# The Incredible Shrinking Man
***The Incredible Shrinking Man*** is a 1957 American science fiction film directed by Jack Arnold based on Richard Matheson\'s 1956 novel *The Shrinking Man*. The film stars Grant Williams as Scott and Randy Stuart as Scott\'s wife Louise. While relaxing on a boat, Scott is enveloped by a strange fog. Months later, he discovers that he appears to be shrinking. By the time Scott has reached the height of a small boy, his condition becomes known to the public. When he learns there is no cure for his condition, he lashes out at his wife. As Scott shrinks to the point he can fit into a doll house, he has a battle with his family cat, which leaves him lost and alone in his basement, where he is now smaller than the average insect.
The film\'s storyline was expanded by Matheson after he had sold the story to Universal-International Pictures Co., Inc. He also completed the novel upon which the film is based while production was under way. Matheson\'s script was written in flashbacks, and Richard Alan Simmons rewrote it using a more conventional narrative structure. Director Jack Arnold initially wanted Dan O\'Herlihy to play Scott. O\'Herlihy turned down the role, leading Universal to sign Williams to star in the lead. Filming began on May 31, 1956. Scenes involving special effects were shot throughout production, while others used the large sets of Universal\'s back lot. Production went over budget, and filming had to be extended; certain special effects shots required reshooting. Williams was constantly being injured on set.


# The Incredible Shrinking Man
Before the film\'s release in New York City on February 22, 1957, its ending first went to test audiences who felt the character\'s fate should be changed. The director\'s original ending remained in the film. The film grossed \$1.43 million in the United States and Canada and was among the highest-grossing science fiction films of the 1950s. A sequel, *The Fantastic Little Girl*, originally penned by Matheson, never went into production. A remake was developed years later, eventually becoming the comedy *The Incredible Shrinking Woman* (1981). Other remakes were planned in the early 2000s, one of which was to star Eddie Murphy in a more comedic variation on the film. A new adaptation was announced in 2013, with Matheson writing the screenplay with his son Richard Christian Matheson. In 2009, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being \"culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant\".
6ft 2in tall Robert Scott Carey, known as \"Scott\", is on vacation with his wife, Louise, when a strange mist covers him. Six months later, Scott notices his clothes are too large. Scott finds himself continuing to shrink, and seeks medical advice. At first dismissive, Scott\'s doctor confirms his shrinking using X-rays. Scott is referred to a medical research institute, where it is determined Scott\'s exposure to the mist, combined with his later exposure to a pesticide, rearranged his molecular structure, causing him to shrink. Scott tells Louise in light of his predicament she is free to leave him. Louise promises to stay, as Scott\'s wedding ring falls off his finger.


# The Incredible Shrinking Man
Scott\'s condition makes him a national curiosity. Media attention forces Scott into seclusion inside his home. Scott is advised to sell his story and he begins keeping a journal of his experiences. His wife, who he was half a foot taller than, is like a giantess to the now three feet tall Scott. As a result of his size, he feels humiliated and lashes out at her in frustration. An antidote is found to arrest Scott\'s shrinking, but doctors advise he will never return to his former size and will remain at his present height for the rest of his life. Emotionally broken, Scott goes out and meets a dwarf named Clarice who is the same height as him and is in town working in a carnival sideshow. Clarice encourages Scott and he is inspired to continue his journal. Later, Scott notices he is now shorter than Clarice, and runs home.
Scott shrinks small enough to live in a dollhouse and becomes more tyrannical. When Louise leaves home on an errand, Scott falls into his basement after Butch, the family cat, attacks him. Louise returns and assumes Butch ate Scott after she finds a bloody scrap of Scott\'s clothing. Louise prepares to move out, with Scott\'s brother, Charlie, helping.
Scott encounters much hardship navigating his basement. The water heater bursts, but when Charlie and Louise come to investigate, Scott is too small for them to hear his screams for help. Scott next battles a large spider while finding food and shelter for himself. He ultimately kills the spider with a straight pin, and collapses in exhaustion. He awakens small enough to escape the basement through one of the squares of a window screen. Scott accepts his fate of shrinking to sub-atomic size. He is no longer afraid, concluding that no matter how small he becomes, he will still matter in the universe because God will know he exists.
Cast adapted from the American Film Institute.

### Development and pre-production
`Producer Albert Zugsmith initially wanted Dan O'Herlihy (pictured) to play the role of Scott Carey.`


# The Incredible Shrinking Man
### Development and pre-production
Richard Matheson\'s idea for the original novel was inspired by a scene in the film *Let\'s Do It Again*, where Ray Milland\'s character leaves an apartment with the wrong hat. It is much too large for Milland and sinks down around his head and ears. Matheson sold the rights to Universal on the condition that he write the screenplay. It was Matheson\'s first screenplay, a writing format he felt he adapted to quickly. Matheson\'s initial script followed Scott Carey already shrunken and battling a spider in his basement. His rewrite is told in flashback form: scenes of Carey and the spider are interspersed with scenes telling the story of Carey\'s gradual loss in height.
The film was already into its second month of production before the novel was published in May 1956 by Gold Medal Books. Producer Albert Zugsmith added the word \"Incredible\" to Matheson\'s title and passed the script to Richard Alan Simmons, who removed the script\'s flashback structure. Matheson later discussed working with Universal, finding that the producer had a \"very commercial mind\" which made the script weaker in terms of character. In an interview in *Cinefantastique* magazine, Matheson stated he protested sharing a screen credit with Simmons. The screen credits list Matheson as the writer, while the shooting script lists both Matheson and Simmons.
Pre-production was originally set to begin on April 20, 1956, but it started officially on April 24. The cast consisted of mostly unknown actors. Director Jack Arnold phoned Randy Stuart, who was a personal friend, asking if she would be interested in doing the film. Zugsmith initially wanted Dan O\'Herlihy to play the role of Scott Carey. O\'Herlihy had just been nominated for an Academy Award for his role in *Robinson Crusoe*. After reading the script, he refused to play another isolated character, not wanting to be typecast in that kind of role. Grant Williams was cast because Universal had him pegged to become a star. On April 4, 1956, Williams and Stuart were screen tested and deemed acceptable for the roles of Scott and Louise Carey.


# The Incredible Shrinking Man
### Filming
On the first day of production, May 31, Universal\'s operating committee decided that because of the type of special photography involved in the making of the film, the publicity department would cooperate by publicizing a closed-door policy on the set. On-set photography would not be allowed while the film was shot to stimulate public and trade interest. Shooting took either five or six weeks, including the special effects sequences. The budget ranged between \$700,000 and \$800,000. Film critic Kim Newman said the budget was \"not expensive\", with most of it used for special effects.
Some special effects shots were the earliest taken for the picture. For example, shots with Randy Stuart were taken against a black velvet backdrop and then composited with shots of Williams on an enlarged living room set. Their movements were synchronized using negatives from the first exposed scene in the camera gate, with the opposite done for the other scene. Sound production began on May 31. An oversized dollhouse was built for Williams on Stage 28. It had previously been used for *The Phantom of the Opera* and *Dracula*. Arnold said he filmed scenes with the cat in a normal studio with an animal trainer who had about 40 identical cats. To coax the cat to approach the dollhouse, Arnold hid food in it so the cat would find a way into the house. Later he timed the cat\'s reactions and directed Williams accordingly to react to the cat. Arnold first attempted to follow the novel and use a black widow spider. After preliminary tests, he found black widows were too small to use properly in the film. In an interview with Tom Weaver, Randy Stuart said the spiders presented problems. The overhead lamps on the set had to be turned up high, leading to the deaths of 24 tarantulas. They were directed with little puffs of air, a technique which had been used previously in Arnold\'s film *Tarantula*. Despite sources suggesting otherwise, the films did not use the same tarantulas.


# The Incredible Shrinking Man
### Filming
Many of the basement scenes were shot on Stage 12 of Universal Studios which, according to Tom Weaver, was one of the largest sound stages in the world at the time. While trying to find a way to simulate giant drops of water landing, Arnold recalled a time when he was a child and found condoms in his father\'s drawer. Not knowing what they were, he filled them with water and dropped them. Arnold ordered about 100 condoms and placed them on a treadmill so they would drop in sequence. The flood scene was shot on July 2 and 3. There was a 20-minute delay in filming because of a bad camera cable. There was a further delay from 11:05 am to 11:25 am to allow water to drain so a crane could be used properly. These scenes involved nine-hour workdays. When the actors were not filming, they were sent to have publicity shots taken.
The film was originally shot in the standard 4:3 aspect ratio, but midway through filming, on June 22, it was decided that the remaining footage would be shot in 1.75:1. The belief was this would give the film a better look, as a shorter frame would allow the production department to scale down the height of certain props for the special effects. During this period, Grant Williams suffered the first of many injuries on set. On June 22, he reported to the studio hospital with a scratched leg; on June 29, he had to leave the set to be treated for an eye condition; and on July 2 he both had to be driven to the hospital for further treatment for his eyes and was sent to the studio hospital with blisters and scratches from climbing sets. Due to Williams\' injuries and some special effects shots being too bright, the film was four days behind schedule and \$25,000 over budget.

### Post-production
Special effects shots using black velvet trick photography took three weeks of post-production and were scheduled after the film completed production on July 13, 1956. Warren described the special effects as \"hard to assign correctly.\" Clifford Stine, whose field was process work and rear screen projection, is credited with \"special photography\". The boat scene at the beginning of the film was shot on Universal\'s process stage, which allowed for rear screen projection. Shots of Scott in certain scenes, such as his encounter with the mist, were shot with him against a black velvet back drop.


# The Incredible Shrinking Man
### Post-production
According to Randy Stuart, the film\'s ending had Williams return to his original size, which Matheson felt was the wrong ending for the story. Arnold argued with Universal over the ending. The studio wanted a happy ending, while he wanted the original ending that had been shot. To decide on which ending to use, a test screening was held to judge the audience\'s reaction. Lucas said audience review cards from a December 7 preview screening in California included comments reacting to the ending such as: \"Should\'ve had a different ending, should\'ve grown again.\" and \"What happened at the end?\". On the overall quality of the film, comments included, \"Can\'t you do any better? This is pretty sad.\" \"You scared my son to death.\" and \"This is an insult to the brain power of my two-year old son\". The film was released with Arnold\'s original ending intact. After its release, Mel Danner, manager of the Circle Theater in Waynoka, Oklahoma, noted audiences felt it was a good film, but that Carey should have returned to his original size at the end.
*The Incredible Shrinking Man* opened in New York on February 22, 1957. This was followed by a screening in Los Angeles on March 27, 1957, and a wider release in April. Actress Randy Stuart recalled the film was either \"second or third, I think third, after *The Ten Commandments*\" in terms of how much money it made against what it cost. *Variety* reported that by the end of the year it had grossed \$1.43 million, making it one of the highest grossing science fiction films of the decade (for comparison, *20,000 Leagues Under the Sea* grossed \$8 million, *Journey to the Center of the Earth* grossed \$4.8 million, *The Thing from Another World* grossed \$1.95 million, and *Invasion of the Body Snatchers* grossed \$1.2 million).


