Invasion of the Body Snatchers is a 1956 American black-and-white science fiction film shot and told in Film Noir style, produced by Walter Wanger, directed by Don Siegel, and starring Kevin McCarthy and Dana Wynter. The film was released through Allied Artists Picture Corporation. Daniel Mainwaring adapted the screenplay from Jack Finney's science fiction novel The Body Snatchers (1954).[2]
The story depicts an extraterrestrial invasion that begins in the fictional California town of Santa Mira. Alien plant spores have fallen from space and grown into large seed pods, each one capable of reproducing a duplicate replacement copy of each human. As each pod reaches full development, it assimilates the physical characteristics, memories, and personalities of each sleeping person placed near it; these duplicates, however, are devoid of all human emotion. Little by little, a local doctor uncovers this "quiet" invasion and attempts to stop it.
The slang expression "pod people" that arose in late 20th Century American culture references the emotionless duplicates seen in the film.[2]
In 1994 Invasion of the Body Snatchers was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.