The Body Stealers

Eats Chutes and Leaves

The Body Stealers
Directed by Gerry Levy
Tigon 1969
88 Films Blu Ray Zone B

Okay, so this makes two badly made Tigon production films I’ve seen in one weekend but, in the case of this particular dud, unlike The Blood Beast Terror (reviewed here), The Body Stealers is at least a very interesting one… because all the parts seem so mismatched.

The story sees a few batches of military skydivers on test jumps, hurling themselves from their planes but... with only their chutes landing on the ground (some of which are mysteriously stolen later in the story). General Armstrong, played by George Sanders gets his right hand man, played by Neil Connery (brother of Sean), to get some kind of army specialist out of retirement (for no apparent reason) to investigate just what is going on.

Enter said specialist, ‘beyond womanising’ Bob Megan, played by rugged Patrick Allen. He is aided and abetted by two doctors played by Hilary Heath and Maurice Evans (that’s Dr. Zaius to you, apes fans!) but… what has the strange girl on the nearby beach, Lorna, played by the ravishing Pamela Conway, got to do with everything. As she and Bob get over friendly and naked on the beach, the audience has to ask themselves, is she a space maiden who has something to do with the missing jumpers? Well yeah, probably.

And the tone of this one is all over the place. The opening credits where jumpers are being abducted is scored by Reg Tilsley with some romping title music which is totally inappropriate to the visuals and, I have to say, the music continues in this fashion throughout the film. Some of the minor dramatic moments are underscored… or really overscored… with piercing stingers so strident that I think even John Barry himself would have been given pause to rethink before jotting them down. There’s even a moment in the score which sounds exactly like the opening of Holst’s Jupiter, Bringer of Jollity, at one point.

And then there’s the two nude scenes with the truly stunning Pamela Conway. They feel completely out of place, especially the extended sex scene on the beach where the awkward actors have crashing waves superimposed over them. This and the music looks like it’s trying desperately to capture a teenage market by tacking stuff onto a film which has none of the trappings of the youth culture in its make up, aside from these elements.

And not only does it have no real appeal for that segment of the market, it clearly has no budget either. The aliens are just humanoids and, well, their spaceship is cloaked so you can’t see it. Except in one sequence where it features in two shots and… well I don’t know how Tigon got their hands on the model but it’s clearly the Dalek starship from the earlier Amicus/Aaru production Daleks Invasion Of Earth 2150AD (reviewed here). I mean, really, how did this happen?

So what more can I say about The Body Stealers? Is it a good movie? No, it’s terrible. As was the case of The Blood Beast Terror, I feel Hammer or Amicus would have made a much better movie out of this one. Could I recommend it to anyone… well no, not in all conscience. But, I did enjoy 88 Films Blu Ray transfer of the film from a lovely print and I’ll certainly be watching this one again if time and mortality permit.