The tragedy in this kid's life is legend. When Jackie Coogan -- the world's first up-marketed child star, maker of millions, darling of silent cinema -- became a legal adult, he learned that his mother and stepfather had spent nearly every penny of his earnings. When he took the pair to court, the boy's mother asserted that, "every dollar a kid earns before he is 21 belongs to his parents. Jackie will not get a cent of his earnings." Happy Mother's Day!

The court case that ensued resulted in the California Child Actor's Bill (also known popularly as "The Coogan Act" or "The Coogan Law"), which provides that the child's employer set aside 15% of his earnings into a trust (called by many a "Coogan Account"), provide some schoolin' and give the kid time off every once in a while. I hasten to add that this didn't go into effect until 1939.

Thirty-nine.

Another result of the case was that, after lawyers fees and court costs, young Mr. Coogan only wound up with half the earnings his parents hadn't already spent, roughly $125,000, all that remained from the 20 films he made before the age of 18.

Coogan was born into a vaudevillian family, his father a dancer and mother, ironically, a former child performer. Charlie Chaplin caught the family act and cast the boy in one of his upcoming pictures. He was so impressed with the child's abilities that he gave him the role of his life as the eponymous kid in The Kid, one of the best films ever. Coogan made a string of highly successful picture throughout the Twenties, but fewer into the Thirties.

When Coogan was 20 years old, he was hurt in a car accident that killed both his father and best friend. His mother married the sponge that would later help her spend his money shortly thereafter.

By the late Thirties, an older, less adorable Coogan found film roles harder to come by. He enlisted in the army during World War II, and because of his training as a glider pilot, ultimately transferred to the Air Force and flew British troops behind Japanese lines during the Burma Campaign.

He returned to acting on the smaller screen, appearing in guest spots on popular shows until finally landing the role of Uncle Fester on the excellent program, The Addams Family.

Jackie Coogan passed away at the age of 69 in 1984. His horrible upbringing is directly responsible for any security a child performer has enjoyed for the last 75 years. If you haven't seen The Kid, you should (and can, because it's streaming on the Huge Internet Megaplex named for a South American river), because he was amazing and beautiful in it.

Also Uncle Fester can put a light bulb in his mouth and make it shine.

Eve Arden (born Eunice Quedens) was the only child of a gambling-addicted father and former-actress mother. Her parents divorced when she was barely a toddler, and her mother, a great beauty with a talent for fashion, moved the two of them from Mill Valley, California, to the heart of San Francisco to open a millinery shop. Young Eunice had a lot of free time on her hands, and spent much of it inventing stories and acting them out. 

After a couple of scary years at a convent school in the city, Eunice went back to live in quieter Mill Valley with her father's sister, and attended Tamalpais High, while her mother visited on weekends. The drama bug bit hard and immediately after graduation, Eunice landed a job in a San Francisco stock company and never looked back.

She went from stage to couple of walk-ons in movies, then headed to Broadway as a Ziegfeld girl (changing her name to the more euphonious "Eve Arden"), which in turn landed her a gig on radio, which led to greater opportunities in Hollywood. Her breakout role in Stage Door as one of the struggling actresses living in a theatrical women's hotel, was originally one without lines. She so impressed director Gregory LaCava with her comic delivery and bits of business, that he kept giving her more dialog and action. 

Throughout the rest of 1930s and 1940s, Arden played a host of smart-talking best friends, sidekicks, and career women; there was no better wisecracking second lead on screen (who wasn't Thelma Ritter). He most famous such role was as Joan Crawford's  business partner at the chicken-n-waffle franchise and best friend, Ida Corwin, in Mildred Pierce, a part that earned her an Academy Award nomination. But always a bridesmaid...at least in film. It was radio that gave Eve Arden the chance to shine as a lead actress in the comedy series, Our Miss Brooks. A tremendously popular program, Brooks ran for nine years on radio, four on television, and was made into a feature film in 1956.

