Invasion of the Body Snatchers is a 1956 American science-fiction horror film produced by Walter Wanger, directed by Don Siegel, and starring Kevin McCarthy and Dana Wynter.

Alien plant spores have fallen from space and grown into large seed pods, each one capable of producing a visually identical copy of a human.

[2] Invasion of the Body Snatchers was selected in 1994 for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.

Bennell tries to make a call to authorities, but the operator claims that all lines are busy and he cannot be put through, so Jack and Teddy drive off to seek help in the next town over.

Jack Finney's novel ends with the extraterrestrials, who have a lifespan of no more than five years, leaving Earth after they realize that humans are offering strong resistance, despite having little reasonable chance against the alien invasion.

[8] Originally, producer Wanger and Siegel wanted to film Invasion of the Body Snatchers on location in Mill Valley, California, the town just north of San Francisco, that Jack Finney described in his novel.

[6] In the first week of January 1955, Siegel, Wanger, and screenwriter Daniel Mainwaring visited Finney to talk about the film version and to look at Mill Valley.

Additional photography took place in September 1955, filming a frame story on which the studio had insisted (see Original intended ending).

Siegel objected to this title and suggested two alternatives, Better Off Dead and Sleep No More, while Wanger offered Evil in the Night and World in Danger.

[9] The film was released at the time in France under the mistranslated title L'invasion des profanateurs de sépultures (literally: Invasion of the defilers of tombs), which remains unchanged today.

Superscope was a post-production laboratory process designed to create an anamorphic print from nonanamorphic source material that would be projected at an aspect ratio of 2.00:1.

[11] The studio, wary of a pessimistic conclusion, insisted on adding a prologue and epilogue suggesting a more optimistic outcome to the story, leading to the flashback framing.

In this version, the film begins with Bennell in custody in a hospital emergency ward, telling a consulting psychiatrist (Whit Bissell) his story.

[17] Although most reviewers disliked it, George Turner (in American Cinematographer)[18] and Danny Peary (in Cult Movies)[19] endorsed the subsequently added frame story.

"[24] Danny Peary in Cult Movies pointed out that the studio-mandated addition of the framing story had changed the film's stance from anti-McCarthyite to anti-communist.

[19] Michael Dodd of The Missing Slate has called the movie "one of the most multifaceted horror films ever made," arguing that by "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.

[28] In his autobiography, I Thought We Were Making Movies, Not History, Walter Mirisch writes: "People began to read meanings into pictures that were never intended.

From personal knowledge, neither Walter Wanger nor Don Siegel, who directed it, nor Dan Mainwaring, who wrote the script nor original author Jack Finney, nor myself, saw it as anything other than a thriller, pure and simple.

"[29] Don Siegel spoke more openly of an existing allegorical subtext, but denied a strictly political point of view: "[...] I felt that this was a very important story.

[...] The political reference to Senator McCarthy and totalitarianism was inescapable but I tried not to emphasize it because I feel that motion pictures are primarily to entertain and I did not want to preach.

"[30] Film scholar J.P. Telotte wrote that Siegel intended for pods to be seductive; their spokesperson, a psychiatrist, was chosen to provide an authoritative voice that would appeal to the desire to "abdicate from human responsibility in an increasingly complex and confusing modern world.

The site's consensus reads: "One of the best political allegories of the 1950s, Invasion of the Body Snatchers is an efficient, chilling blend of sci-fi and horror.

[36] Invasion of the Body Snatchers was selected in 1994 for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

This version, under the title L'Invasione degli Ultracorpi, contained many special features, including an interview with lead actor Kevin McCarthy and the 1957 Studio One episode entitled "The Night America Trembled", an unreleased filmed reconstruction of the famous Orson Welles radio transmission "War of the Worlds", starring Ed Asner, James Coburn, and Warren Beatty.

Several thematically related works followed Finney's 1955 novel The Body Snatchers, including Val Guest's Quatermass 2 and Gene Fowler's I Married a Monster from Outer Space.

The adaptation was directed by Greg Ford and places Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd, Yosemite Sam, and Porky Pig in the various roles of the story.

The May 1981 issue of National Lampoon featured a parody titled "Invasion of the Money Snatchers"; the gentile population of Whiteville is taken over by pastrami sandwiches from outer space and turned into Jews.

In the episode, as Pearl, Brain Guy, and Professor Bobo are out camping, they end up discovering flowers that they nickname "Zucchini Throw Pillows" which are actually Body Snatcher Aliens in disguise.

They end up getting sent to the Satellite of Love along with the titular movie, causing Pearl, Brain Guy, and all the Bots (except Mike and Bobo) to become affected.

Halloween III: Season of the Witch, a 1982 film with similar themes involving androids, is also largely set in a California town named Santa Mira.