FILM · 1956 · USA
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
- Directed by
- Don Siegel
- Runtime
- 80 min
- Studio
- Allied Artists Pictures, Walter Wanger Productions
89 archived facts 5 topics 1 source Last reviewed Nov 2026
A small-town doctor learns that the population of his community is being replaced by emotionless alien duplicates.
89 Interesting Facts About Invasion of the Body Snatchers
Interesting Facts (15)
- #001
Production designer Ted Haworth devised a fairly simple and inexpensive approach to creating the pods, costing about $30,000 in total (roughly $364,000 in 2026). The hardest part was having the compartments burst open to reveal the doubles of the actors. The actors had to be encased in thin, skin-tough latex impressions of their naked bodies. Making the casts, which involved being submerged in very hot casting material with only a straw in the mouth to breathe through, was difficult for the actors, especially the claustrophobic Carolyn Jones. Dana Wynter recalled: "I was in this thing while it was hardening, and of course it got quite hot! I was breathing through straws or something quite strange, and the rest of me was enclosed, like a sarcophagus. The men who made it tapped lightly on the back of the thing and said, 'Dana, listen, we won't be long, we're going out to lunch [laughs]!' In the end we had to be covered except for just the nostrils and, I think, a small opening for the mouth as well."
- #002
During its initial release, the papier-mâché pods were displayed in theater lobbies, along with black-and-white stills of Kevin McCarthy and Dana Wynter fleeing frantically from a crowd of pod people.
- #003
Kevin McCarthy did not much like the screenplay because he felt the character depth was lost in adapting the novel to the screen. He thought it was a mistake for these quite sophisticated, educated characters to have such bland dialogue and ways of relating to one another, lacking "the inflections and nuances you often hear in the conversation of ordinary, mature men and women."
- #004
During test screenings, much of the film's original humor and humanity was cut because audiences had trouble following it and laughed at the wrong moments. The studio insisted on the editing because mixing humor with horror was not policy.
- #005
The tunnel scene, in which the hero briefly hides from the townspeople, was shot in Bronson Cave in Griffith Park, known locally as the Bat Cave.
- #006
The film abandons the novel's ending, in which the aliens give up their plans for world domination and return home. Becky also does not become one of them.
- #007
Screenwriter Daniel Mainwaring had been suspected in Hollywood's "Red Scare" witch hunts, which lends credence to the theory that the film is a subtle statement against McCarthyism. Dana Wynter agreed with that view but did not recall any political statement being mentioned on set. Kevin McCarthy believed the film was an attack on "Madison Avenue" attitudes. Director Don Siegel joked that the pods represented film industry executives.
- #008
The pace of shooting meant the actors had very little time to rest between takes of the exhausting chase scenes. There was also no time to discuss scenes. Dana Wynter said the actors were always responsible for mentally rehearsing their characters and actions before stepping in front of the camera.
- #009
Producer Walter Wanger wanted a quotation from Winston Churchill as a prologue, with narration by Orson Welles. When he could not persuade Welles, Wanger tried to hire science fiction writer Ray Bradbury. He also refused.
- #010
Bronson Canyon was also the location of the tunnel where Miles and Becky hide. For the scene in which the pod people search for them by passing through the tunnel, a trench was dug for them to lie in with boards placed over them.
- #011
Only $15,000 of the budget (about $182,000 in 2026) was spent on special effects.
- #012
Over the years, Sam Peckinpah (who appears briefly in the film as a meter reader) claimed he did various work on the screenplay, ranging from modifications to major revisions. People who worked on the film maintained that any changes Peckinpah made to the script were limited to a few lines of dialogue. Peckinpah's claims grew so exaggerated that the original writer, Daniel Mainwaring, threatened to file a formal complaint with the Writers Guild of America, so Peckinpah backed down. When Peckinpah died in 1984, most of his obituaries still carried the claim that he had rewritten the screenplay for this film.
- #013
Several scenes, such as the interior of Miles Bennell's office, were shot at Sunset Studios. The greenhouse scene was also done in the studio because there were too many technical elements to control when the pods burst open and formed bubbles and the characters' duplicates appeared.