Arden deftly moved to television with a short-lived show of her own, but mainly made guest appearances on many of the highest-rated programs of the 1960s. Then in 1967, she starred with Kaye Ballard in my irrational favorite, The Mothers-In-Law, which only ran a few seasons. Perhaps her most memorable film role of the few she did in the 1970s was as Principal McGee in the kind-of-awful-when-you-see-it-as-an-adult-but-couldn't-get-enough-of-it-when-you-were-13 film, Grease  (and of course, Grease 2).

The woman did everything and worked well into her seventies, on stage, film, and television. Eve Arden passed away November 12, 1990, of cancer at the age of 82.

I think we all know what happens in Gaslight, but just in case...

In the days before Lifetime, Television for Women, a controlling, murderous jewel thief marries and manipulates a woman so he can have free reign to ransack their marital home in search for jewels he knows to be hidden there. The story is based on the 1938 British play, Gas Light, which, after a successful London run, was adapted for film in 1940 and starred my boyfriend, Anton Walbrook, as Paul Mallen, the abusive husband, and the great Diana Wynyard (once married to director Carol Reed), as Bella Mallen, the unfortunate, victimized wife.

The play, meanwhile, opened on Broadway in December 1941 under the title Angel Street, was an immediate hit, and ran through December 1944 for a total of 1295 performances, making it one of the longest-running non-musicals in Broadway history (ask Wikipedia). At this point, the controlling, murderous jewel thieves at MGM sought to capitalize on the success of the film and play, purchased the remake rights for the film — which it remade as, um, Gaslight, in 1944 — and went about having all existing prints and negatives of the Walbrook version destroyed. According to movie legend, director of the original film, Thorold Dickinson, made a print for himself and secreted it away, which is the only reason we're able to watch it streaming on Amazon today.

And watch it you should, because wow, can Anton Walbrook, Austrian dreamboat, play an abusive, heartless, sociopath of a husband. No sleepy-faced Charles Boyer, he! Behind every deceitful gambit — a brooch hidden, a painting removed, a light dimmed — for every feigned lecture of concern and exasperation there is a glint of pleasure and satisfaction in his eyes at a job well done. 

Here's the gist: Newlyweds Paul and Bella Mallen move in to Number 12, Pimlico Square, a long-vacant row house in London, a house that has been empty since the murder of its previous inhabitant. The murderer ransacked the place and was never caught. A local, former police constable, B.G. Rough (Frank Pettingell), has never forgotten the case and is instantly curious about this new couple. He quickly sizes up that Mr. Mallen is not who he claims to be and, indeed, catches him sneaking into the row house next door for unknown reasons. Rough is also keeping an eye on Mrs. Mallen from a cautious distance. Meanwhile, Bella keeps hearing things (like someone walking around in the attic), seeing things (like the gaslight dimming), misplacing things (like paintings), and "inventing" stories (like "I hear someone walking around upstairs") — all according to her husband, who keeps telling her she's mad, MAD.

One night, while Mr. Mallen is at a music hall with their pretty housemaid, Nancy, Mr. Rough pays a call on Mrs. Mallen to confirm his suspicions that Paul is, in fact, Louis Bower, the murderous nephew of the woman who lived in their home previously and is trying — by climbing into the attic from the flat next door -- to discover the hiding place of the rubies that eluded him years before. Bella had unwittingly discovered Mallen's true identity, so he has been trying to drive her crazy to confuse and discredit her. Also, he's still married to some other lady, so...

For my money, I prefer this horrible relationship to the one portrayed by Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer in the remake. Walbrook is eerily good at cruel and Diana Wynyard conveys her wracked nerves as you would expect of a regular person: perplexed, angry, confused, heart-broken. There is very little of the drooping, beaten-down (but nonetheless excellent) passivity portrayed by Bergman. 

