Stealing Through Time: On the Writings of Jack Finney (29 page)

Dr. Kaufman, who has taken on the role of the scientist in the film, explains that the pods are seeds that drifted through space for years before taking root in a farmer's field. Miles resists the change, noting that the new bodies "have no feelings, only the instinct to survive." Miles and Becky escape their captors by injecting them with sedatives, and they race into the hills at the edge of town, pursued by the townspeople.

Miles and Becky take refuge in a cave-like tunnel, hiding in an abandoned mine shaft as the crowd searches for them. Becky falls asleep and changes into a replacement, marking the second major change from the source material. This changeover has puzzled filmgoers for almost fifty years, since up to that point the replacement bodies have had to be different than the original humans. However, the filmmakers seem to have decided that logic was not necessary when reaching for a suspenseful effect, and Becky's awakening as a pod-person is one of the classic scary moments in 1950s cinema.

Miles, now alone, reaches the highway, and runs wildly among the cars and trucks, trying in vain to warn everyone that the pods are coming and will replace them. He yells into the camera, "They're here already — you're next!" This was the film's original ending, but the release print adds the conclusion of the framing story with which the film had opened. Miles, still in the hospital, finishes telling his story to the skeptical doctors. Their skepticism changes to fear when they learn that a truck filled with giant seed pods has overturned on the road from Santa Mira. The film ends as the authorities are summoned, presumably to defeat the aliens once and for all.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers
is a wonderful film, which uses film noir techniques to tell a story that is part science fiction, part horror, and part detective story. Jack Finney was said to have thought it "marvelous," and it is recognized as a landmark film of the 1950s.

The third film to be adapted from a Jack Finney novel is not as well known, but is quite well made. "The House of Numbers" first appeared as a novelette in the July 1956 issue of
Cosmopolitan.
It was then expanded to novel form and published as a paperback original by Dell in 1957. That same year, it was released as an M-G-M motion picture, and the credits state that it is "based on the Cosmopolitan magazine novel by Jack Finney." Thus, like the filmed versions of "5 Against the House" and " The Body Snatchers," this third film to be made from Jack Finney's work seems to have been based on the original, shorter version rather than the longer book version that followed. It is quite possible that the stories were sold to Hollywood studios and that these movie deals led to book deals for the author.

House of Numbers
is filmed in gritty black and white, like the two movies that precede it, and is a fine example of the suspenseful crime films that were made by studios in the 1950s. It features a short sequence before the opening titles, in which a montage of prison scenes concludes as an inmate attacks a guard by grabbing his ankles and throwing him over a railing to the floor far below. The titles then appear, stamped on the screen by a hand holding a rubber stamp and superimposed over a shot of the prison exterior. Thanks are given to warden Harley O. Teets and others, as well as to real San Quentin officers and inmates who appear in the film. Jack Finney had also thanked Warden Teets for his help in researching the novel. After a voiceover tells viewers how hard it is to escape from the prison, the story begins as we meet 
Bill and Ruth Judlow, who have four days to help Bill's brother Arnie escape from prison. Ruth is Arnie's wife and he is serving a life sentence. Much as the five college friends do in
5 Against the House,
Bill and Ruth shop for various items to use in the planned escape. Arnie has given them a list and presumably a plan; the details of the plan unfold as the film unwinds.

Ruth knew Arnie for only twelve days before they wed, and Arnie killed a man who Ruth had dated when he thought that the man was paying too much attention to her. Arnie was jealous and controlling, and Ruth clearly fears him and is anxious about being reunited. Still, both she and Bill believe that they owe it to Arnie to help him escape, and they rent a house near the prison in order to carry out the plan.

They hear a radio report that states that the guard who was attacked at the beginning of the film is recovering and will likely name his attacker when he awakes. Bill explains that Arnie would be put to death under California law for assaulting the guard, even though the guard did not die. A problem develops when they meet their new neighbor, Henry Nova, who is a guard at the prison. He recognizes Ruth from her visits to the jail and promises to keep an eye on Arnie, much to their chagrin.

