Don Siegel's ''Invasion of the Body Snatchers : Don Siegel, director

Invasion of the Body Snatchers, directed by Don Siegel, is a low-budget science fiction film that has become a classic. In the film, the aliens - who look just like earthlings - replace people by growing as their doubles from womb-like pods. Although the film can be interpreted in interesting ways along psychological and feminist lines, its importance as a text has centered primarily on political and sociological readings. That is, the issue has been: who are ""they""? For some, looking back on the conservative fifties, ""they"" has meant the Reds, and the film has been taken as its makers' warning against communist infiltration. For others, ""they"" is the fearful conformist American majority, forcing individualism into extinction. In his introduction to this volume, Al La Valley explores the politics of the original author of the magazine serial story on which the film is based, Jack Finney; of the film's producer, Walter Wanger; of its director, Don Siegel; and of its screenwriter, Daniel Mainwaring.