My problem with all gaslighting as a plot device is that when one person tries to drive another one crazy, the means are often too elaborate and labor-intensive to make the ends worthwhile. And, sure, wackadoo types who come up with these schemes are not necessarily rational, but what about the otherwise rational people being worked over? I mean, really, if you can't find the music box you hear playing somewhere in the house, chances are your twin sister or awful husband hid it in a drawer someplace and you're not really hallucinating. And if s/he tries to convince you some morning that you woke up screaming in the middle of the night confessing guilt for murdering someone, or that the gas keeps dimming, they're probably just messing with you. Seriously — Occam's Razor.*

But sure, I'll go along with it in Gaslight. The only thing that would make this version perfect is if we could splice in Angela Lansbury's luscious, surly parlor maid in the remake over Cathleen Cordell's original. Nothing against Ms. Cordell, of course, but Lansbury sets the newer film on fire. 

Imagine!

This post is part of The Great Villain Blogathon, hosted by Ruth (Silver Screenings), Karen (Shadows & Satin) and Kristina (Speakeasy). Please read the excellent entries they've got up so far!

You know from the over-scored, overwrought opening credits that Three Strangers isn't going to be a subtle film, but you know it's going to be fun. The premise is nutty: A gorgeous, fashionable young woman lures two strangers to her London home on the cusp of Chinese New Year to engage in a ritual before the statue of Kwan Yin, goddess of fortune (in the film; she's the goddess of compassion in real life). As the fake legend goes, Kwan Yin will grant a wish made by three people who are strangers to one other at the stroke of midnight, but they must all have the same wish. As luck would have it, each of these strangers could use a big chunk of money and one of them has a sweepstakes ticket, so that is what they wish for: that the ticket pays off and they split the winnings evenly. 

So who are these strangers? The beautiful, somewhat psychotic ringleader is Crystal Shackleford (Geraldine Fitzgerald), a woman whose husband, David, (nine-foot tall Alan Napier) has fallen in love with another. She would like the money to win him back, but first she thinks it would be useful to destroy his happiness and mess with his career.

Then there's ethically-challenged attorney, Jerome K. Arbutny (Sydney Greenstreet), who would like the money at first to buy his way into an exclusive club, but later needs it to cover some losses he made speculating with the funds from one of his clients' trust. Greenstreet is not his best in this picture, in my humble O, but his role is pivotal.

At last, there is the affable drunken thief, Johnny West (Peter Lorre), who would really like to buy his favorite pub and drink away happily for the rest of his days. By far, his is the purest goal.  Johnny is mixed up in a bungled theft that ended in the murder of a police officer. At any moment his accomplices could pin their deed on him, but his girlfriend, Icey (Joan Lorring) is doing her best to keep that from happening.

The three make their wish that dark and stormy night, and for the rest of the film, we learn more about each of them. How crazy Crystal is; how slimy Jerome K. Arbutny is (he always says his name that way); and what a lovable, go-with-the-flow, kind of criminal Johnny is — you know, typical Peter Lorre. Incidentally, the casting of Lorre as the tipsy romantic lead was a bold and effective choice by director Jean Negulesco, because the part was originally considered for the likes of Erroll Flynn, David Niven, and Leslie Howard. And the picture is worth seeing just for the sweetness Lorre brings to an otherwise sad and hapless character.

But the winner of this film is Geraldine Fitzgerald. Her particular brand of vengeful, manipulative villainy is adorable. There is one scene especially, in which Crystal meets with her estranged husband's new love and convinces the girl that not only is her husband still sleeping with her, Crystal is now pregnant. Big, fat lies told well under the guise of compassion. As Crystal leaves the sobbing girl's apartment, she stops at the closed door and gives the most enchanting smile of delight at her handiwork and practically skips down the corridor. She manages everyone expertly and is deservedly very proud of herself. Fitzgerald's portrayal of this exceptionally high-maintenance pot-stirrer who hates to lose with a coldness behind the eyes that would make a cobra blush.

Of course the sweepstakes ticket (remember that?) draws the name of of a sure thing in the Grand National. Apparently, that provides some kind of payoff (I don't know how those things work), and Jerome K. Arbutny, needing immediate funds, wants to cash in his share. But the original agreement/wish was for the horse to win the grand prize. Trouble ensues and one of the three is murdered. 

