The definitive Cold War sci-fi film that spawned a decade of low budget Commie scare movies. The pods from outer space represent the threat of communism: The replicates emerge from their pods stripped of their individualism and free will; drone-like components of a collective mind. I don't mind its heavy handedness. I just groove on the 50s paranoia and eat my popcorn.

A terrific idea, but only fully realized a couple of decades later, in the 1978 remake. Actually, one of many derivative films of this idea, "The Faculty" includes characters discussing how the writer of the original "...Body Snatchers" story actually took the idea from another story, Robert Heinlein's "The Puppet Masters". I think there's a movie version of that, but I haven't seen it (& probably should), nor have I read the story (& probably should).

Ho. Ly. Crap. Apparently it's "scary". I'll only agree that it's a bit scary that anyone got PAID for this. Sam Pekinpaw plays the Gas Man in the protagonist's basement and claimed he did a re-write of the script. The actual screen writer said he only did a couple of lines worth of polishing, and lodged a complaint with the Writers' Guild, after which Pekinpaw stopped saying anything about the gig. Were I either of them, I wouldn't have taken any credit at all. Ho. Ly. Crap.