Don Siegel

The Reputation: Starting his career as a montage creator, he ended up working with Elvis, Lee Marvin and most notably Clint Eastwood, among others.

Siegel specialised in war films, Westerns and dramas (including The Big Steal) and later in his career, he’d go on to make Dirty Harry.

But 1956 saw him take a detour into sci-fi horror and launch an endlessly remade story…

The Horror Flick: Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (1956)

Snatchers tackles the story of a small California town that is overrun by duplicates of the residents grown from pods.

Local doctor Miles Bennell (Kevin McCarthy) initially thinks his patients are suffering from mass hysteria, but he quickly realises that their claims of loved ones replaced by imposters are all too true…

The Signature Move: It’s less how the camera moves and more how the director works – with a background in shorts and second unit, he’d learned how to shoot fast and cheap.

Plus, his experience creating montages meant that set pieces were edited and shot beautifully.

The Critical Response: Variety was generally enthusiastic, though had some doubts: “This tense, offbeat piece of science-fiction is occasionally difficult to follow due to the strangeness of its scientific premise. Action nevertheless is increasingly exciting.”

Body Snatchers was generally well received and in later years has been hailed as a classic of the sci-fi horror genre.

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