I would love to spoil this for you, but you can see Three Strangers streaming or on DVD and I heartily recommend you give it a try. If you stick with it through the opening sequence and some bad cockney accents, you'll be glad you did. The film was written by John Huston, after all, and it is a close, deliberate cousin of the hugely successful Maltese Falcon. In fact, Geraldine Fitzgerald was up for the part of Brigid O'Shaughnessy, but her troubled relationships with Jack Warner thwarted that plum opportunity. Perhaps this was her consolation prize.

Geraldine Fitzgerald certainly gets to wear some great clothes while wreaking gorgeous havoc. See it.

This post is part of the Great Villain Blogathon, hosted by Ruth (Silver Screenings), Karen (Shadows & Satin) and Kristina (Speakeasy). Please read the excellent entries they've got up so far!

I came comparatively late to silent films. And by that I mean I held them at arms length during my childhood exploration of classic films and cartoons, so by the time I was 20, I had very little experience with them beyond knowing that Buster Keaton was a genius and that Birth of a Nation was problematic.

Then I discovered (at 20) that the New Orleans public library had a surprisingly eclectic biography section, which is where I checked out Billy Bitzer: His Story and caught a clue. Bitzer was one of the first motion picture cameramen...ever, having started out as an electrician and documentary photographer for the American Mutoscope Company, a New Jersey operation that made "flip book" style motion pictures in the 1890s. Mutoscope would eventually become the famous Biograph Studios, and Bitzer, who originally shot newsreels and street scenes, would become a close associate and lead camera operator for D.W. Griffith.

In these early days, the cameraman was the entire crew, which allowed the operator to tinker and experiment while cranking out multiple films a week. Eventually, Bitzer would incorporate many cameras, lights, and assistants in the operation, thereby establishing camera work for motion pictures as an art form. 

Here is a list of Bitzer's innovations in cinematography (swiped whole-cloth from his Wikipedia entry):

• the fade out to close a movie scene;
• the iris shot where a circle closes to close a scene;
• soft focus photography with the aid of a light diffusion screen;
• filming entirely under artificial lighting rather than outside;
• lighting, closeups and long shots to create mood;
• perfection of matte photography.

In addition to these achievements, Bitzer was the first cameraman to cover a war (the Spanish-American one), to use the "freeze frame" technique, and to create special effects using random household objects and makeshift contraptions. His creativity and willingness to tinker around until he achieved a desired effect was legendary. A number of his assistants went on to be great directors and cinematographers in their own right, among them Karl Brown, Tod Browning, and Erich von Stroheim.

After nearly two decades pioneering the craft, Bitzer left Hollywood and feature film-making in 1929, because the emerging technologies and techniques made his, ironically, old-fashioned. Once one of the highest paid cinematographers in the business, he earned $20 a week at the Museum of Modern Art in New York restoring old films and cameras. A job, incidentally, I would give my eye teeth to (1) have and (2) know how to do. In that order.

Ill health brought him back to California in 1943, but Billy Bitzer did not recouperate. He died just one year later of heart failure at the age of 72. The autobiography he began writing in the 1940s was published 30 years later. You have to thank someone at Farrar, Straus, and Giroux for that.

Hot Millions opens on affable embezzler, Marcus Pendleton (Peter Ustinov), finishing up the warden's taxes on the day of his release from prison. Under the credits, we see him size up the opportunities in the outside world: the cost of a flat, the increasing influence of computers,  where to rent a pinstripe suit and bowler hat, and the which gentleman's club will provide a lead for his next business venture.

Over a game of bridge, Pendleton learns the name of the top "computer man" in London, a pleasant widower called Caesar Smith (Robert Morley), who just wants to run off to South America to study moths, and a multi-million dollar company looking to hire such a man. Pendleton arranges for Smith to realize his dream in exchange for his identity and credentials and heads off to TA-CAN-CO to get his job.

TA-CAN-CO (Tacoma Concrete and Cement Corporation; it means nothing), an American company with offices in London, is run by Carlton J. Klemper (Karl Malden), the kind of Executive Vice President who speaks in mottoes and has a sign saying "Diversify" on his desk. Insecure vice president of programming, Willard C. Gnatpole (Bob Newhart, an excellent weasel), is jealous of Smith and spends the rest of the film trying to get the better of him.