# The Incredible Shrinking Man
### Post-production
The film was reissued theatrically in 1964, but otherwise was rarely shown on television and screened only occasionally at science fiction conventions. It was released on laser disc in 1978 and 1991, on VHS in 1992, and on DVD in 2006 (as part of a box set containing a collection of Universal-International\'s science fiction films). Arrow Video released the film on Blu-ray in 2017. In July 2021, The Criterion Collection announced a blu-ray of the film with a new 4K digital restoration; its bonus material includes audio commentary from Tom Weaver and David Schecter.
Arnold\'s biographer Dana M. Reemes described *The Incredible Shrinking Man* as initially being received as a routine to above average film; its reception has steadily grown ever since. Philip K. Scheuer of the *Los Angeles Times* called the film \"a fascinating exercise in imagination, as terrifying as it is funny \... Science-fiction admirers who are accustomed to finding food for thought as well as vicarious thrills in such flights of fancy will not be disappointed, either.\"
The *Monthly Film Bulletin* praised the film, and declared it a \"horrifying story that grips the imagination throughout\", one that \"straightforward, macabre, and as startlingly original as a vintage Ray Bradbury short story, for all its peaceful and resigned conclusion---opens new vistas of cosmic terror\". Bosley Crowther of *The New York Times* panned the film, writing that \"unless a viewer is addicted to freakish ironies, the unlikely spectacle of Mr. Williams losing an inch of height each week, while his wife, Randy Stuart, looks on helplessly, will become tiresome before Universal has emptied its lab of science-fiction clichés.\" \"Brog.\" of *Variety* commented that the film was not thoroughly satisfactory, but had enough good qualities, specifically declaring \"unfoldment is inclined to slow down on occasion, resulting in flagging interest here and there\". The review noted the special effects and cinematography were \"visually effective\", but that \"portions of the background score are overworked\", which distracted from the plot. The film was the winner of the first Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation in 1958. Tom Lehrer mocked its fictitious theme song, \"Incredible Shrinking Man, I Love You,\" on his 1959 album, *An Evening Wasted with Tom Lehrer*.


# The Incredible Shrinking Man
### Post-production
Martin Rubin discussed the film in a 1974 issue of *Film Comment* and compared it to its contemporaries in the genre. He found it did not have the \"schoolboy cynicism and moralizing of a Roger Corman film, nor any of the hysteria common to the Red-scare science-fictioners of the Fifties\". He felt the story was well-suited to Jack Arnold, noting a \"WeIlesian director would have overinflated this film and compromised its sense of the ordinary with shadows and angles, while a more accomplished stylist of almost any other order would have softened it too much---such attitudes are better off in the horror film.\" Rubin also compared it the other science fiction films Arnold made in the 1950s---*The Creature From the Black Lagoon*, *It Came From Outer Space*, *Tarantula*, *Revenge of the Creature*, and *The Space Children*---finding them competitively \"interesting in patches\", but lacking in comparison to the \"unity and clarity\" of *The Incredible Shrinking Man*, which \"totally fulfills its central metaphor without being unduly constricted by it\".


# The Incredible Shrinking Man
### Post-production
Ian Nathan of *Empire* referred to the film as a classic of 1950s science fiction films, and noted how the everyday objects found at home are \"transformed into a terrifying vertiginous world fraught with peril. A confrontation with a \'giant\' spider, impressively realised, as are all the effects, for its day, has become one of the iconic image of the entire era.\" Tim Lucas declared that the film \"remains one of the perfectly realized science fiction films\", noting it was \"less about science then a masterful example of the \'what if\' branch of speculative human drama\".
Jack Arnold commented on science films made after *The Incredible Shrinking Man*, saying that since his films were financially successful, American International Pictures and Japanese studios developed similar productions, which he felt lacked in atmosphere or morals and were just stories about monsters. These included *The Amazing Colossal Man* and *Attack of the 50 Foot Woman*. Arnold was unable to sell a science fiction story after these films began appearing and went to England to create *The Mouse That Roared*, which he felt was a fantasy film that still had a deeper meaning to it. Arnold later declared *Mouse* as his favorite picture and that he thought \"almost as much of\" as *The Incredible Shrinking Man*. Arnold spoke about the film later in life after watching a revival screening of it, saying he was happy that audiences enjoyed the film and that they \"got all the nuances that I put in. It was a joy to me, just to watch their reaction to the film.\" Matheson discussed the film in an interview in John Bronsan\'s *Horror People*, where he declared he only enjoyed the film after his son pointed out the film\'s story structure, specifically that \"it didn\'t have the usual story line, the usual happy ending. Actually it had no particular story line, it was very picaresque, it just wandered on.\" Matheson re-iterated his enjoyment of the film in *Cinefantastique*, finding himself able to appreciate the film with subsequent watches, finding the visuals as \"truly remarkable\" and that Arnold created \"quite a mood in the film.\" The film was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry in 2009.


# The Incredible Shrinking Man
### Proposed sequels and remakes
`Richard Matheson wrote a follow-up to the film and was developing a new adaption of his book in 2013.`
Matheson scripted a sequel to *The Incredible Shrinking Man* titled *The Fantastic Little Girl*. The film has Louise Carey certain that Scott is still alive. She returns home and finds herself shrinking and is injected with a new cure. The script also featured Scott in his microscopic world where he encounters strange eel-like creatures. The script was 43 pages long and described as inferior by author Bill Warren compared to the original film. Matheson said that, since the original film made \"a lot of money\", he was unsure why the sequel was not developed past the script stage. The script in its entirety was published in the book *Unrealized Dreams* in 2005. The reluctance to re-release the film for home video was because Universal intended to develop a pseudo-sequel to the film. This included John Landis developing, writing and directing *The Incredible Shrinking Woman*, which was cancelled by Universal after the project\'s budget was found to be too high. The film was revived by Jane Wagner. Jack Arnold said he \"hated\" *The Incredible Shrinking Woman*, declaring the special effects weak and adding there was \"no point of view\...the major fault is that it\'s not a comedy even though they tried so hard to make it funny\".
Universal were attempting to work with Imagine Entertainment on a remake of the film to be directed by Keenen Ivory Wayans and starring Eddie Murphy in 2003. Following this, other directors were attached to the project, including Peter Segal and Brett Ratner, with Murphy still slated to star in a comedic version of the film. The rights to the source material lapsed by 2012 and were purchased by MGM. A new adaptation of *The Shrinking Man* was announced in 2013, with Matheson writing the screenplay with his son Richard Christian Matheson. The Mathesons commented that the new adaptation would modernise the story and reflect on advancements such as nanotechnology. The elder Matheson died on June 23, 2013.
- List of American films of 1957
- List of science fiction films of the 1950s


# Invasion of the Body Snatchers
***Invasion of the Body Snatchers*** is a 1956 American science fiction horror film produced by Walter Wanger, directed by Don Siegel, and starring Kevin McCarthy and Dana Wynter. The black-and-white film, shot in Superscope and in the film noir style. Daniel Mainwaring adapted the screenplay from Jack Finney\'s 1954 science fiction novel *The Body Snatchers*. The film was released by Allied Artists Pictures as a double feature with the British science fiction film *The Atomic Man* (and in some markets with *Indestructible Man*).
The film\'s storyline concerns an extraterrestrial invasion that begins in the fictional California town of Santa Mira. Alien plant spores have fallen from space and grown into large seed pods, each one capable of producing a visually identical copy of a human. As each pod reaches full development, it assimilates the physical traits, memories, and personalities of each sleeping person placed near it until only the replacement is left; these duplicates, however, are devoid of all human emotion. Little by little, a local doctor uncovers this \"quiet\" invasion and attempts to stop it.
The slang expression \"pod people\" that arose in late 20th-century U.S. culture refers to the emotionless duplicates seen in the film. *Invasion of the Body Snatchers* was selected in 1994 for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for being \"culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.\"
A psychiatrist, Dr. Hill (Whit Bissell), is called to the emergency room of a California hospital, where a highly agitated man is being held in custody. Dr. Hill agrees to listen to his story. The man identifies himself as a doctor, and recounts, in flashback, the events leading up to his arrest and arrival at the hospital.
In the nearby town of Santa Mira, Dr. Miles Bennell (Kevin McCarthy) sees a number of patients apparently suffering from Capgras delusion, the belief that their relatives have somehow been replaced with identical-looking impostors.


# Invasion of the Body Snatchers
Returning from a trip, Miles meets his former girlfriend, Becky Driscoll (Dana Wynter), who has recently come back to town after a divorce. Becky\'s cousin Wilma (Virginia Christine) expresses the same fear about her Uncle Ira, with whom she lives. Psychiatrist Dr. Dan Kauffman (Larry Gates) assures Bennell that these cases are merely an \"epidemic of mass hysteria\".
That evening, Miles and Becky are urgently called to the home of Bennell\'s friend, Jack Belicec (King Donovan), who has found what appears to be a dead body in his home. Inexplicably, the body has no discernible facial features or fingerprints but, to their horror, within a short period of time it begins to take on the exact physical features of Belicec. Later, another body is found in Becky\'s basement that is her exact duplicate. When Bennell calls Dr. Kauffman to the scene, the bodies have mysteriously disappeared, and Kauffman tells Bennell that he is falling for the same hysteria.
The following night, Bennell, Becky, Jack, and Jack\'s wife Teddy (Carolyn Jones) again find duplicates of themselves, emerging from giant seed pods in Bennell\'s greenhouse. They conclude that the townspeople are being replaced while asleep with exact physical copies. Bennell tries to make a long-distance call to federal authorities for help, but the phone operator claims that the long distance lines are all busy and the call can\'t be put through, so Jack and Teddy drive off to seek help in the next town. Bennell and Becky soon realize that all of the town\'s inhabitants have been replaced and are devoid of any sort of humanity. They hide at Bennell\'s office for the night, vowing to stay awake so as not to be replaced by their duplicates.


