The Body Stealers

The Body Stealers (also released as *Invasion of the Body Stealers* and *Thin Air*) is a 1969 British science fiction film directed by Gerry Levy, with George Sanders and Maurice Evans in leading roles. The story follows two investigators who discover that aliens are abducting humans by plucking them from the air.

During routine parachute exercises, British paratroopers vanish mid-jump. Former air force investigator Bob Megan is called in to look into the disappearances. At a military research lab run by Dr. Matthews, he meets a woman named Lorna, who disappears after each encounter. One missing trooper is found barely alive and dies upon arrival at the lab. An autopsy by Dr. Julie Slade reveals his biochemistry has been altered. Megan learns that all the missing troopers had spaceflight training, leading Matthews to theorise they are being adapted for a non-Earth environment.

Slade goes to Matthews’ cottage and finds the real Matthews dead, replaced by an alien named Marthus. When Megan arrives, Marthus explains the troopers were taken to repopulate his plague-ravaged home planet, Mygon. Marthus tries to kill Megan and Slade but is stopped by Lorna, who is revealed to be his alien companion. Lorna shows Megan the troopers in suspended animation and the aliens’ spacecraft. Megan offers to find volunteers to help repopulate Mygon in exchange for the troopers’ return. Lorna agrees, then vanishes with Marthus and the ship.

The alien spacecraft used in the film is the Dalek flying saucer from *Daleks’ Invasion Earth 2150 A.D.* (1966).

Critical reception was poor. *The Monthly Film Bulletin* noted the promising initial idea was buried under subplots and unexplained events, with a weak, talkative script. Alan Jones of *Radio Times* gave it one star, calling it a talky, low-budget, inept clone of *Invasion of the Body Snatchers*. *Time Out* described it as a threadbare Anglo-American effort with too much vapid dialogue and too little action, ending feebly in a British sort of way.