The lovely side story involves the unemployable Patty Terwilliger (Maggie Smith), who happens to have a room in the same boarding house as Pendleton. She plays the flute when she's not getting fired, and is taking secretarial courses. Pendleton loves music and his dream is one day to conduct a symphony orchestra. This matters.

By coincidence, Patty shows up at TA-CAN-CO as an agency secretary to Mr. Smith. They enjoy a sweet friendship as office mates: she an incompetent assistant; he a fake, trying to crack the master M-505 computer to start embezzling from the company. They develop an easy relationship, though she knows nothing of his criminal schemes, and they eventually fall in love.

Smith figures out a way to outwit the room-sized computer and sets up a number of dummy companies on the Continent to skim off TA-CAN-CO profits. When he is discovered, he and Patty run off to Brazil, where we are treated to a terrific cameo by Cesar Romero as a customs inspector.

It all ends well for everyone, and I won't say how because you should see it (it's on DVD) except the final title sequence is one of the sweetest I've ever seen.

Hot Millions is a wonderful little movie, full of surprises and insights into social class, the global economy, and what it means to be happy. We can only hope to find someone companionable with whom we can share important, unlikely interests. On second, third,  or eighth viewing, there's always something new to discover -- a visual joke, a tiny subplot resolution -- something to make you happy.

Be happy.

The first thing I remember about Veronica Cartwright is getting oomphy with friends who confused her with her sister, Angela Cartwright, of The Sound of Music, Make Room for Daddy, and Lost in Space. Not at all the same kid! Veronica is the elder, edgier sister, the Twilight Zone girl, the kid with the lovebirds in The Birds, the tormented klepto in The Children's Hour.  She could play troubled, anxious, and lonely.

Which brings me to the second thing I remember about Veronica Cartwright: being really happy to see her appropriately freaking out in Alien and the remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers in the late 70s, and popping up in the oddest places ever since, from Witches of Eastwick to Will & Grace.

She made her first film appearance in a Robert Wagner vehicle called In Love and War at the age of nine, made a bunch of commercials, and was recurring bossy pants character, Violet Rutherford, on Leave It to Beaver. Between 1958 and 1963 Cartwright made a number of films in addition to appearing on popular TV shows. By the mid-1960s, she was mostly on television, working regularly until the end of the decade. There were a few lean years in the early 70s, but by and large, Veronica Cartwright made a graceful, successful (and I hope lucrative) transition from child star to adult actor.

The woman is only 65 (or will be this week) so I expect we'll have many more years to be surprised and delighted by her work.

In the meantime, if you haven't seen it in a while, here she is in one of those Twilight Zones that hits you right between the eyes.

Dear Me, 
By Peter Ustinov, Penguin, 1979

While looking for the perfect picture of Peter Ustinov, I was struck by how many  of them included Muppets*. Was that a thing? Then again, I associate him with my childhood movie life, either from early cinema experiences (Death on the Nile, Logan's Run) or from movies before my time that my mother suggested we watch on TV (We're No Angels, Hot Millions), so it kind of fits.

Ustinov was born in London, the son of a native German aristocrat who had served in the Kaiser's army in World War I and became a press officer at the German embassy in London (and spy for MI5).  Ustinov's mother was a painter and designer for the ballet. Peter attended the tony Westminster School and turned to the theatre to relieve the tedium (he said). His parents fought constantly, and his childhood was not a happy one.

During the Second World War, Ustinov enlisted as a private and became the "batman" for David Niven, a high-ranking officer, so they could associate with one another reasonably within the boundaries of military protocol to work on the film, The Way Ahead. for which Ustinov was one of the screenwriters. 

Primarily known as an actor, Ustinov was also a playwright, radio personality, and raconteur. He won a couple Academy Awards, a few Emmys, a Grammy, and a BAFTA in the course of his career. No Tony, but he *was* nominated. He spoke English, French, German, Italian, Russian, and Spanish fluently and could fake it in a few others.

