Invasion of the Body Snatchers
Short description
In 1970s San Francisco, a biologist named Elizabeth Driscoll notices that her boyfriend has begun acting like a stranger. When she raises her concerns with a friend at the Department of Health, Matthew Bennell, she learns that other people in the city are reporting the same change in those close to them. Strange flowers have appeared across San Francisco following a heavy rain, and the people who fall asleep near them wake up altered, emptied of feeling and no longer themselves. Matthew and Elizabeth, joined by a writer and his wife, gradually work out what is happening and try to survive as the phenomenon spreads through the city.
Philip Kaufman directed the film, the second feature in his directing career after The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid, working from a screenplay by W.D. Richter and produced by Robert H. Solo. Donald Sutherland and Brooke Adams lead the cast as Matthew and Elizabeth, with Leonard Nimoy, Jeff Goldblum, Veronica Cartwright and Art Hindle among the thirty-five credited performers. Made for 4 million dollars, it took about 25 million worldwide.
Reception places it well above the average for its genre. On IMDb it holds 7.4 out of 10 across roughly 81,000 votes, and on TMDB 7.2 from a much smaller base of 1,396. A critics' rating of 8.4 from 76 reviews is markedly higher than both audience scores.
What's left behind the scenes
- During the filming of the scene where Matthew and Elizabeth are fleeing, Donald Sutherland was hit by a Volkswagen. He fell onto the windshield and managed to lip-read something like “Oh my god, who did I hit!” from the frightened driver.
- Leonard Nimoy wore a leather half-glove to make his character more recognizable. Nimoy borrowed this idea from a friend who wore a half-glove to conceal a burn on his hand.
- During the filming of the taxi scene, Donald Sutherland and Brooke Adams were genuinely nervous and on edge. Don Siegel, who had very poor eyesight and was driving without glasses through the night city, was at the wheel.
- Among the sounds that sound designer Ben Burtt used in the rapid pod growth scene were sounds recorded during his wife’s ultrasound during her pregnancy.
- The night after the film's release, unknown individuals scattered pods resembling those featured in the film throughout the streets of Los Angeles. Many people were frightened and called the police the next morning.
- Only the director Philip Kaufman, screenwriter W.D. Richter, and Donald Sutherland knew how the film would end. Veronique Cartright was not told that Sutherland’s character would also be captured and turned into an alien. The actress’s fear was genuine during the filming of the finale when Sutherland pointed at her.
- In the climactic scenes of the film, Donald Sutherland performed the stunts himself, as he insisted. His scenes at the factory were filmed without safety nets or harnesses. During the filming of the scene in which a fireball bursts from the factory building, Sutherland barely dodged it, while one of the extras was injured by the explosion due to his own carelessness.
- Robert Duvall had previously worked with director Phillip Kaufman on the western “The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid.” During the filming of that movie, he happened to be in San Francisco and played the role of a mad priest in a cameo appearance for free.
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