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It’s been almost 70 years since the first of four film adaptations of Jack Finney’s 1954 novel The Body Snatchers was released and in that time we’ve yet to meet a single one of these so-called “snatchers.” I suppose that’s the point, since if they have to snatch a body, they don’t have bodies. This plays directly into the way the story, in its various adaptations, serves as a metaphorical horse to be hitched to any topical cart, the non-corporeal snatchers (presumably extra-terrestrial) view us as all-purpose vehicles for their…what? Bodies, minds, or souls? Don Siegel’s 1956 film, still considered to be the quintessential version of the story (though Philip Kaufman and Abel Ferrara’s remakes aren’t exactly chopped liver), actually conceals the answer behind budget compromises and plot holes: They are us, or we could be, if we don’t watch out.

Through the...

Daryl Dragon, the keyboard-playing “Captain” of Seventies hitmakers Captain and Tennille, died at a hospice in Prescott, Arizona on Wednesday. Associated Press reports the cause of death as renal failure. He was 76.

As Captain and Tennille, Dragon and his then-wife Toni Tennille scored a string of catchy, easy-rolling hits in the mid-Seventies, including the Grammy-winning, Number One hit “Love Will Keep Us Together,” “The Way I Want to Touch You,” “Lonely Night (Angel Face)” and “Muskrat Love.” Dragon was known for wearing a captain’s hat and playing multilevel keyboards,...

A super-classic receives a super ‘Olive Signature’ Blu-ray release. CineSavant clears up some online rumors complaining that the disc producers didn’t do a full restoration. The original release Superscope version of Don Siegel’s soul-shaking chiller has been handsomely remastered — and with the extras we’ve awaited for 12 years.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers

Blu-ray

Olive Films

1956 / B&W / 2:1 widescreen / 80 min. / Olive Signature Edition / Street Date October 16, 2018 / 39.95

Starring Kevin McCarthy, Dana Wynter, Larry Gates, King Donovan, Carolyn Jones, Jean Willes, Virginia Christine, Whit Bissell, Richard Deacon, Bobby Clark, Dabbs Greer, Marie Selland, Sam Peckinpah.

Cinematography Ellsworth Fredericks

Film Editor Robert S. Eisen

Original Music Carmen Dragon

Written by Daniel Mainwearing from a magazine serial by Jack Finney

Produced by Walter Wanger

Directed by Don Siegel

One of the greatest of 1950s science fiction films transcends the genre so neatly that many don’t see it as Sci-fi at all,...

She won a Grammy alongside her husband, Daryl "the Captain" Dragon, for their 1976 smash "Love Will Keep Us Together" - but for the first time, '70s superstar Toni Tennille is opening up about their 39-year marriage - and why love wasn't enough. Now 75, living in Florida and single since her split from Dragon in 2014, the female half of the pop duo Captain and Tennille details their famous musical partnership and often-difficult union in a new self-titled memoir co-written with her niece, Caroline Tennille St. Clair, and exclusively excerpted in this week's People. "I never met another man I thought could measure up to him,...

She won a Grammy alongside her husband, Daryl "the Captain" Dragon, for their 1976 smash "Love Will Keep Us Together" - but for the first time, '70s superstar Toni Tennille is opening up about their 39-year marriage - and why love wasn't enough. Now 75, living in Florida and single since her split from Dragon in 2014, the female half of the pop duo Captain and Tennille details their famous musical partnership and often-difficult union in a new self-titled memoir co-written with her niece, Caroline Tennille St. Clair, and exclusively excerpted in this week's People. "I never met another man I thought could measure up to him,...