26th December, 2018.
Hmmm …
That’s something I didn’t realise …
Old friend, and Old Peculiar regular, Debbi Mack, runs a podcast: the Crime Cafe.
And its associated Patreon page: here.
Given my current financial situation?
And the fact my PayPal account hasn’t seen a penny in years?
It’s something worth looking at … if:
- I can square it with my benefits
- Get enough of my arse in gear to put the work in!
Frankly?
I’ve never been that good at motivating myself …
~≈§≈~
Hmmm …
It’s possibly worth thinking about, isn’t it?
Motivation or otherwise.
At any rate … ?
At any rate, in all this time off … ?
I can catch up with the stuff sitting in the movie collection.
And, whether Debbi would call it as a B movie or not?
Tonight, I’ve managed to sit in with the original, 1956, Don Siegel directed, version of …
The Invasion of the Bodysnatchers …
~≈§≈~
The Invasion of the Bodysnatchers opens in a psychiatric ward: where an unknown man is screaming dire, but vague, warnings about potential invaders.
He’s calmed: and reveals to the examining psychiatrist, that he, himself, is Doctor Miles Bennell (Kevin McCarthy), and a GP
A GP who, in a series of flash backs?
Tells the medical staff he had more and more of his patients coming to him.
Swearing that they’re not mad, not hallucinating …
But also very convinced that various relatives are imposters*.
It’s only when an old friend, Jack (King Donovan) calls him other to show him the body on his pool table, that Dr Bennell starts to realise …
People in Santa Mira aren’t hallucinating.
And many of them … ? Haven’t seen what’s in Jack’s green house.
There’s some very odd pods sprouting in there …
~≈§≈~
Now …
For starters, and just in case you’ve watch the introductory video?
The impostors are being grown out of strange alien seed pods, that— according to one character — have “come out of the sky.”
Which is where ‘podules’ comes into the equation.
No: I don’t know where my imagination got the word: but it started floating around my head, as soon as someone in the film said ‘seed pod.’
No: I don’t know why, either!
At any rate … ?
At any rate, The Invasion of the Bodysnatchers is a debatably quaint film: one that would possibly be very different, were it to be remade, today.
It’s long been seen — by some — to be the classic 1950s American film: where the invading aliens are a metaphor for communist fifth columnists, in the same way that the Daleks are seen as the Nazis that — thankfully — have never invaded Britain.
I couldn’t tell you for sure: although, having seen it, I can appreciate the argument.
Either way?
I’ve had a quiet night in with a movie.
Is it a classic?
I don’t know.
But The Invasion of the Bodysnatchers is a Cold War piece of paranoid Americana that’s worth seeing at least once.
The Invasion of the Bodysnatchers★★☆☆
* Wikipedia tells us there is a genuine disorder that does this: called Capgras delusion. Apparently, it crops up in some patients with various forms of schizophrenia, or dementia.
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