# Invasion of the Body Snatchers
The next morning, Bennell and Becky watch from the office window as truckloads of the giant pods arrive in the town center. They listen as Nick Grivett (the chief of police) (Ralph Dumke) directs the others to take them to neighboring towns to be planted and used to replace their populations. Kauffman and Belicec, both of whom are now also \"pod people\", arrive at Bennell\'s office with new pods for Becky and Bennell. They reveal that an extraterrestrial life form is responsible for the invasion and that the pods, capable of replicating any life form, traveled through space and landed in a field. After their takeover, Kauffman explains, humanity will lose all emotions and sense of individuality, creating a simplistic, stress-free, superior world.
After scuffling with and knocking out the aliens (Kauffman, Belicec, and Grivett), Bennell and Becky escape from the office. Outside, they pretend to be emotionless pod people but Becky screams when she sees a dog dart out into traffic, her reaction exposing their humanity. A town alarm is sounded and the couple flee on foot, pursued by a mob of pod people.
Exhausted, they manage to escape and hide in an abandoned mine outside town, struggling to stay awake so their bodies won\'t be taken over. Later, they hear music, and Bennell leaves Becky briefly to investigate. Over a hill, he sees a large greenhouse farm with hundreds of giant seed pods being loaded onto trucks. Bennell returns to tell Becky, and upon kissing her, he realizes, to his horror, that she fell asleep before he returned and is now one of *them*. Becky sounds the alarm as Bennell runs away. He is again chased by the mob, and eventually finds himself on a crowded highway. After seeing a transport truck bound for San Francisco and Los Angeles filled with the pods, he frantically screams at the passing motorists, \"They\'re here already! You\'re next! You\'re next!\"


# Invasion of the Body Snatchers
The flashback ends with Bennell finishing his story back at the hospital. Dr. Hill and the on-duty doctor step outside the room, the latter expressing his certainty that Bennell is psychotic. Just then, a truck driver is wheeled into the hall on a gurney after having been badly injured in an accident. The orderly tells the doctors that the man had to be dug out from under a load of giant pods coming from Santa Mira. Now finally believing Bennell\'s story, Dr. Hill calls for the police to block the roads in and out of Santa Mira while he alerts the FBI.
Starring
- Kevin McCarthy as Dr. Miles Bennell
- Dana Wynter as Becky Driscoll
- King Donovan as Jack Belicec
- Carolyn Jones as Theodora \"Teddy\" Belicec
Featuring
- Larry Gates as Dr. Dan Kauffman
- Virginia Christine as Wilma Lentz
- Ralph Dumke as Police Chief Nick Grivett
- Kenneth Patterson as Stanley Driscoll
- Guy Way as Officer Sam Janzek
- Jean Willes as Nurse Sally Withers
- Eileen Stevens as Anne Grimaldi
- Beatrice Maude as Grandma Grimaldi
- Whit Bissell (uncredited) as Dr. Hill
- Richard Deacon (uncredited) as Dr. Bassett
`In this colorized still from the film; the principal cast (`*`clockwise from top center`*`), Carolyn Jones as Teddy, Kevin McCarthy as Dr. Miles Bennell, King Donovan as Jack Belicec, and Dana Wynter as Becky Driscoll, discover the pods growing.`
With
- Bobby Clark as Jimmy Grimaldi
- Tom Fadden as Uncle Ira Lentz
- Everett Glass as Dr. Ed Pursey
- Dabbs Greer as Mac Lomax
- Sam Peckinpah as Charlie, The Gas Meter Reader

### Novel and screenplay
Jack Finney\'s novel ends with the extraterrestrials, who have a life span of no more than five years, leaving Earth after they realize that humans are offering strong resistance, despite having little reasonable chance against the alien invasion.

### Budgeting and casting
*Invasion of the Body Snatchers* was originally scheduled for a 24-day shoot and a budget of US\$454,864. The studio later asked Wanger to cut the budget significantly. The producer proposed a shooting schedule of 20 days and a budget of \$350,000.


# Invasion of the Body Snatchers
### Budgeting and casting
Initially, Wanger considered Gig Young, Dick Powell, Joseph Cotten, and several others for the role of Miles. For Becky, he considered casting Anne Bancroft, Donna Reed, Kim Hunter, Vera Miles, and others. With the lower budget, however, he abandoned these choices and cast Richard Kiley, who had just starred in *The Phenix City Story* for Allied Artists. Kiley turned the role down and Wanger cast Kevin McCarthy, an Academy Award nominee five years earlier for *Death of a Salesman*, and relative newcomer Dana Wynter, who had done several major dramatic roles on television.
Future director Sam Peckinpah had a small part as Charlie, a meter reader. Peckinpah was a dialogue coach on five Siegel films in the mid-1950s, including this one.

### Principal photography
Originally, producer Wanger and Siegel wanted to film *Invasion of the Body Snatchers* on location in Mill Valley, California, the town just north of San Francisco, that Jack Finney described in his novel. In the first week of January 1955, Siegel, Wanger, and screenwriter Daniel Mainwaring visited Finney to talk about the film version and to look at Mill Valley. The location proved too expensive, and Siegel with Allied Artist executives, found locations resembling Mill Valley in the Los Angeles area, including Sierra Madre, Chatsworth, Glendale, Los Feliz, Bronson, and Beachwood Canyons, all of which went on to make up the fictional town of \"Santa Mira\" for the film. In addition to these outdoor locations, much of the film was shot in the Allied Artists studio on the east side of Hollywood.
*Invasion of the Body Snatchers* was shot by cinematographer Ellsworth Fredericks in 23 days between March 23 and April 27, 1955. The cast and crew worked a six-day week with Sundays off. The production went over schedule by three days because of the night-for-night shooting that Siegel wanted. Additional photography took place in September 1955, filming a frame story on which the studio had insisted (see Original intended ending). The final budget was \$382,190.


# Invasion of the Body Snatchers
### Post-production
The project was originally named *The Body Snatchers* after the Finney serial. However, Wanger wanted to avoid confusion with the 1945 Val Lewton film *The Body Snatcher*. The producer was unable to come up with a title and accepted the studio\'s choice, *They Come from Another World* and that was assigned in summer 1955. Siegel objected to this title and suggested two alternatives, *Better Off Dead* and *Sleep No More*, while Wanger offered *Evil in the Night* and *World in Danger*. None of these were chosen, and the studio settled on *Invasion of the Body Snatchers* in late 1955. The film was released at the time in France under the mistranslated title \"*L\'invasion des profanateurs de sépultures*\" (literally: *Invasion of the defilers of tombs*), which remains unchanged today.
Wanger wanted to add a variety of speeches and prefaces. He suggested a voice-over introduction for Miles. While the film was being shot, Wanger tried to get permission in England to use a Winston Churchill quotation as a preface to the film. The producer sought out Orson Welles to voice the preface and a trailer for the film. He wrote speeches for Welles\' opening on June 15, 1955, and worked to persuade Welles to do it, but was unsuccessful. Wanger considered science fiction author Ray Bradbury instead, but this did not happen, either. Mainwaring eventually wrote the voice-over narration himself.
The studio scheduled three film previews on the last days of June and the first day of July 1955. According to Wanger\'s memos at the time, the previews were successful. Later reports by Mainwaring and Siegel, however, contradict this, claiming that audiences could not follow the film and laughed in the wrong places. In response the studio removed much of the film\'s humor, \"humanity\" and \"quality,\" according to Wanger. He scheduled another preview in mid-August that also did not go well. In later interviews Siegel pointed out that it was studio policy not to mix humor with horror.


# Invasion of the Body Snatchers
### Post-production
Wanger saw the final cut in December 1955 and protested the use of the Superscope aspect ratio. Its use had been included in early plans for the film, but the first print was not made until December. Wanger felt that the film lost sharpness and detail. Siegel originally shot *Invasion of the Body Snatchers* in the 1.85:1 aspect ratio. Superscope was a post-production laboratory process designed to create an anamorphic print from non-anamorphic source material that would be projected at an aspect ratio of 2.00:1.

### Original intended ending
Both Siegel and Mainwaring were satisfied with the film as shot. It was originally meant to end with Miles screaming as truckloads of pods pass him by. The studio, wary of a pessimistic conclusion, insisted on adding a prologue and epilogue suggesting a more optimistic outcome to the story, which is thus told mainly in flashback. In this version the film begins with a ranting Bennell in custody in a hospital emergency ward. He then tells a consulting psychiatrist (Whit Bissell) his story. In the closing scene pods are found at a highway accident, confirming his warning. The Federal Bureau of Investigation is notified.
Mainwaring scripted this framing story and Siegel shot it on September 16, 1955, at the Allied Artists studio. In a later interview Siegel complained, \"The film was nearly ruined by those in charge at Allied Artists who added a preface and ending that I don\'t like\". In his autobiography Siegel added that \"Wanger was very much against this, as was I. However, he begged me to shoot it to protect the film, and I reluctantly consented ...\".
While the Internet Movie Database states that the film had been revised to its original ending for a re-release in 1979, Steve Biodrowski of *Cinefantastique* magazine notes that the film was still being shown with the complete footage, including a 2005 screening at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, honoring director Don Siegel.
Although most reviewers disliked it, George Turner (in *American Cinematographer*) and Danny Peary (in *Cult Movies*) endorsed the subsequently added frame story. Nonetheless, Peary emphasized that the added scenes changed significantly what he saw as the film\'s original intention.


# Invasion of the Body Snatchers
### Theatrical release
When the film was released domestically in February 1956, many theaters displayed several pods made of papier-mâché in theater lobbies and entrances, along with large lifelike black and white cutouts of McCarthy and Wynter running away from a crowd. The film earned more than \$1 million in the first month, and in 1956 alone earned more than \$2.5 million in the U.S. When the film was released in the U.K. (with cuts imposed by the British censors) in late 1956, the film earned more than a half million dollars in ticket sales.
Some reviewers saw in the story a commentary on the dangers facing the United States for turning a blind eye to McCarthyism. Leonard Maltin wrote of a McCarthy-era subtext, or of bland conformity in postwar Eisenhower-era America. Others viewed it as an allegory for the loss of personal autonomy in the Soviet Union or communist systems in general.
For the BBC, David Wood summarized the circulating popular interpretations of the film as follows: \"The sense of post-war, anti-communist paranoia is acute, as is the temptation to view the film as a metaphor for the tyranny of the McCarthy era.\" Danny Peary in *Cult Movies* pointed out that the studio-mandated addition of the framing story had changed the film\'s stance from anti-McCarthyite to anti-communist. Michael Dodd of *The Missing Slate* has called the movie \"one of the most multifaceted horror films ever made\", arguing that by \"simultaneously exploiting the contemporary fear of infiltration by undesirable elements as well as a burgeoning concern over homeland totalitarianism in the wake of Senator Joseph McCarthy\'s notorious communist witch hunt, it may be the clearest window into the American psyche that horror cinema has ever provided\".