- #014
It ranked 9th on the American Film Institute's June 2008 list of the top 10 films in the "Sci-Fi" genre.
- #015
Production designer Ted Haworth was probably the person most angered by the studio's tampering. He wrote a letter to Steve Broidy, president of Allied Artists, saying that Allied Artists had destroyed the picture. Haworth had been Alfred Hitchcock's art director on Strangers on a Train (1951) and I Confess (1953), and he told Broidy that Hitchcock would give his teeth to make a picture this frightening.
Production Story (38)
- #016
As with most low-budget films, the scenes in which the pods begin to hatch had to be successfully captured in a single continuous take.
- #017
The film, inspired by Jack Finney's novel, was almost going to be titled 'The Body Snatchers', but that name was too similar to Val Lewton's 1945 film The Body Snatcher. After options such as 'They Come from Another World', 'Better Off Dead' and 'Sleep No More', the studio settled on 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers'. Don Siegel thought this title was terrible and would prevent the film from being taken seriously, and preferred 'Sleep No More', the Shakespeare quotation suggested by Kevin McCarthy.
- #018
The biggest problem between director Don Siegel and his team and the studio was the use of humor. Siegel, writer Daniel Mainwaring and producer Walter Wanger had written humorous scenes, and the actors contributed with improvisations. During editing they arranged a preview screening without the studio's knowledge; the audience swung between screams, laughter and tension. Siegel recorded this reaction, but when studio boss Steve Broidy heard the laughter he went berserk and ordered all the humor removed.
- #019
Production designer Ted Haworth devised a fairly simple and inexpensive approach for the pods (about $30,000 in total, or $364,000 in 2026). The hardest part was the moment the pods burst open and the actors' exact duplicates emerged. The actors had to have thin, skin-tight latex molds taken of their naked bodies. For Carolyn Jones, who was especially claustrophobic, being buried in the very hot mold material and breathing only through a tube in her mouth was quite grueling. Dana Wynter described those moments: 'While waiting for this thing to harden inside, of course it got quite hot! I was breathing through tubes or some strange thing, and the rest of my body was encased like a sarcophagus. The producers patted us on the back and said, "Dana, look, it won't take long, we're just going out to lunch [laughs]!" In the end we were completely covered, with only the nostrils and, I think, a small hole for the mouth left open.'
- #020
Lead actor Kevin McCarthy had to run for days throughout the film. In many scenes his character runs with all his might across every kind of terrain to survive. 'I got cramps,' McCarthy admitted. Near the end of the film, Dr. Bennell runs in panic through traffic shouting, 'They're already here! You're next! You're next!' Because the actor had stayed up the previous night to look more exhausted, director Don Siegel told the stunt drivers to be extra careful in case McCarthy stumbled without warning. Siegel said, 'I was very afraid his timing would be off and he'd fall under the wheels of the cars or trucks.'
- #021
The final scene was shot not on the real Hollywood Freeway but on a little-used overpass. Stunt drivers drove the cars. Don Siegel later said he genuinely came close to being hit by a car, because the scene was shot at dawn and Kevin McCarthy was almost completely exhausted.
- #022
The tunnel scene, where the hero briefly hides from the townspeople, was shot at Bronson Cave in Griffith Park. Locals know it as Bat Cave.
- #023
Production designer Ted Haworth was worried that studio executives would object to the 'nudity' of the duplicates in the pods. Don Siegel reminded him that all Hollywood executives were themselves pod people and therefore had no real feeling about anything, including nudity. One executive, however, objected vehemently and ordered Siegel to remove all the nudity from the film. Siegel turned to Haworth and told him to proceed as planned. In his autobiography he said, 'I was sure that before the molds were made, this executive would have emerged from a pod too.' The matter was largely moot anyway; the duplicates emerging from the pods appear under foamy soap bubbles that conceal explicit nudity.
- #024
The shooting pace left very little time for the actors to rest between the grueling chase scenes. There was also no time to discuss scenes. Dana Wynter said the actors were always responsible for mentally rehearsing their characters and movements before stepping in front of the camera.
