Remakes

BBC Moviedrome - Invasion of the Body Snatchers 1978 - Introduced by Ale...

Here's Alex Cox [Music] foreign [Applause] [Music] 

'Invasion of The Body-Snatchers' is that rarest of things -- 

a remake that is as good as The Original Film. 

They've been countless lousy and incompetent remakes Stagecoach for instance or Father of the Bride sometimes they are so bad they have to be concealed under a different title the remake of out of the past was called Against All Odds offhand I can think of only one other instance in which a genuinely good remake was made and that was William freaking's wages of fear a truly inspired retelling of the French classic wages of fear was a great film based on a great film -- 

it was also a Monumental failure at the box office 

Invasion of the Body Snatchers is a good film based on a good film needless to say it made lots of money and made its director Philip Kaufman that equally rare thing an independent American filmmaker whom the studios considered bankable from Humble and intelligent Beginnings like the great Northfield Minnesota raid he went on to achieve Grand eloquence in the form of the right stuff and the unbearable lightness of Daniel Day-Lewis 

The original version of the Invasion of the Body Snatchers has been shown on Moviedrome. 

As the gentle viewer will no doubt recall made in 1955 it was a dark and Moody science fiction Thriller a bit intellectual and a tad more subtle than the radioactive Cloud that turns men into giant ants 50s Norm directed by Don Siegel was a parable of the encroachment of a dangerous alien Conformity upon a small California town at the time the great manufactured paranoia was communism and the film could be viewed as a warning against said political Doctrine or as a criticism of those who would suppress it at all costs

Communism remained the Great American fear through six presidencies justifying the enormous military expenditures of the Truman Eisenhower Kennedy Johnson Nixon and Ford years -- 

By 1978 Carter was President and the Red Menace didn't seem to tremendous anymore; in fact for a brief while it began to appear that The Menace might actually be domestic rather than foreign, hence the very different take of Philip Kaufman's film -- instead of a small town in northern California we're in San Francisco, a city filled with already threatening people and job descriptions. 

Long before the aliens show up in force it's obvious that something's wrong the post-vietnam post-watergate fear of big unseen power politics lurks at the edges of the film 

One of the symbols of lurking corporate encroachment in this version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers is this odd looking skyscraper a little like a stretched out version of the Masonic pyramid on the dollar bill --

It appears several times and all this manages to aggravate our sense of unease. 

Ironically or maybe not this building 

is called The TransAmerica Tower --

Transamerica being a massive corporation 

that owned among other assets 

United Artists the producer of this film.

atch out for Don Siegel playing a small role as a taxi driver and Kevin McCarthy star of the previous Body Snatchers reprising one of the scenes from the original film also be on the lookout for a five second appearance from Robert Duvall whose part is so small he doesn't receive a credit and Leonard Nimoy in a non-pointy-eared role Grateful Dead fans should prepare to enjoy Jerry Garcia on the banjo [Applause] [Music]