# Invasion of the Body Snatchers
### Theatrical release
In *An Illustrated History of the Horror Film*, Carlos Clarens saw a trend manifesting itself in science fiction films, dealing with dehumanization and fear of the loss of individual identity, being historically connected to the end of \"the Korean War and the well publicized reports of brainwashing techniques\". Comparing *Invasion of the Body Snatchers* with Robert Aldrich\'s *Kiss Me Deadly* and Orson Welles\' *Touch of Evil*, Brian Neve found a sense of disillusionment rather than straightforward messages, with all three films being \"less radical in any positive sense than reflective of the decline of the screenwriters\' great liberal hopes\".
Despite a general agreement among film critics regarding these political connotations of the film, actor Kevin McCarthy said in an interview included on the 1998 DVD release that he felt no political allegory was intended. The interviewer stated that he had spoken with the author of the novel, Jack Finney, who professed no specific political allegory in the work. DVD commentary track, quoted in Feo Amante\'s homepage.
In his autobiography, *I Thought We Were Making Movies, Not History*, Walter Mirisch writes: \"People began to read meanings into pictures that were never intended. *The Invasion of the Body Snatchers* is an example of that. I remember reading a magazine article arguing that the picture was intended as an allegory about the communist infiltration of America. From personal knowledge, neither Walter Wanger nor Don Siegel, who directed it, nor Dan Mainwaring, who wrote the script nor original author Jack Finney, nor myself saw it as anything other than a thriller, pure and simple\".


# Invasion of the Body Snatchers
### Theatrical release
Don Siegel spoke more openly of an existing allegorical subtext, but denied a strictly political point of view: \"... I felt that this was a very important story. I think that the world is populated by pods and I wanted to show them. I think so many people have no feeling about cultural things, no feeling of pain, of sorrow. ... The political reference to Senator McCarthy and totalitarianism was inescapable but I tried not to emphasize it because I feel that motion pictures are primarily to entertain and I did not want to preach\". Film scholar J.P. Telotte wrote that Siegel intended for pods to be seductive; their spokesperson, a psychiatrist, was chosen to provide an authoritative voice that would appeal to the desire to \"abdicate from human responsibility in an increasingly complex and confusing modern world.\"

### Critical reception
Though *Invasion of the Body Snatchers* was largely ignored by critics on its initial run, Filmsite.org ranked it as one of the best films of 1956. The film holds a 98% approval rating and 9/10 rating at the film review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes. The site\'s consensus reads: \"One of the best political allegories of the 1950s, *Invasion of the Body Snatchers* is an efficient, chilling blend of sci-fi and horror\".
In recent years critics such as Dan Druker of the *Chicago Reader* have called the film a \"genuine Sci-Fi classic\". Leonard Maltin described *Invasion of the Body Snatchers* as \"influential, and still very scary\". *Time Out* called the film one of the \"most resonant\" and \"one of the simplest\" of the genre. Mark Steyn described it as "a big film", despite its limited budget.


# Invasion of the Body Snatchers
### Legacy
*Invasion of the Body Snatchers* was selected in 1994 for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being \"culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant\". In June 2008, the American Film Institute revealed its \"Ten top Ten\" --- the best ten films in ten \"classic\" American film genres --- after polling more than 1,500 people from the creative community. *Invasion of the Body Snatchers* was acknowledged as the ninth best film in the science fiction genre. The film was also placed on AFI\'s *AFI\'s 100 Years \... 100 Thrills*, a list of America\'s most heart-pounding films.
The film was included on Bravo\'s *100 Scariest Movie Moments*. Similarly, the Chicago Film Critics Association named it the 29th scariest film ever made. IGN ranked it as the 15th best sci-fi picture. *Time* magazine included *Invasion of the Body Snatchers* on their list of 100 all-time best films, the top 10 1950s Sci-Fi Movies, and Top 25 Horror Films. In 1999, *Entertainment Weekly* listed it as the 53rd best movie of all-time. Similarly, the book *Four Star Movies: The 101 Greatest Films of All Time* placed the movie at #60.
The film was released on DVD in 1998 by U.S.-label Republic (an identical re-release by Artisan followed in 2002); it includes the Superscope version plus a 1.375:1 Academy ratio version. The latter is not the original full frame edition, but a pan and scan reworking of the Superscope edition that loses visual detail.
DVD editions exist on the British market (including a computer colorized version), German market (as *Die Dämonischen*) and Spanish market (as *La Invasión de los Ladrones de Cuerpos*).


# Invasion of the Body Snatchers
### Legacy
Several Blu-ray Disc versions have been released including two bare-bones Blu-ray Disc editions by Olive Films in 2012 and German company Al!ve (under the title *Die Dämonischen*) in 2018. Sinister Films released a Blu-ray in Italy on March 18, 2014. This version, under the title *L\'Invasione degli Ultracorpi*, contained many special features including an interview with lead actor Kevin McCarthy and the 1957 *Studio One* episode entitled \"The Night America Trembled\", an unreleased filmed reconstruction of the famous Orson Welles radio transmission \"War of the Worlds\", starring Ed Asner, James Coburn, and Warren Beatty. Olive Films subsequently released a special edition Blu-ray in 2018, containing extensive bonus features including several featurettes, two Audio Commentaries, one with film historian Richard Harland Smith and a second with actors Kevin McCarthy and Dana Wynter, and filmmaker Joe Dante, and a 1985 archival interview with actor Kevin McCarthy.
The film was remade several times, including as *Invasion of the Body Snatchers* (1978), *Body Snatchers* (1993), and *The Invasion* (2007).
An untitled fourth remake from Warner Bros. is in development. David Leslie Johnson was signed to be the screenwriter.
It briefly inspired *Assimilate* (2019) which is also inspired by *The Body Snatchers* of the same name.
The film was the basis for the 2013 science fiction comedy *The World\'s End* and it has inspired two TV series, ABC\'s *Invasion* (2005 TV series), Apple TV+\'s *Invasion* (2021 TV series), and a subplot in Netflix\'s *Another Life* (2019 TV series).
Robert A. Heinlein had previously developed this subject in his 1951 novel *The Puppet Masters*, written in 1950. *The Puppet Masters* was later plagiarized as the 1958 film *The Brain Eaters*, and adapted under contract in the 1994 film *The Puppet Masters*.
There are several thematically related works that followed Finney\'s 1955 novel *The Body Snatchers*, including Val Guest\'s *Quatermass 2* and Gene Fowler\'s *I Married a Monster from Outer Space*.


# Invasion of the Body Snatchers
### Legacy
A Looney Tunes parody of the film was released, entitled *Invasion of the Bunny Snatchers* (1992). The adaptation was directed by Greg Ford and places Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd, Yosemite Sam, and Porky Pig in the various roles of the story.
In 2018 theater company Team Starkid created the musical parody *The Guy Who Didn\'t Like Musicals*, the story of a Midwestern town that is overtaken by a singing alien hivemind. The musical parodies numerous horror and musical tropes, while the main character also wears within the show a suit reminiscent of Bennell\'s wardrobe.
The May 1981 issue of *National Lampoon* featured a parody titled \"Invasion of the Money Snatchers\"; the gentile population of Whiteville is taken over by pastrami sandwiches from outer space and turned into Jews.
The film was also parodied in the 2012 *SpongeBob SquarePants* episode \"Planet of the Jellyfish\" (referencing *Planet of the Vampires* and *Planet of the Apes*) featuring characters from Bikini Bottom being replaced by alien clones in their sleep.
- Grant, Barry Keith. 2010. *Invasion of the body snatchers.* New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
- List of American films of 1956


# East of Eden (film)
***East of Eden*** is a 1955 American period drama film directed by Elia Kazan, and loosely based on the fourth and final part of the 1952 novel of the same name by John Steinbeck. It is about a wayward young man who, while seeking his own identity, vies for the affection of his deeply religious father against his favored brother, thus retelling the story of Cain and Abel.
The film stars Julie Harris, James Dean (in his first major screen role), and Raymond Massey. It also features Burl Ives, Richard Davalos, and Jo Van Fleet (also her first screen role), and was adapted by Paul Osborn.
Although set in early 20th century Monterey, California, much of the film was actually shot on location in Mendocino, California. Some scenes were filmed in the Salinas Valley. Of the three films in which James Dean played the lead, this is the only one to have been released during his lifetime.
The film, along with Dean\'s other films *Rebel Without a Cause* and *Giant*, was named one of the 400 best American films of all time by the American Film Institute.
In 2016, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being \"culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant\".
The plot line is loosely based on the biblical story of Cain and Abel. The story is set in 1917, during World War I, in the central California coastal towns of Monterey and Salinas. Cal and Aron are the young adult sons of a farmer and wartime draft board chairman, Adam Trask, with whom they live in the Salinas valley. Adam is a deeply religious Christian. Cal is moody and embittered by his belief that his father loves only Aron. Aron is courting his girlfriend, Abra. According to Adam, the boys\' mother, Kate, is dead and \"gone to heaven\". However, Cal discovers Kate operates a brothel in nearby Monterey, but does not immediately reveal this to Aron.


# East of Eden (film)
After Adam\'s idealistic plans for a long-haul vegetable shipping business venture end in a loss of thousands of dollars, Cal decides to enter the bean-growing business, as a way of recouping the money his father lost. He knows that if the United States enters the war, the price of beans will skyrocket. Cal hopes this will finally earn him the love and respect of his father. He asks Kate to borrow the \$5,000 capital he needs.
Meanwhile, Aron\'s girlfriend Abra gradually finds herself attracted to Cal, who seems to reciprocate her feelings.
Cal\'s bean venture is successful, and he decides to give the profits to Adam for his birthday at a surprise party planned by him and Abra. As the party begins, Aron suddenly announces that he and Abra are engaged. While Adam is openly pleased with the news, both Abra and Cal are uneasy due to their emerging relationship with each other. Cal makes a surprise birthday present of the money to his father; however, Adam refuses to accept any money earned by what he regards as war profiteering. Cal does not understand, and sees his father\'s refusal to accept the gift as just another emotional rejection. When the distraught Cal leaves the room, Abra goes after him, to console him as best she can. Aron follows and orders Cal to stay away from her.