- #025
Bronson Canyon was also the location of the tunnel where Miles and Becky hide. For the scene in which the pod people run through the tunnel searching for them, a ditch was dug for them to lie in and planks were placed over them.
- #026
A few scenes, such as the interior of Miles Bennell's office, were shot at Sunset Studios. The greenhouse scene was also done in the studio, because there were so many technical elements to control as the pods burst and foamed, revealing the characters' duplicates.
- #027
According to Don Siegel, the film's shoot lasted only 19 days (other reports say it ran up to 24 days, about four of them studio production). No second-unit work or optical printing was used.
- #028
Filming was originally planned to begin in Mill Valley, north of San Francisco, but the budget would not allow it. In fact, the towns of Sierra Madre and Glendale, along with many locations such as Los Feliz, Chatsworth, Bronson Caves and Beachwood Canyon, were used to create the town of Santa Mira; the last two are in the hills above Hollywood. Some interior shooting was also done at the Allied Artists lot on the east side of Hollywood.
- #029
This film was among the first productions subject to a new smoke-control regulation in Los Angeles covering the shooting of fire scenes and other special film effects. To plan the shooting of scenes involving fire, the script first had to be approved by the Air Pollution Control District. Los Angeles County also required script approval for fire scenes.
- #030
The siren heard in the scene where Miles and Becky flee the town mob is a Diaphone, widely used by fire departments as a civil defense alarm. One source states this Diaphone came from Sierra Madre, another from Larkspur, California.
- #031
(At about the 30th minute) There is a brief flash of nudity while Miles searches Becky's basement. When Miles finds the forming duplicate hidden in a large trunk, Wynter's or her double's right breast is exposed for about a second, with a bit of makeup applied.
- #032
Years after the film, a message was left on Dana Wynter's home answering machine. The message was from Kevin McCarthy and said: 'Hello Becky, it's Miles. Stay awake, will you!'
- #033
Kevin McCarthy did not much care for the screenplay; he felt that character depth was lost in adapting the novel to the screen. He saw it as a mistake that the dialogue and the way these highly cultured and educated characters communicated with one another were so flat, 'lacking the subtlety and nuance often heard in the conversations of ordinary, mature men and women.'
- #034
Don Siegel later recounted that during shooting he secretly entered Dana Wynter's house and left a pod under her bed, and that she had a hysterical fit when she found it. On hearing this story, Wynter responded, 'A bit exaggerated,' and added: 'Actually, he had left it at my door. He had a girlfriend staying with my next-door neighbor... and he would constantly walk past my house. And one night he just left it at my door!'
- #035
Dana Wynter genuinely enjoyed the shoot and stated that everyone in the crew treated her very well as a newcomer – except Carolyn Jones. Saying that the more experienced Jones was 'strangely cold and far from helpful,' Wynter nonetheless managed to develop her own style by observing her.
- #036
The polite and affable producer Walter Wanger was loved and respected by everyone involved in the project. However, Kevin McCarthy later said that although director Don Siegel spoke glowingly of his producer years afterward, he got the impression during shooting that Wanger was more diplomatic than effective in his dealings with studio management on matters such as the humor, the film's title and additional scenes. McCarthy said, 'If the two of them hadn't been partners, I think Siegel would have called Wanger a pod person.'
- #037
In the commentary track, everyone expresses a different view on exactly when Dr. Dan Kauffman turns into a pod person. Joe Dante thinks he first turns in the scene where Miles and Becky arrive in their bathrobes, while Kevin McCarthy said he had already turned since the earlier car ride.
- #038
During the film's initial release, cinema lobbies displayed papier-mâché pods and black-and-white stills showing Kevin McCarthy and Dana Wynter fleeing from the people emerging from the pods.
- #039
The film was originally going to end with Miles J. Bennell shouting at cars on the highway, 'You're next, you're next!' However, Allied Artists wanted a more hopeful ending that suggested the hero's efforts were not in vain, so scenes were added in which Miles tells his story in a hospital and the doctors report the situation to the FBI. Whit Bissell, Richard Deacon and Robert Osterloh, who stand out in these framing scenes, were not credited because they were added after the credits had been completed.