In and around his film and television appearances, Ustinov served as an ambassador for UNICEF, wrote a bunch of books, and was appointed Chancellor of Durham University (England) in 1992. So he was *that* guy, but apparently a really nice one (cf. Muppets).

I've always liked him in the biblical pictures -- the chubby, smart, mostly charming weasel in a robe -- but I had a particular fondness for him as the romantic lead to Maggie Smith in the crime caper, Hot Millions. They seemed so sweet and companionable.

Peter Ustinov died of heart failure at the age of 82 in his home in Switzerland.

It's difficult to imagine how a Canadian girl in the mid-1880s found the strength and determination to leave home at 14 to make a career in the theatre. but this is exactly what Leila Marie Koerber did. Perhaps having a miserable, abusive martinet of a father helped, but still; time, place, and gender usually trump. Using the stage name Marie Dressler (borrowed from an aunt), young Leila and her older sister Bonita left their domineering father to make a life on the stage.

Marie's first paying job was as a chorus girl in a Nevada theatre company. Her expressiveness and comic timing led to meatier roles in increasingly more prestigious venues, eventually landing her on Broadway as a light opera star and headlining vaudevillian. Dressler was a major sensation throughout the 1890s and early 1900s and, when the first round of motion pictures came around, she was able to put one of her most popular stage characters on the big screen.

This was, of course, "Tillie Banks" in the famous (and hilarious) Tillie's Punctured Romance (1914) with Charlie Chaplin and the great Mabel Normand. It was Dressler's first film as well as the first feature-length comedy ever. She made several Tillie spinoffs, but did not enjoy the same level of success in early pictures as she did on stage, so she went back to New York. In 1917, she had the star power to pull in huge crowds to sell bonds during the Great War, but her active involvement with the Actor's Strike of 1919 got her in serious hot water. Having been an overworked and poorly-paid chorine in her early career, Dressler organized and led the chorus girls' strike and was immediately blacklisted by theater management.

Now in her early fifties, with no work in the offing from the stage and having to care for an invalid spouse, Dressler ran through her savings. By the time her husband died in 1921, she was practically destitute. Turns out the guy wasn't really her husband, as he had lied about being divorced from his first wife and staged his marriage to Dressler with the help of an actor friend. Just the kind of thing you want to find out when your whole life is in the crapper. The next several years were lean.

By the late 1920s, Dressler's friend, the MGM screenwriter Frances Marion had been talking her up to studio head Irving Thalberg, who had her team up with former Mack Sennett regular, Polly Moran, in a series of comedies about drunken Irish slum-dwellers.  The hilarity was somewhat lost on America's Irish population, however, and an anti-defamation protest was launched (rightly) against such pictures. This time with management behind her -- particularly in the powerful form of Louis B. Mayer, who loved her -- Dressler would begin the most successful phase of her professional life.

Between 1927 and 1933, she would make 22 pictures, playing everything from slovens to society matrons. Her physique and her age made her uniquely suited to such roles and her stage training made her particularly valuable to a film industry transitioning from silent to talking pictures. In this six year period, she dominated the screen in such classics as:

• The Patsy (1928)
  
• Anna Christie (1930)
  
• Min and Bill (1930)
• Tugboat Annie (1933)
  
• Dinner at Eight (1933)
  

Marie Dressler was 60 years old when she became a popular movie actress and 63 when she won the Academy Award for best actress in Min and Bill. By 1933, she was one of the top box office draws in the country and became the first woman to appear on the cover of Time magazine (August 7, 1933). 

For a woman who was never particular pretty or slender or young or any of the usual qualities that typified Hollywood leading ladies, Marie Dressler killed. The last seven years of her work in film were her last years on earth. She died of cancer after the filming of Christopher Bean at the age of 65, very much loved, very much admired, and very much appreciated.

This post is part of the Diamonds & Gold Blogathon sponsored by Caftan Woman and Wide Screen World. Please visit their pages to read all the entries about film stars of a certain age.