# East of Eden (film)
In anger, Cal takes Aron to see what has become of their mother, pushes Aron into Kate\'s arms, and returns home alone. When his father demands to know where his brother is, Cal initially responds \"I\'m not my brother\'s keeper,\" but then tells him. The shock drives the pacifistic Aron to get drunk, lose his mind and then board a troop train to enlist in the army. When Sam, the sheriff, brings the news, Adam rushes to the train station in a futile attempt to dissuade him; he fails and can only watch helplessly as his son smashes his head through the rail car window, and the train steams away from him with Aron\'s head out the window maniacally laughing at him.
Adam then suffers a stroke, which leaves him paralyzed and unable to communicate. Cal tries to talk to him, but gets no response and leaves the bedroom. Abra pleads with Adam to show Cal some affection before it is too late. She persuades Cal to go back into the room. When Cal makes his last bid for acceptance before leaving town, his father manages to speak. He tells his son to get rid of the annoying nurse and not to get anyone else, but to stay and take care of him himself. The film ends with Cal, alone, sitting by his father\'s bedside, the emotional chasm between the father and son apparently closing.
Julie Harris and James Dean in *East of Eden*
Director Elia Kazan first toyed with the idea of casting Marlon Brando as Cal and Montgomery Clift as Aron, but at 30 and 34 years old, respectively, they were simply too old to play teenage brothers. Paul Newman, who was one year younger than Brando, was a finalist for the part of Cal, which eventually was played by James Dean, who was six years younger than Newman.
Newman and Dean, who were up for the part of Cal, screen tested together for the parts of the rival brothers. In the end, Richard Davalos got the part of Aron. This was his screen debut.
Julie Harris was cast as Abra James. Executive producer Jack L. Warner was opposed to her casting, because she was ten years older than her character.


# East of Eden (film)
Kazan denied rumors that he didn\'t like Dean: \"You can\'t not like a guy with that much pain in him... You know how a dog will be mean and snarl at you, then you pat him, and he\'s all over you with affection? That\'s the way Dean was.\" Kazan did intervene sternly, however, when Dean started to feel his power as a hotly emerging star and treated crew members disrespectfully.
The underlying theme of *East of Eden* is a biblical reference to the brothers Cain and Abel. Cal is constantly struggling to earn his father\'s approval. The relationship between Cal and his father is a stressful one and is not resolved until late in the story, after his father suffers a paralyzing stroke. In his paralyzed state and with the help of Julie Harris\' character, Abra, Cal\'s father finally expresses his suppressed love for the boy.
Other themes touched upon in the film include anti-German xenophobia, specifically as wrought against a local German immigrant as resentment about United States entry into World War I grew. The themes of young love and sibling rivalry are also present in the film, as Aron\'s girlfriend finds herself increasingly drawn to the more rebellious Cal.
Dave Kehr of the *Chicago Reader* praised the adaptation by Kazan and the \"down-to-earth\" performances of James Dean and Richard Davalos. Bosley Crowther, writing for *The New York Times*, described the film as having \"energy and intensity but little clarity and emotion\"; he notes:
According to Truman Capote, \"many critics reviewing the film remarked on the well-nigh plagiaristic resemblance between Dean\'s acting mannerisms and Marlon Brando\|Marlon Brando\'s.\" Bosley Crowther called Dean\'s performance a \"mass of histrionic gingerbread\" which clearly emulated the style of Brando. Kate Cameron, of the *New York Daily News*, on the other hand, proclaimed Dean \"a new star\" who had \"walked away with most of the honors.\" While conceding that he did \"sound at times like Marlon Brando,\" she called him \"a fine actor\" who \"plays his first film role with a naturalness that is completely convincing.\"


# East of Eden (film)
Fifty years later, film critic Kenneth Turan of the *Los Angeles Times* was much more positive, saying *East of Eden* is \"not only one of Kazan\'s richest films and Dean\'s first significant role, it is also arguably the actor\'s best performance.\" The film\'s depiction of the interaction between Dean and Massey was characterized by Turan as \"the paradigmatic generational conflict in all of American film.\"
Actor Leonardo DiCaprio stated in an interview with MTV that *East of Eden* was the film that made him \"obsessed with movies\".
`Award`
`Category`
`Nominee(s)`
`Result`
`Academy Awards`
`Best Director`
`Elia Kazan`
`Best Actor`
`James Dean (posthumous nomination)`
`Best Supporting Actress`
`Jo Van Fleet`
`Best Screenplay`
`Paul Osborn`
`Blue Ribbon Awards`
`Best Foreign Film`
`Elia Kazan`
`Bodil Awards`
`Best American Film`
`British Academy Film Awards`
`Best Film`
`Best Foreign Actor`
`James Dean`
`Most Promising Newcomer to Film`
`Jo Van Fleet`
`Cannes Film Festival`
`Palme d'Or`
`Elia Kazan`
`Best Dramatic Film`
`Cinema Writers Circle Awards`
`Best Foreign Director`
`Directors Guild of America Awards`
`Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures`
`Golden Globe Awards`
`Best Motion Picture – Drama`
`Special Achievement Award`
`James Dean (given posthumously)`
`Jussi Awards`
`Best Foreign Actor`
`James Dean `
`Kinema Junpo Awards`
`Best Foreign Film`
`Elia Kazan`
`National Board of Review Awards`
`Top Ten Films`
`National Film Preservation Board`
`National Film Registry`
`Online Film & Television Association Awards`
`Hall of Fame – Motion Picture`
`Picturegoer Awards`
`Best Actor`
`James Dean`
`Saturn Awards`
`Best DVD or Blu-ray Collection`
*`James Dean Ultimate Collector's Collection`*
`Writers Guild of America Awards`
`Best Written American Drama`
`Paul Osborn`
- List of American films of 1955
- Tibbetts, John C., and James M. Welsh, eds. *The Encyclopedia of Novels Into Film* (2nd ed. 2005) pp 111--112.


# Altered States
***Altered States*** is a 1980 American science fiction body horror film directed by Ken Russell and based on the novel of the same name by playwright and screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky. The film was adapted from Chayefsky\'s 1978 novel and is his final screenplay. The novel and the film are based in part on John C. Lilly\'s sensory deprivation research conducted in isolation tanks, under the influence of psychoactive drugs like mescaline, ketamine and LSD.
It marked the film debut of William Hurt and Drew Barrymore. Chayefsky withdrew from the project after disputes with Russell and took his name off the credits, substituting \"Sidney Aaron,\" his actual first and middle names.
The film score was composed by John Corigliano (with Christopher Keene conducting). The film was nominated for the Academy Awards for Best Original Score and Best Sound.
Edward Jessup, a Columbia University psychopathologist, is studying schizophrenia, and begins to think that \"our other states of consciousness are as real as our waking states.\" He begins experimenting with sensory deprivation using a flotation tank, aided by two like-minded researchers, Arthur Rosenberg and Mason Parrish. At a faculty party, he meets fellow \"whiz kid,\" and his future wife, Emily.


# Altered States
Seven years later, Edward and Emily have two daughters, are on the brink of divorce, and reunite with the couple who first introduced them. When Edward hears of the Hinchi tribe whose members experience shared hallucinatory states, he travels to Mexico to participate in their ceremony. During the climb up into the Hinchi hill country (a plateau covered in spectacular mushroom-shaped ventifacts) Edward is told by his guide, Eduardo Echeverria, that the Hinchi use in their ceremonies a potion containing the sacred mushroom *Amanita muscaria* and the shrub *Sinicuiche* (*Heimia salicifolia*), which they are collecting for next year\'s ceremonies. The tribe calls *Heimia salicifolia* by a Hinchi name meaning \"first/primordial flower\" in recognition of the deep memory states which it can evoke. An indigenous elder (\"the brujo\") is seen with a root (presumably intended to be a Heimia root) in his hand, which he asks Edward to hold, before cutting it in order to add some drops of blood to the mixture he is preparing. Immediately after consuming the mixture, Edward experiences bizarre, intense hallucinations, including one of the petrifaction and subsequent erosion by blown sand of Emily and himself. The following morning, Edward leaves the Hinchi plateau under a cloud, having killed, while in his intoxicated state, a large specimen of the Hinchi\'s sacred monitor lizard (which a petroglyph shown in the dream sequence shows that they believe to have given them the sacred mushroom in the mythic past). He returns to the U.S. with a sample of the Hinchi potion for analysis by his colleagues and further self-experimentation, and continues taking it in order to take his exploration of altered states of consciousness to a new and higher level.


# Altered States
When toxic concentrations of the substance make increased dosage dangerous, Edward returns to sensory deprivation, believing it will enhance the effects of the substance at his current dose. Repairing a disused tank in a medical school, Edward uses it to experience a series of increasingly drastic visions, including one of early Hominidae. Monitored by his colleagues, Edward insists that his visions have \"externalized\". Emerging from the tank, his mouth bloody, frantically writing notes because he is unable to speak, Edward insists on being X-rayed before he \"reconstitutes.\" A radiologist inspecting the X-rays says they belong to a gorilla.
In later experiments, Edward experiences actual, physical biological devolution. At one stage he emerges from the isolation tank as a feral and curiously small-statured, light-skinned caveman, going on a rampage through some streets in town before returning to his natural form. Despite his colleagues\' concern, Edward stubbornly continues. In the final experiment, Edward experiences a more profound regression, transforming into an amorphous mass of conscious, primordial matter. An energy wave released from the experiment stuns Edward\'s colleagues and destroys his tank. Emily arrives to find a swirling maelstrom where the tank had been. She searches into the vortex for Edward, finding him as he is on the brink of becoming a non-physical form of proto-consciousness and possibly disappearing from our version of reality altogether.
His friends bring Edward home, hoping that the transformations will end. Watched over by Emily, Edward begins to uncontrollably regress again, the transformations no longer requiring the intake of \"first flower\" or sensory deprivation. Urging Edward to fight the change, Emily grabs his hand, immediately being enveloped by the primordial energy emanating from Edward. The sight of Emily apparently being consumed by the energy stirs the human consciousness in Edward\'s devolving form. He fights the transformation and returns to his human form. Edward embraces Emily, as she returns to normal.