- #040
Don Siegel was strongly opposed to the film's optimistic conclusion, but the studio imposed a hopeful ending on him. Some viewers dislike this ending, preferring that Miles's warnings go unheeded as in Siegel's original.
- #041
The film, inspired by Jack Finney's novel, was almost titled 'The Body Snatchers', but that name was too similar to Val Lewton's 1945 film The Body Snatcher. After options such as 'They Come from Another World', 'Better Off Dead' and 'Sleep No More', the studio settled on 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers'. Don Siegel thought the title was terrible and would prevent the film from being taken seriously, and preferred 'Sleep No More', a Shakespeare quotation suggested by Kevin McCarthy.
- #042
The biggest problem between director Don Siegel and his team and the studio was the use of humor. Siegel, writer Daniel Mainwaring and producer Walter Wanger had written humorous scenes, and the actors contributed improvisations. During editing they held a preview without the studio's knowledge; the audience swung between screams, laughter and tension. Siegel recorded this reaction, but when studio boss Steve Broidy heard the laughter he was furious and ordered all the humor removed.
- #043
Sam Peckinpah (who appears in the film in a brief role as a meter reader) claimed over the years that he contributed to the script, from small changes to major revisions. The team, however, said that even if he contributed anything, it was limited to a few lines of dialogue. Peckinpah's claims were so exaggerated that when screenwriter Daniel Mainwaring threatened to complain to the Writers Guild of America, Peckinpah backed down.
- #044
Production designer Ted Haworth was among those most angered by the studio's interference. In a letter to Allied Artists president Steve Broidy, he said the studio had ruined the film. Haworth had worked with Alfred Hitchcock on Strangers on a Train and I Confess; he told Broidy that Hitchcock would have given his eyeteeth to make a film this frightening.
- #045
Kevin McCarthy recounted that he and Don Siegel smuggled a copy of the film out of the office and held an early screening at a cinema in Long Beach. They recorded the audience's reaction and went excitedly to the studio executives with the result, but the executives were furious and cut off Siegel's access to the film.
- #046
Director Don Siegel and the actors felt it was important to add small touches of humor to the film to relieve tension and emphasize its human side. The studio opposed this and cut most of these moments from the final product.
- #047
Director Don Siegel often said he saw the film as a psychological rather than a political metaphor. In a 1971 interview with Stuart Kaminsky, he said, 'There are real people who are pods,' and noted that he particularly liked the scene in which Miles kisses Becky and realizes from her lack of response that she has been transformed. Siegel added, 'I've unfortunately kissed a great many pods in my life.'
- #048
Screenwriter Daniel Mainwaring, who had faced the Hollywood 'Red Scare' witch hunts, strengthens the theory that the film is a subtle anti-McCarthyism critique. Dana Wynter agreed with this view but said she never heard any political talk on set, while Kevin McCarthy interpreted the film as an attack on the 'Madison Avenue' mentality. Director Don Siegel, meanwhile, joked that the pods represented film industry executives.
- #049
At around the 22nd minute of the film, in Jack Belicec's house, three posters hang on the wall above the pool table where he shows Miles the pod that will become his own duplicate. These can be taken as covers of the crime or thriller novels Jack has written: 'Chat Blanc', 'Mirroir Noir' and 'Femme Fatale'. The third of these phrases, all in French, evokes a character type frequently used in film noir, while the first two mean 'White Cat' and 'Black Mirror'.
- #050
At around the 15th minute of the film, the line 'I know a bank where the wild thyme grows', which Miles and Becky quote together from William Shakespeare, is in fact incomplete. The original wording in 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' is 'I know a bank where the wild thyme blows'. Even so, this quotation ties into the film's subject through the theme of being transformed after sleep and no longer being yourself; for Oberon, the fairy king who speaks these words, has the juice of a magic flower dropped into his sleeping wife's eyes so that she falls in love with the first thing she sees upon waking.
- #051
Becky and Miles quote Shakespeare twice. 'I know a bank whereon the wild thyme blows, Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows' is from 'A Midsummer Night's Dream', while 'That way madness lies' is from 'King Lear'.