My advice to you is NOT to watch the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) and its 1978 sequel back-to-back. For one thing, the fictional black-and-white town, "Santa Mira" (Holy Lookit?) comes across as an infinitely more appealing place to live than the muted, drab, realistic hellscape that was actual San Francisco in the late 1970s, which is wrong, just WRONG. For another, the Cold War really had teeth in the mid-50s and, although technically the "war" was still on in the late 70s, the concomitant hysteria had significantly ebbed by then, and the later film was forced to inject more exposition than the purer, earlier version required.

Every audience member knew when Kevin McCarthy ran blindly, hysterically through the streets in the first film, shrieking that an alien invasion was threatening humanity, he was talking about the creeping communist menace. And when he was finally believed, the implication was that the threat would be addressed and overcome. When the same, older, slightly puffier, 1970s Kevin McCarthy shrieked the same thing in a cameo in the sequel, the poor bastard is promptly and unceremoniously killed off.

Which is another problem with seeing the two pictures back-to-back. It's better to have the benefit of two decades and no Internet between you and the tidy, black-and-white hero of the first movie and the raving lunatic older actor who hurls at you out of nowhere in gritty 1970s muted color realism not one hour later. I mean, good for Kevin McCarthy and everything, but for Pete's sake. 

It's unnerving.

So does anyone, at this point, not know what Invasion of the Body Snatchers is about? OK, on the off chance, here's the deal: Members of a close-knit community wake up one day and realize that some of their closest friends and loved ones are Not Themselves. After initial skepticism and unaffected friends making the whirly-index-finger-by-the-forehead sign, it becomes clear that the entire town is being taken over by emotionless, robotic lookalikes. This is achieved by a human falling asleep next to an alien "pod" (cell?) that takes over the human's body and memories, but not his or her feelings, killing the original human and the resulting duplicate going about the former human's business, but without the messiness of sex or love or jealously, but also no independence or liberty or anything.

In the (superior) 1956 telling, these changes occur under the nose of the town doctor, Miles Bennell (Kevin McCarthy), who, as a 1950s doctor is dismissive of what he thinks are the hysterical imaginings of those of his patients who are women and children. His love interest, Dana Wynter, is way ahead of him on this issue and is by the doctor's side when he finally comes around. Eventually, the entire town is taken over and these remaining two are driven to their existential limits. The terror in this film is in the uncertainty -- the quiet normalcy turned sinister and unfamiliar. Plus some very well-executed, menacing crowd choreography.

The second version of this story is told in San Francisco in the late 1970s from the point of view of a city health inspector, another doctor Bennell (this time "Matthew" and this time Donald Sutherland). His friend (and crush) Elizabeth Driscoll (Brooke Adams) has discovered a new plant in her backyard one day and a strange "distance" in her boyfriend the next morning. Matthew takes her to see his psychiatrist friend, Leonard Nimoy (does it matter who his character is?) who is (SPOILER) already a pod guy and ultimately (obviously) unhelpful.

The remake spends some quality title time telling us that the pod plants come from an unspecified place in space and that they adapt and replicate the crap they land on. Later on, we observe a few of the pitfalls of organism duplication when two higher beings sleep in close proximity (see man-faced dog). My favorite characters in this version are Matthew's friends, the impossibly beautiful and young Jeff Goldblum and his character's wife, my favorite science fiction actress of the era, Veronica Cartwright, who help him navigate the threat with varying degrees of success.

I dunno. It seemed to me that the later version spilled too many origin beans for it to be as scary as the first film. I saw the remake in the theater when it came out (having already seen the original), and my 14-year-old self had deemed it the better movie. But something about the second made me wonder about a city that had houses like the protagonists had  -- one in an Alamo Square-ish zone and another in the Filbert Steps -- AND restaurants where rat turds could be mistaken for capers or crazy fuckers were *everywhere.*

What's not to love?

Just between us, 1978 was a terrible, terrible year for the Bay Area, particularly the month of November. Of course, it was just a coincidence that Body Snatchers (two) was released then, but I can't help wonder whether reality proved to be more disturbing than a remade threat of widespread doppleangerism. 
 
Bottom line? See the first film for the story; see the second for perspective..