# Altered States
- William Hurt as Dr. Eddie Jessup
- Blair Brown as Emily Jessup
- Bob Balaban as Arthur Rosenberg
- Charles Haid as Mason Parrish
- Thaao Penghlis as Eduardo Echeverria
- Drew Barrymore as Margaret Jessup
- Megan Jeffers as Grace Jessup
- Dori Brenner as Sylvia Rosenberg
- Peter Brandon as Alan Hobart
- George Gaynes as Dr. Wissenschaft
- Jack Murdock as Hector Orteco
- Francis X. McCarthy as Obispo
- John Larroquette as X-ray Technician

### Development
The film had its origins with a meeting Paddy Chayefsky had with his friends Bob Fosse and Herb Gardner at the Russian Tea Room in 1975. They were feeling \"disgruntled\" and as a joke conceived a movie they could make together. They wanted to pitch something to Dino De Laurentiis, who was making *King Kong*. After discussing a version of *Frankenstein* they decided to do a version of *Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde*. Chayefsky went home and wrote a three-page \"dramatic statement and I have never seen something come together so fast.\"
Chayefsky decided to write a serious film on the American scientific community and the archetypal man in his search for his true self. A producer at Columbia Pictures, Daniel Melnick, suggested that Chayefsky turn a treatment he had written into a novel first and he agreed. He did extensive research with scientists and anthropologists. The novel was published in early 1978. As was the case with his previous films, Chayefsky was granted full creative control over the film version of *Altered States*.
Film rights were sold to Melnick, who had greenlit *Network* while the head of production at MGM, and who had a deal with Columbia. In April 1978, he turned in his script to Columbia. In June 1978, Melnick became the head of production at Columbia, but under his deal, he was still allowed to produce *Altered States*. Melnick wound up resigning in October, taking *Altered States* with him.


# Altered States
### Casting
The film\'s original director was Arthur Penn. He cast the movie, including the relatively unknown leads William Hurt (in his first movie) and Blair Brown. At one point, Scott Glenn was a contender for the male lead. Another key role went to Bob Balaban. Miguel Godreau, a dancer and teacher with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, was cast as Jessup\'s caveman incarnation.

### Change of director
Filming was to begin in November 1978. However, during rehearsals Penn resigned after a dispute with Chayefsky. Penn later recalled that the only way he could leave the project and get paid for his work was to be fired. But he and Chayefsky remained friends thereafter.
The eventual director was Ken Russell, who had struggled to find feature film work since the box office failure of *Valentino* (1977). Russell later recalled that \"they wanted a director who has a very visual imagination, and they knew I had that.\"
Russell later said his agent told him directors who had turned down the project included Steven Spielberg, Stanley Kubrick, Sydney Pollack, Robert Wise, and Orson Welles. He says his agent told him he was the twenty-seventh choice. Filming was then set to begin in March 1979 for Columbia with Howard Gottfried as producer. The film would eventually be done for Warner Bros, in part because the cost rose from an original budgeted \$9 million to \$12.5 million. It would eventually come in at just under \$15 million with \$4 million of that going on special effects.
Russell later replaced special effects expert John Dykstra with Bran Ferren, who is credited for Special Visual Effects in the front titles, and created the VFX actually used in the film. Dick Smith worked on the groundbreaking special makeup effects, which made extensive use of his pioneering air bladder effects.
It was the first time Russell made a film in Hollywood. He later said \"I thought I would hate Hollywood, but I rather liked it. Everyone there is supposed to be terribly materialistic, but *Altered States* was the first movie I ever worked on where nobody---not Warner Bros., not Dan Melnick, the executive producer, or Howard Gottfried, the producer---ever mentioned money.\"


# Altered States
### Locations
The film was shot at Sunset Gower Studios, Burbank Studios, Boston, and New York City. On-location filming locations included Harvard Medical School, Beacon Hill, Logan International Airport, Columbia University, the Payne Whitney Psychiatric Clinic, and the Bronx Zoo. Additionally, scenes set in Mexico were filmed on location in Creel, Chihuahua, and included real-life footage of Tarahumara people collecting psychotropic mushrooms.
There were three weeks of rehearsals in March 1979. During this time Chayefsky and Russell had a massive dispute. The writer left the project and did not appear on set during filming, contrary to his normal practice.
Itzkoff\'s book chronicles the making of *Altered States* and claims that Russell, objecting to Chayefsky\'s interference, had the writer banned from the set. Chayefsky reportedly tried to have Russell removed as director, but by then the film was already well underway, and the studio already had replaced one director (Penn). The film\'s producer, Howard Gottfried, told Chayefsky\'s biographer Shaun Considine that Russell was polite and deferential prior to production but after rehearsals began in 1979 \"began to treat Paddy as a nonentity\" and was \"mean and sarcastic." He called Russell a \"duplicitous, mean man.\"


# Altered States
### Locations
Russell said Chayefsky \"didn\'t like the color of the paint on the isolation tank. Then it went on to other things. He didn\'t like the lighting, then he didn\'t like the machinery, then he thought I was making the actors appear drunk in a scene where they were written to be slightly tipsy in a bar \... There was a lot of embarrassing dialogue, and there was a hell of a lot more in the original script than there is now; it was a verbose script.\" \"I couldn\'t work with someone else judging everything I did,\" said the director. \"Chayefsky told me, \'I\'ll just be on the set as a benign influence.\' The producer said, \'How do you spell benign, Paddy?\' He answered, \'W-I-C-K-E-D\'. He was joking but he wasn\'t joking.\" An unnamed source close to the film later opined that \"two strong artists were jockeying for control and, at a given point, a movie becomes a director\'s movie. You can\'t stand over his shoulder. You either support him or fire him.\"


# Altered States
### Locations
\"Paddy\'s hallucinations were impossible to film,\" said Russell in another interview. \"He\'d write a direction, something like \'Interstellar gas shot through 5 million miles of universe like a puff of cigarette smoke.\' But when I read the script, I realized the picture would only succeed to the extent that it dramatized a certain experience common to all men. And that experience isn\'t gas going through the universe.\" Russell added, \"there is a great deal of dialogue in \'Altered States,\' and as I saw it, my task was to make those scenes as visually interesting as possible so they wouldn\'t be swallowed up by the special effects.\" Russell admitted he did not \"shoot scenes as he was used to having them shot in other movies he has been involved in. I try to avoid the covering shot, long shot, close-up technique. Instead, I try for long, fluid sequences.\" The director said he felt Chayefsky had never \"been involved with a director who wasn\'t malleable. He would make suggestions, and I would listen courteously, and then disagree. \'I can\'t use your eyes,\' I told him. \'I\'ve got to use my own. In any case, there can be only one director on a picture.\"

### Chayefsky disavowal of film
Chayefsky later withdrew his name from the project, so the screenplay is credited to the pseudonymous Sidney Aaron. Film critic Janet Maslin, in her review of the film, thought it \"easy to guess why\":

:   It\'s easy to guess why screenwriter Chayefsky and director Ken Russell didn\'t see eye to eye. The direction, without being mocking or campy, treats outlandish material so matter-of-factly that it often has a facetious ring. The screenplay, on the other hand, cries out to be taken seriously, as it addresses, with no particular sagacity, the death of God and the origins of man. Film critic Richard Corliss attributed Chayefsky\'s disavowal of the film to distress over \"the intensity of the performances and the headlong pace at which the actors read his dialogue.\"


# Altered States
### Chayefsky disavowal of film
Russell maintained that he changed almost nothing in Chayefsky\'s script. \"We shot every word that Paddy wrote except for some trifling changes in the Mexican sequences,\" said Russell. \"In fact, I was more faithful to the script in \'Altered States\' than in any previous movie, and I think I did it great justice.\" \"We\'re saying every word exactly as he wrote it,\" said Brown during filming. \"I suppose the truth is he Chayefsky and Ken are such different personalities they found it impossible to work together.\"
According to screenwriter Joe Eszterhas, Chayefsky had a clause in his contract stipulating that the words in the script could not be changed. Russell, \"at the height of his alcoholism\", was rebuffed when attempting to change the words, and then \"began purposely trying to destroy Paddy\'s dialogue by having the actors eat while they were delivering it, or having them deliver it in a staccato, machine-gun kind of style, so that you couldn\'t make out what they were saying.\" Ezsterhas considered the direction of Russell to have \"destroyed\" the script and film, which was ultimately \"a critical and commercial failure \... a heartbreaking experience for Chayefsky, who had fought for decades against that, and for protecting his material. It was such a heartbreaking experience that he died shortly afterwards, some say from a broken heart.\"

### Box office
The film grossed \$19.9 million at the box office against a production budget of \$15 million.

### Critical response
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 85% based on 46 reviews, and an average rating of 6.9/10. The website\'s critical consensus reads \"Extraordinarily daring for a Hollywood film, *Altered States* attacks the viewer with its inventive, aggressive mix of muddled sound effects and visual pyrotechnics\". On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 58 out of 100, based on 13 critics, indicating \"mixed or average reviews\".


# Altered States
### Critical response
The initial reviews were generally strong. \"It\'s been a while since I\'ve gotten the acclaim I\'ve gotten on *Altered States*,\" said Russell.
Janet Maslin of *The New York Times* termed the film a \"methodically paced fireworks display, exploding into delirious special-effects sequences at regular intervals, and maintaining an eerie calm the rest of the time. If it is not wholly visionary at every juncture, it is at least dependably---even exhilaratingly---bizarre. Its strangeness, which borders cheerfully on the ridiculous, is its most enjoyable feature.\" She also called it \"in fine shape as long as it revels in its own craziness, making no claims on the viewer\'s reason. But when it asks you to believe that what you\'re watching may really be happening, and to wonder what it means, it is asking far too much. By the time it begins straining for an ending both happy and hysterical, it has lost all of its mystery, and most of its magic.\"
Richard Corliss began his review of the film thus:

:   This one has everything: sex, violence, comedy, thrills, tenderness. It\'s an anthology and apotheosis of American pop movies: *Frankenstein*, *Murders in the Rue Morgue*, *The Nutty Professor*, *2001*, *Alien*, *Love Story*. It opens at fever pitch and then starts soaring---into genetic fantasy, into a precognitive dream of delirium and delight. Madness is its subject and substance, style and spirit. The film changes tone, even form, with its hero\'s every new mood and mutation. It expands and contracts with his mind until both almost crack. It keeps threatening to go bonkers, then makes good on its threat, and still remains as lucid as an aerialist on a high wire. It moves with the loping energy of a crafty psychopath, or of film makers gripped with the potential of blowing the moviegoer\'s mind out through his eyes and ears. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to *Altered States*.