- #052
Near the end of the film, as Miles comes out of the cave and walks down the mountain, he searches for the source of the beautiful music he hears and realizes it is coming from a radio in a truck at a pod farm. Just before a worker turns the radio off, the call letters are seen as KCAA. No such station existed in 1955, but in 1964 a radio station began broadcasting under that call sign in Loma Linda, California. As of 2018, KCAA airs a mix of progressive talk shows, live sports broadcasts and old-time radio dramas; the call letters stand for 'Keeping CAlifornia Aware'.
- #053
After the film was completed, Kevin McCarthy became a strong anti-communist advocate. While many people see the film as an allegory about the spread of communism, McCarthy pledged to donate $1,000 a year to SAG (more than $12,000 in 2026) to fight the 'Red Scare'. According to Clive Hirschhorn's book 'The Universal Story', when McCarthy came to the set of the remake, he was applauded for 10 minutes by the entire cast and crew.
Behind the Scenes (19)
- #054
The final scene was shot not on the Hollywood Freeway but on a little-used overpass. The cars were driven by stunt drivers. Don Siegel later said Kevin McCarthy was in danger of being hit, because the scene was shot at dawn and he was nearly completely exhausted.
- #055
The biggest problem director Don Siegel and his team had with the studio was the use of humor. He, writer Daniel Mainwaring and producer Walter Wanger had written scenes containing humor into the screenplay, and Kevin McCarthy said the actors improvised some of them during shooting. While the film was still being printed, Siegel and Wanger decided to test it before a preview audience behind the studio's back. At that point much of the humor was still in the film, and audience reactions swung from screams to laughter and back to laughter. Siegel secretly planted a recording device in the theater to prove to the studio how great the reception was according to their rough cut. But when Allied Artists president Steve Broidy found out, he was furious and wanted to know why audiences were laughing in certain places. He ordered every trace of humor removed.
- #056
Production designer Ted Haworth came up with a rather simple and inexpensive idea for the pods (about $30,000 in total, or $364,000 in 2026). The hardest part was the moment the pods burst open and the players' exact duplicates emerged. The actors had to have thin, skin-tight latex molds taken of their naked bodies. For the especially claustrophobic Carolyn Jones, being buried in the very hot mold material and breathing only through a tube in her mouth was quite grueling. Dana Wynter described those moments: 'Of course it got pretty hot while we waited for the stuff to set! I was breathing through tubes or something strange, and the rest of my body was covered like a sarcophagus. The producers patted us on the back and said, "Dana, look, it won't take long, we're just going out to lunch [laughs]!" In the end we were completely covered, with only the nostrils and, I think, a small hole for the mouth left open.'
- #057
Lead actor Kevin McCarthy had to run for days throughout the film. In many scenes his character runs with all his might across every kind of terrain to survive. McCarthy admitted, 'I got cramps.' Near the end of the film, Dr. Bennell runs in panic through traffic shouting, 'They're already here! You're next! You're next!' Because the actor had not slept the night before in order to look more exhausted, director Don Siegel told the stunt drivers to be extra careful in case McCarthy stumbled without warning. Siegel said, 'I was very afraid he would mistime it and fall under the wheels of the cars or trucks.'
- #058
The final scene was shot not on the real Hollywood Freeway but on a little-used overpass. Stunt drivers drove the cars. Don Siegel later said he had genuinely been in danger of being hit by a car, because the scene was shot at dawn and Kevin McCarthy was almost completely exhausted.
- #059
The tunnel scene, in which the hero briefly hides from the townspeople, was shot at Bronson Cave in Griffith Park. Locals know the spot as Bat Cave.
- #060
The scene in which Miles and Becky are chased down a long, steep outdoor staircase was shot in Bronson Canyon in the Hollywood Hills. The head set worker came up with the idea of building a small wheeled dolly that ran along the staircase's iron railing ahead of the actors.
- #061
Production designer Ted Haworth was worried that studio executives would object to the 'nudity' of the duplicates in the pods. Don Siegel reminded him that all Hollywood executives were themselves pod people and therefore had no real feelings about anything, including nudity. One executive, however, objected vehemently and ordered Siegel to remove all the nudity from the film. Siegel turned to Haworth and told him to proceed as planned. In his autobiography he said, 'I was sure this executive would have been a pod person before the molds were made.' In any case, the matter was largely moot; the pod duplicates emerge under foamy soap bubbles that conceal any explicit nudity.
