as a TV movie in the 1955. Robert Stack, with his glowering eyes and otherwise stony face, plays Dana Andrews’ detective role. The future Untouchables star only demonstrates how subtle Andrews was, compared to Stack, who always sounds like a morose radio announcer. Since this was 20^th Century Fox’s foray into television, who else but Fox contract player George Sanders would do as Waldo Lydecker, right? Sadly, Sanders is on acid-tongued autopilot here and the cartoonish script has his Lydecker getting decked by the detective. Dana Wynter, a pale substitute for Tierney as Laura, comes across like a prim secretary. And since this is ‘50s TV, there’s even a wise cracking kid, who was Laura’s smitten neighbor, and says things like, “Gee, why would anyone want to kill a swell girl like Laura?”

Robert Stack and George Sanders reprised their roles a dozen years later
in yet another TV remake with Lee Radziwill as 'Laura.'

Even stranger was another TV remake over a dozen years later, in ‘68. Aging Robert Stack and George Sanders were trotted out once again as the detective and the columnist, opposite Jackie O's sister, Lee Radziwill, as Laura. Lee was getting mentored by writer/society pal Truman Capote as an actress—I’m surprised Tru didn’t suggest himself as catty scribe Waldo Lydecker! The reviews were lethal and any copies of the production are now hard to come by.

Also, did you know there was a 1962 German TV version of Laura, with Hildegard Knef as Laura? You can watch it on YouTube.

Who remembers the Carol Burnett spoof, 'Flora?'

And TV fans, do you remember Carol Burnett’s spoof of Laura, called “Flora?” I only remember Vicki Lawrence as Bessie, the hysterical maid, and Steve Lawrence as the wisecracking detective. And I’m sure Harvey Korman played the imperious Waldo Lydecker. Does that leave Lyle Waggoner as Shelby Carpenter? I’d love to find this!

So, what do I love about Laura? That it gave Gene Tierney her signature role? That it made Clifton Webb a movie star at 55? That it makes audiences appreciate the naturalistic Dana Andrews even more today? That it has one of the loveliest movie themes ever? Laura is one of those rare films where all the elements come miraculously together, despite what was going on behind the camera, to create movie magic.

1944's 'Laura' all comes together in one lovely film noir.

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