# Altered States
### Critical response
Corliss calls the film a \"dazzling piece of science fiction\"; he recognizes the film\'s dialogue as clearly Chayefsky\'s, with characters that are \"endlessly reflective and articulate, spitting out litanies of adjectives, geysers of abstract nouns, chemical chains of relative clauses\", dialogue that\'s a \"welcome antidote to all those recent\...movies in which brutal characters speak only words of one syllable and four letters.\" But the film is ultimately Russell\'s, who inherited a \"cast of unknowns\" chosen by its original director and \"gets an erotic, neurotic charge from the talking-heads scenes that recall Penn at his best.\"
Pauline Kael, on the other hand, wrote that the \"grotesquely inspired\" combination of \"Russell, with his show-biz-Catholic glitz mysticism, and Chayefsky, with his show-biz-Jewish ponderousness\" results in an \"aggressively silly picture\" that \"isn\'t really enjoyable.\"


# Altered States
### Critical response
John C. Lilly liked the film, and noted the following in an *Omni* magazine interview published in January 1983:

:   The scene in which the scientist becomes cosmic energy and his wife grabs him and brings him back to human form is straight out of my *Dyadic Cyclone* (1976)\...As for the scientist\'s regression into an ape-like being, the late Dr. Craig Enright, who started me on K (ketamine) while taking a trip with me here by the isolation tank, suddenly \"became\" a chimp, jumping up and down and hollering for twenty-five minutes. Watching him, I was frightened. I asked him later, \"Where the hell were you?\" He said, \"I became a pre-hominid, and I was in a tree. A leopard was trying to get me. So I was trying to scare him away.\" The manuscript of *The Scientist* (1978) was in the hands of Bantam, the publishers. The head of Bantam called and said, \"Paddy Chayefsky would like to read your manuscript. Will you give him your permission?\" I said, \"Only if he calls me and asks permission.\" He didn\'t call. But he probably read the manuscript.
Christopher John reviewed *Altered States* in *Ares Magazine* #6 and commented that \"Simply put, *Altered States* is very good at what it proposes to do -- luckily it proposed to do very little.\"
In *Ready for My Close-Up!: Great Movie Speeches* (2007), screenwriter Denny Martin Flinn called Chayefsky\'s screenplay \"brilliant\" and selected Emily\'s speech as \"Chayefsky\'s last great take on life and love.\"
According to *TV Guide*, Basil Dearden\'s 1963 film *The Mind Benders* \"is the direct predecessor of *Altered States*.\"
The film was nominated for two Academy Awards:
- Academy Award for Best Original Score -- John Corigliano
- Academy Award for Best Sound -- Arthur Piantadosi, Les Fresholtz, Michael Minkler and Willie D. Burton
The band Sloan recorded a song for their 1999 album Between the Bridges called \"Sensory Deprivation\", which specifically references the movie.


# Altered States
### Critical response
A section of dialogue from the film was sampled in Bring Me the Horizon\'s song, \"Anthem\". This sample is also occasionally played as the beginning of the same band\'s song, \"It Never Ends\", such as during live shows and in *Live at the Royal Albert Hall*, though it does not appear in the music video for \"It Never Ends\". In the album version, there is no white space between \"Anthem\" and \"It Never Ends\", such that it sounds as if though the sample is part of the latter song and not the former.
A shorter version of the sample was also used by Ministry in their song "Psalm 69".
The music video for A-Ha\'s \"Take On Me\" was inspired by the film.
The science fiction television show *Fringe*, which costarred Blair Brown, contained several episodes in which the main characters use a sensory deprivation tank while under the influence of LSD to 'view' a parallel universe, the past, and other planes of existence.
- Body horror
- Genetic memory in fiction
- List of films featuring hallucinogens
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# Once Upon a Time in America
***Once Upon a Time in America*** () is a 1984 epic crime film co-written and directed by Italian filmmaker Sergio Leone and starring Robert De Niro and James Woods. The film is an Italian--American venture produced by The Ladd Company, Embassy International Pictures, PSO Enterprises, and Rafran Cinematografica, and distributed by Warner Bros. Based on Harry Grey\'s novel *The Hoods*, it chronicles the lives of best friends David \"Noodles\" Aaronson and Maximilian \"Max\" Bercovicz as they lead a group of Jewish ghetto youths who rise to prominence as Jewish gangsters in New York City\'s world of organized crime. The film explores themes of childhood friendships, love, lust, greed, betrayal, loss, broken relationships, together with the rise of mobsters in American society.
It was the final film directed by Leone before his death five years later, and the first feature film he had directed in 13 years. It is also the third film of Leone\'s *Once Upon a Time Trilogy*, which includes *Once Upon a Time in the West* (1968) and *Duck, You Sucker!* (1971). The cinematography was by Tonino Delli Colli, and the film score by Ennio Morricone. Leone originally envisaged two three-hour films, then a single 269-minute (4 hours and 29 minutes) version, but was convinced by distributors to shorten it to 229 minutes (3 hours and 49 minutes). The American distributors, The Ladd Company, further shortened it to 139 minutes (2 hours and 19 minutes), and rearranged the scenes into chronological order, without Leone\'s involvement.
The shortened version was a critical and commercial flop in the United States, and critics who had seen both versions harshly condemned the changes that were made. The original \"European cut\" has remained a critical favorite and frequently appears in lists of the greatest films of all time, especially in the gangster genre.


# Once Upon a Time in America
In 1933, three thugs search for a man named \"Noodles\", torturing people for information. They enter a wayang theater, where the proprietors slip into a hidden opium den within the building and warn Noodles. He is apathetic, drugged and grasping a newspaper featuring the demise of bootleggers Patrick Goldberg, Philip Stein and Maximilian Bercovicz. He recalls observing police removing their corpses, Max\'s burned beyond recognition. Noodles evades capture and leaves the city alone and penniless.
In 1918, David \"Noodles\" Aaronson and his friends \"Patsy\" Goldberg, \"Cockeye\" Stein and Dominic struggle as street kids in Manhattan\'s Lower East Side, committing petty crimes for local boss Bugsy. Max foils one of their robberies but has the booty stolen from him by a corrupt police officer. Using the officer\'s trysts with an underage prostitute as blackmail, the five youngsters start a gang with the same level of police protection as Bugsy. Max and Noodles become best friends.
The group rises through the ranks after implementing Noodles\' idea to hide bootleg liquor. They stash half their earnings in a railway station locker, giving the key to \"Fat Moe\", a friend not directly involved in their activities. Noodles is in love with Moe\'s sister, Deborah, who dreams of becoming a dancer and actress. An envious Bugsy eventually ambushes the boys and shoots Dominic, who dies in Noodles\' arms. In a fit of rage, Noodles kills Bugsy and injures a police officer, and is sentenced to prison.
Noodles is released in 1930 and rejoins his friends, now prosperous bootleggers during Prohibition. His first job with them includes a diamond heist, using a jewellery employee and occasional prostitute named Carol as their informant. During the robbery, Carol goads Noodles into hitting her and he rapes her; she later goes on to become Max\'s moll. That the job had been commissioned by a Syndicate figure to eliminate the competition sits badly with Noodles who, unlike Max, dislikes hierarchy and lacks political ambition. The gang provides protection for Teamsters\' union boss Jimmy O\'Donnell, but Noodles later rejects Max\'s plan to deepen those ties.


# Once Upon a Time in America
Seeking to form a genuine intimacy with Deborah, Noodles takes her on a lavish date, the tone of which is altered when she reveals her plans to pursue a career in Hollywood. On their drive back, Noodles rapes her in the limousine. He is later met with Deborah\'s aloofness when he watches her board the train to California.
The gang\'s success ends with the 1933 repeal of Prohibition. Max suggests a New York Federal Reserve Bank heist, which Noodles and Carol deem a suicide mission. Carol convinces Noodles to inform the police about a lesser offence, hoping brief incarceration will cool off Max\'s ambition. After Noodles calls the police, Max knocks him out during a seemingly impromptu argument. This leads to the events shown in the prologue: upon regaining consciousness and learning that Max, Patsy, and Cockeye have been killed by the police, a guilt-ridden Noodles hides in the opium den. He saves Moe but finds out that his new girlfriend Eve has been murdered and the railway locker money has disappeared. With his gang killed and himself hunted by Syndicate thugs, Noodles settles in Buffalo under an alias.
In 1968, Noodles is belatedly informed that the Beth Israel Cemetery is being redeveloped, and asked to rebury any loved ones. Upon inquiry, the rabbi who had sent the letter informs him that the bodies of his three dead friends have since been relocated to Riverdale. Realizing that someone has deduced his identity, Noodles returns to Manhattan and stays with Moe. Inside the Riverdale mausoleum, Noodles finds a key to the railway locker. The caption on the commemorative plaque falsely states that the mausoleum was erected by Noodles himself. The locker reveals a suitcase full of money, and a note stating this is a down payment on his next job. Noodles watches news of an assassination attempt on controversial U.S. Secretary of Commerce Christopher Bailey. The report shows Jimmy O\'Donnell, still a Teamsters boss, distancing himself from the Bailey corruption scandal. Noodles finds Carol in a Bailey Foundation care home. She tells him that Max manipulated them into tipping him off to the police and opened fire first, afraid of ageing and dying in an insane asylum like his father.


# Once Upon a Time in America
After spotting her in the care home dedication photo, Noodles tracks down Deborah, still an actress. He tells her about his invitation to a party at Bailey\'s mansion. Deborah admits to being Bailey\'s lover and begs Noodles to remove himself from the situation lest he is confronted with hurtful revelations.
Ignoring Deborah\'s advice, Noodles comes face to face with the evidence that Bailey is the still-living Max. In a separate room during the party, Max explains that he faked his death with the help of the police and Syndicate, stole the gang\'s money and reinvented himself as a self-made, Teamsters-connected politician. He also confirms that he made Deborah his mistress years earlier. Faced with ruin and the specter of a Teamster assassination, Max reveals the \"job\" he has for Noodles--killing him. Noodles, obstinately referring to him by his Bailey identity, refuses because, in his eyes, Max died with the gang. As Noodles leaves the estate, a garbage truck starts up and a man resembling Max walks from the entrance toward Noodles until the truck passes between them. Noodles sees the truck\'s auger grinding down rubbish, but Max is nowhere to be seen.
The epilogue returns to 1933 with Noodles entering the opium den after his friends\' deaths, taking the drug and broadly grinning.
- Robert De Niro as Noodles
  - Scott Tiler as Young Noodles
- James Woods as Max
  - Rusty Jacobs as Young Max/David Bailey
- Elizabeth McGovern as Deborah
  - Jennifer Connelly as Young Deborah
- Joe Pesci as Frankie Monaldi
- Burt Young as Joe
- Tuesday Weld as Carol
- Treat Williams as Jimmy O\'Donnell
- Danny Aiello as Police Chief Aiello
- Richard Bright as Chicken Joe
- James Hayden as Patsy
  - Brian Bloom as Young Patsy
- William Forsythe as Cockeye
  - Adrian Curran as Young Cockeye
- Darlanne Fluegel as Eve
- Larry Rapp as Fat Moe
  - Mike Monetti as Young Fat Moe
- Richard Foronjy as Whitey
- Robert Harper as Sharkey
- Dutch Miller as Van Linden
- Gerard Murphy as Crowning
- Amy Ryder as Peggy
  - Julie Cohen as Young Peggy
- Estelle Harris as Peggy\'s mother


# Once Upon a Time in America
The cast also includes Noah Moazezi as Dominic, James Russo as Bugsy, producer Arnon Milchan as Noodles\' chauffeur, Marcia Jean Kurtz as Max\'s mother, Joey Faye as an \"Adorable Old Man\", and Olga Karlatos as a wayang patron. Frank Gio, Ray Dittrich and Mario Brega (a regular supporting actor in Leone\'s *Dollars Trilogy*) respectively appear as Beefy, Trigger and Mandy, a trio of gangsters who search for Noodles. Frequent De Niro collaborator Chuck Low and Leone\'s daughter Francesca respectively make uncredited appearances as Fat Moe and Deborah\'s father, and David Bailey\'s girlfriend. In the 2012 restoration, Louise Fletcher appears as the Cemetery Directress of Riverdale, where Noodles visits his friends\' tomb in 1968.