- #062
The shooting pace left very little time for the actors to rest between the exhausting chase scenes. There was also no time to discuss the scenes. Dana Wynter said the actors were always responsible for mentally rehearsing their characters and movements before stepping in front of the camera.
- #063
Bronson Canyon was also the location of the tunnel where Miles and Becky hide. For the scene in which the pod people run through the tunnel searching for them, a ditch was dug for them to lie in and planks were laid over it.
- #064
A few scenes, such as the interior of Miles Bennell's office, were shot at Sunset Studios. The greenhouse scene was also done in the studio, because there were so many technical elements to control as the pods burst and foamed, producing the characters' duplicates.
- #065
As with most low-budget films, the scenes in which the pods begin to open had to be successfully captured in a single take.
- #066
Although the film was, according to its opening credits, 'produced in the Superscope format' and released in a 2.00:1 aspect ratio, it was in fact shot with a spherical 1.85:1 aspect ratio in mind. The Scope prints were created in post-production by cropping the top and bottom of the image at the lab. Director Don Siegel objected to the reformatting but got nowhere.
- #067
Shooting had been planned to begin in Mill Valley, north of San Francisco, but the budget would not allow it. In fact, the towns of Sierra Madre and Glendale, along with many locations such as Los Feliz, Chatsworth, Bronson Caves and Beachwood Canyon, were used to create the town of Santa Mira; the last two are in the hills above Hollywood. Some interior shooting was also done at the Allied Artists lot on the east side of Hollywood.
- #068
This film was one of the first productions subject to a new smoke-control regulation in Los Angeles covering the shooting of fire scenes and other special film effects. To plan the shooting of scenes involving fire, the script first had to be approved by the Air Pollution Control District. Los Angeles County also required script approval for fire scenes.
- #069
The framing story was shot in one day, and a trailer was also recorded in which Kevin McCarthy speaks directly to the camera.
- #070
The siren heard in the scene where Miles and Becky flee the town mob is a Diaphone, widely used by fire departments as a civil defense alarm. One source states this Diaphone came from Sierra Madre, another that it came from Larkspur, California.
- #071
(At about the 30-minute mark) There is a brief shot of nudity while Miles searches Becky's basement. When Miles finds the forming duplicate hidden in a large crate, Wynter's right breast, or that of her template, is exposed for about a second with some makeup applied over it.
- #072
Contrary to the distance between the various shooting locations that are meant to represent the same area in the story, the long staircase and the run toward the foothills of the Santa Monica Mountains are a single route. After passing Hollyridge Dr., it is an unbroken path to Bronson Canyon and the caves within it.
Characters & Cast (9)
- #073
Kevin McCarthy was a close friend of Montgomery Clift, but in 1956, while Clift was shooting the big-budget historical epic Raintree County at MGM with Elizabeth Taylor, he was envious that McCarthy was making this low-budget science fiction film at a cheap studio. Neither could have guessed that Raintree County would be almost forgotten, while Invasion of the Body Snatchers would come to be regarded as a classic.
- #074
Years after the film, a message was left on Dana Wynter's answering machine. It was from Kevin McCarthy and it said: 'Hello Becky, it's Miles. Stay awake, will you!'
- #075
Sam Peckinpah, who had a small role in the film as a meter reader, also worked as dialogue coach. Peckinpah had performed the same duty on Don Siegel's other films of the 1950s.
- #076
Don Siegel later recounted that during shooting he secretly entered Dana Wynter's house and left a pod under her bed, and that she went into a fit of hysteria when she found it. When Wynter heard this story, she responded, 'A bit exaggerated,' and added: 'Actually, he left it in front of my door. He had a girlfriend staying with my next-door neighbor... and he would constantly walk past my house. And one night he just left it at my door!'
- #077
Dana Wynter genuinely enjoyed the shoot and said everyone in the crew treated her very well as a newcomer – except for Carolyn Jones. Saying that the more experienced Jones was 'strangely cold and far from helpful,' Wynter nonetheless managed to develop her own style by observing her.
- #078
The polite and affable producer Walter Wanger was loved and respected by everyone involved in the project. However, Kevin McCarthy later said that although director Don Siegel spoke glowingly of his producer years afterward, he got the impression during shooting that Wanger was more diplomatic than effective in his dealings with the studio management on matters such as the humor, the film's title and additional scenes. McCarthy said, 'If the two of them hadn't been partners, I think Siegel would have called Wanger a pod person.'
- #079
In the commentary track, everyone offers a different opinion on exactly when Dr. Dan Kauffman turns into a pod person. Joe Dante thinks he first transforms in the scene where Miles and Becky arrive in their bathrobes, while Kevin McCarthy said he had already transformed as far back as the earlier car ride.
- #080
Eight actors who appeared in Invasion of the Body Snatchers – Kevin McCarthy, Larry Gates, Jean Willes, Virginia Christine, Everett Glass, Dabbs Greer, Pat O'Malley and Richard Deacon – later appeared in The Twilight Zone (1959). Director Don Siegel also directed two Twilight Zone episodes.
- #081
Early in the film, Miles (Kevin McCarthy) and Becky (Dana Wynter) mention that they were classmates at university. In fact, McCarthy was a full 17 years older than Wynter.
Deeper Meaning (8)
- #082
In 1994, the Library of Congress deemed the film "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry.
- #083
Director Don Siegel often said he saw the film as a psychological metaphor rather than a political one. In a 1971 interview with Stuart Kaminsky, he said, "There are real people who are pods at heart," and noted that he particularly liked the moment in the scene where Miles kisses Becky when he realizes from her lack of response that she has been transformed. Siegel added, "I've kissed a lot of pods in my life, unfortunately."
- #084
At around the 22nd minute of the film, in Jack Belicec's house, three posters hang on the wall above the pool table where he shows Miles the pod that will become his own duplicate. These can be taken as covers of the crime or thriller novels Jack has written: "Chat Blanc," "Mirroir Noir," and "Femme Fatale." All three phrases are in French; the third evokes a character type frequently used in film noir, while the first two mean "White Cat" and "Black Mirror."
- #085
Early in the film, Miles and Becky meet at the doctor's office and discuss Becky's cousin Wilma thinking that her uncle Ira is an impostor. As Miles sees Becky off, they both mention having recently been in Reno, Nevada. Although the word divorce is never spoken, a 1950s audience would have understood that both had divorced, given Reno's fame as the "Divorce Capital of the World." Reno was flooded with people seeking divorce until a 1952 bill written by women changed the divorce law; over time, as no-fault divorce was accepted in every state, Reno's fame faded.
- #086
At around the 15th minute of the film, the line "I know a bank where the wild thyme grows," which Miles and Becky quote together from William Shakespeare, is actually incomplete. The original phrase in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" is "I know a bank where the wild thyme blows." Nevertheless, the quotation ties into the film's subject through the theme of being transformed after sleep and no longer being yourself, because Oberon, the fairy king who speaks these words, has the juice of a magic flower dropped into his sleeping wife's eyes so that she falls in love with the first thing she sees upon waking.
- #087
Becky and Miles quote Shakespeare twice. "I know a bank whereon the wild thyme blows, Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows" is from "A Midsummer Night's Dream," and "That way madness lies" is from "King Lear."
- #088
Toward the end of the film, as Miles comes out of the cave and heads down the mountain, he searches for the source of the beautiful music he hears and realizes it is coming from a radio in a truck at a pod farm. Just before a worker turns the radio off, the call letters are visible as KCAA. No such station existed in 1955, but in 1964 a radio station with those call letters began broadcasting in Loma Linda, California. As of 2018, KCAA airs a mix of progressive talk shows, live sports broadcasts, and old-time radio dramas; the call letters stand for "Keeping CAlifornia Aware."
- #089
The subject or word "divorce" never appears in the film. It is only implied that the main characters each traveled separately to Reno, Nevada, in the recent past; at the time, Reno was known as the divorce capital of the United States.
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