### Development
During the mid-1960s, Sergio Leone had read the novel *The Hoods* by Harry Grey, a pseudonym for the former gangster-turned-informant whose real name was Harry Goldberg. In 1968, after shooting *Once Upon a Time in the West*, Leone made many efforts to talk to Grey. Having enjoyed Leone\'s *Dollars Trilogy*, Grey finally responded and agreed to meet with Leone at a Manhattan bar. Following that initial meeting, Leone met with Grey several times throughout the remainder of the 1960s and 1970s, having discussions with him to understand America through Grey\'s point of view. Intent on making another trilogy about America consisting of *Once Upon a Time in the West*, *Duck, You Sucker!* and *Once Upon a Time in America*, Leone turned down an offer from Paramount Pictures to direct *The Godfather* in order to pursue his pet project. Elements of Norman Mailer\'s first two drafts of a commissioned screenplay that was later drafted would appear in the film.

### Filming
Robert De Niro and Sergio Leone on the set of the movie The filming of *Once Upon a Time in America* started in June of 1982 and eventually ended in April the next year. The locations where the shooting took place were in and around US, Canada, Italy, and France, with a focal point in New York City. Interior scenes were mostly filmed at the Cinecittà Studios in Rome.


# Once Upon a Time in America
### Filming
The beach scene, where Max unveils his plan to rob the Federal Reserve, was shot at The Don CeSar in St. Pete Beach, Florida. The New York\'s railway \"Grand Central Station\" scene in the thirties flashbacks was filmed in the Gare du Nord in Paris. The interiors of the lavish restaurant where Noodles takes Deborah on their date were shot in the Hotel Excelsior in Venice, Italy.

### Editing
By the end of filming, Leone had ten hours worth of footage. With his editor, Nino Baragli, Leone trimmed this to almost six hours, and he originally wanted to release the film in two parts. The producers refused, partly because of the commercial and critical failure of Bernardo Bertolucci\'s two-part *1900*, and Leone was forced to further shorten it. The film was originally 269 minutes (4 hours and 29 minutes), but when the film premiered out of competition at the 1984 Cannes Film Festival, Leone had cut it to 229 minutes (3 hours and 49 minutes) to appease the distributors, which was the version shown in European cinemas.

### Music
The musical score was composed by Leone\'s longtime collaborator Ennio Morricone. \"Deborah\'s Theme\" was written for another film in the 1970s but was rejected. The score is also notable for Morricone\'s incorporation of the music of Gheorghe Zamfir, who plays a pan flute. Zamfir\'s flute music was used to similar effect in Peter Weir\'s *Picnic at Hanging Rock* (1975). Morricone also collaborated with vocalist Edda Dell\'Orso on the score.
Besides the original music, the film used source music, including:


# Once Upon a Time in America
### Music
- \"God Bless America\" (written by Irving Berlin, performed by Kate Smith -- 1943) -- Plays over the opening credits from a radio in Eve\'s bedroom and briefly at the film\'s ending.
- \"Yesterday\" (written by Lennon--McCartney -- 1965) -- A Muzak version of this piece plays when Noodles first returns to New York in 1968, examining himself in a train station mirror. An instrumental version of the song also plays briefly during the dialogue scene between Noodles and \"Bailey\" towards the end of the film.
- \"Summertime\" (written by George Gershwin -- 1935) An instrumental version of the aria from the opera *Porgy and Bess* is playing softly in the background as Noodles, just before leaving, explains to \"Secretary Bailey\" why he could never kill his friend.
- \"Amapola\" (written by Joseph Lacalle, American lyrics by Albert Gamse -- 1923) -- Originally an opera piece, several instrumental versions of this song were played during the film; a jazzy version, which was played on the gramophone danced to by young Deborah in 1918; a similar version played by Fat Moe\'s jazz band in the speakeasy in 1930; and a string version, during Noodles\' date with Deborah. Both versions are available on the soundtrack.
- \"La gazza ladra\" overture (Gioachino Rossini -- 1817) -- Used during the baby-switching scene in the hospital.
- \"Night and Day\" (written and sung by Cole Porter -- 1932) -- Played by a jazz band during the beach scene before the beachgoers receive word of Prohibition\'s repeal, and during the party at the house of \"Secretary Bailey\" in 1968.
- \"St. James Infirmary Blues\" is used during the Prohibition \"funeral\" at the gang\'s speakeasy.
A soundtrack album was released in 1984 by Mercury Records. This was followed by a special-edition release in 1995, featuring four additional tracks.


# Once Upon a Time in America
### Music
*Once Upon a Time in America* premiered at the 1984 Cannes Film Festival on May 20, 1984. It received a raucous, record-breaking ovation of nearly 20 minutes after the screening (reportedly heard by diners at restaurants across the street from the Palais), at a time in Cannes\'s history before marathon applause became a regular occurrence. In the United States, the film received a wide release in 894 theaters on 1 June 1984, and grossed \$2.4 million during its opening weekend. It ended its box office run with a gross of just over \$5.3 million on a \$30 million budget, and became a box office flop.
Numerous women at the film\'s premiere reacted furiously, mostly due to the two rape sequences. One among them later confronted Robert De Niro in a press conference and made harsh comments to the film\'s depiction, describing it as \"blatant, gratuitous violence.\" In general, the rape scenes specifically were controversial. Richard Godden defended Leone\'s representation of rape that it \"articulates the dysfunction between bodies in images and bodies themselves.\" Elizabeth McGovern supported Godden\'s claim and said that Leone didn\'t intend to glamorize any \"violent sex\". In his book, Sergio Leone\'s scholar Christopher Frayling argues that the movie\'s central gang are all emotionally stunted: \"\... like small boys obsessed with their equipment who have no idea how to relate to flesh-and-blood women.\"


# Once Upon a Time in America
### Versions
#### U.S. version
The film was shown in limited release and for film critics in North America, where it was slightly trimmed to secure an \"R\" rating. Cuts were made to two rape scenes and some of the more graphic violence at the beginning. Noodles\' meeting with Bailey in 1968 was also excised. The film gained a mediocre reception at several sneak premieres in North America. Because of this early audience reaction, the fear of its length, its graphic violence, and the inability of theaters to have multiple showings in one day, The Ladd Company cut entire scenes and removed approximately 90 minutes of the film, without the supervision of Sergio Leone. This American wide release (1984, 139 minutes) was drastically different from the European release, as the non-chronological story was rearranged into chronological order. Other major cuts involved many of the childhood sequences, making the adult 1933 sections more prominent. Noodles\' 1968 meeting with Deborah was excised, and the scene with Bailey ends with him shooting himself (with the sound of a gunshot off screen) rather than the garbage truck conclusion of the 229-minute version. Sergio Leone\'s daughter, Raffaella Leone claimed that Leone had dismissed the US version as not his own movie.

#### USSR
In the Soviet Union, the film was shown theatrically in the late 1980s, with other Hollywood blockbusters such as the two *King Kong* films. The story was rearranged in chronological order and the film was split in two, with the two parts shown as separate movies, one containing the childhood scenes and the other comprising the adulthood scenes. Despite the rearranging, no major scene deletions were made.

#### Restored original
`Robert De Niro and Elizabeth McGovern at the screening of the film's restored version, during the 2012 Cannes Film Festival.`
In March 2011, it was announced that Leone\'s original 269-minute version was to be re-created by a film lab in Italy under the supervision of Leone\'s children, who had acquired the Italian distribution rights, and the film\'s original sound editor, Fausto Ancillai, for a premiere in 2012 at either the Cannes Film Festival or Venice Film Festival.


# Once Upon a Time in America
### Versions
#### Restored original
The restored film premiered at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival, but because of unforeseen rights issues for the deleted scenes, the restoration had a runtime of only 251 minutes. However, Martin Scorsese (whose Film Foundation helped with the restoration) stated that he was helping Leone\'s children gain the rights to the final 24 minutes of deleted scenes to create a complete restoration of Leone\'s envisaged 269-minute version. On 3 August 2012, it was reported that after the premiere at Cannes, the restored film was pulled from circulation, pending further restoration work.


# Once Upon a Time in America
### Versions
#### Home media
In North America, a two-tape VHS was released by Warner Home Video with a runtime of 226 minutes in February 1985 and 1991. The U.S. theatrical cut was also released at the same time in February 1985. A two-disc special edition was released on 10 June 2003, featuring the 229-minute version of the film. This special edition was re-released on 11 January 2011, on both DVD and Blu-ray. On 30 September 2014, Warner Bros. released a two-disc Blu-ray and DVD set of the 251-minute restoration shown at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival, dubbed the *Extended Director\'s Cut*. This version was previously released in Italy, on 4 September 2012.
The initial critical response to *Once Upon a Time in America* was mixed, because of the different versions released worldwide. While internationally the film was well received in its original form, American critics were much more dissatisfied with the 139-minute version released in North America. This condensed version was a critical and financial disaster, and many American critics who knew of Leone\'s original cut attacked the short version. Some critics compared shortening the film to shortening Richard Wagner\'s operas, saying that works of art that are meant to be long should be given the respect they deserve. In his 1984 review, Roger Ebert gave the uncut version four stars out of four and wrote that it was \"an epic poem of violence and greed\", but described the American theatrical version as a \"travesty\". Furthermore, he gave the American theatrical version one star out of four, calling it \"an incomprehensible mess without texture, timing, mood, or sense.\" Ebert\'s television film critic partner Gene Siskel considered the uncut version to be the best film of 1984 and the shortened, linear studio version to be the worst film of 1984. However, Vincent Canby of *The New York Times* criticized the nonlinear narrative that is structured throughout the film.