That night, Ruth drives Bill to the prison and he climbs the wall in the remote industrial area, where he hides among a stack of crates. He switches places with his brother the next day and takes his place among the prison inmates. Jack Palance plays both Bill and Arnie Judlow, and the difference between the two characters is apparent. As played by Palance, Bill is quieter than Arnie, with a look of fear in his eyes but a moral center. Arnie, on the other hand, is wild-eyed and nervous. Bill's time as a prisoner does not go smoothly, as he lights up a cigarette in the mess hall and is reported for the infraction. This attracts Nova's attention and, while the guard does not realize that he is speaking to Bill and not Arnie, the attention is unwanted, as is Nova's unsavory attraction to Ruth.

That night, under cover of darkness, Arnie comes out of hiding from among the crates and digs a grave-sized hole in the industrial area yard. He then covers the hole with plywood and camouflages it before returning to his hiding place. The next day, Arnie and Bill switch places again. That night, Bill escapes over the wall and Ruth picks him up and brings him home. At this point, it is unclear what is going on, other than the fact that Arnie has managed to dig a hole in the yard and hide it from view.

The next morning, as Bill carves a realistic-looking gun from a block of wood, we learn that Arnie has been squandering opportunities at Bill's expense for many years. Arnie went to college, so Bill could not afford to go, yet Arnie dropped out and became a boxer. He later killed a man with his hands and was convicted of assault with a deadly weapon. Both Bill and Ruth feel guilty about Arnie's fate, even though he has clearly taken advantage of them. This guilt provides the rationale for their helping him to escape.

Back at the prison, Arnie fakes advantage of a momentary distraction to hide in the hole he had prepared. A subsequent count of inmates comes up short and the alarm is sounded. Guards search the prison as Arnie remains hidden underground.

On the outside, Bill hijacks a car and plants evidence to make it appear that Arnie was the culprit. Police investigate and confirm that Arnie has escaped from prison. This leads the warden to turn off the alarm, which means that the search of the prison area comes to an end and the wall in the industrial area is again unguarded.

Bill and Ruth return home to find Henry Nova waiting for them in their living room. He tries to blackmail them, having guessed the truth, and Bill goes to the prison to help Arnie escape as Nova supposedly awaits his return. Bill climbs the wall back into the prison and a suspenseful scene ensues as Arnie and Bill hide in the hole while a guard walks by, inspecting the area. The problem with this scene is that the area is dirt, yet the guard's footsteps echo loudly as if he were walking on a platform. While this allows Arnie and Bill to listen to him as he passes, and also allows for maximum suspense in the film, it is utterly implausible that footsteps would make this sound on dirt.

Arnie and Bill avoid the guard and climb the wall, only to find Nova waiting for them on the other side. Yet Nova does not realize that there are two of them, and he is tackled from above. Arnie nearly kills Nova and Bill has to intervene; he sees first hand how dangerous and unstable Arnie is. Bill then takes Arnie home to Ruth, who resists his affection. Ruth chooses to stay with Bill and Arnie leaves, swearing never to go back to jail.

Later, Bill and Ruth are summoned to the prison by the warden, who received a tip from an anonymous caller. The warden has also guessed what happened, but his concern is with getting Arnie back safely, and he convinces them to reveal his hiding place. Bill tells Ruth that Arnie was the one who called the warden anonymously and turned them in, and the film ends as Bill's anguished face shows the dismay that his brother has caused.

House of Numbers
is a gripping suspense film, with an outstanding performance by Jack Palance as the Judlow brothers and good supporting work by Barbara Lang as Ruth and Harold J. Stone as Nova. Edward Platt, who would later gain fame as the Chief on the television series,
Get Smart,
is convincing as the warden.
House of Numbers
is effective film noir, making good use of shadows, night scenes, close quarters (characters are often seen in cars), and suspenseful music. Like other classics of the genre, it features tough characters caught in a web from which they seem unable to escape.

After having his first three novels made into movies that were released three years in a row, Jack Finney would have to wait another seven years before another film of his work was released. This time, it would be in color, a comedy very different in tone from the three movies that preceded it.

Good Neighbor Sam
was released by Columbia Pictures in 1964. Finney was quoted in a 1966 interview as saying that he wrote the book with actor Jack Lemmon in mind (Wilson), and Lemmon starred in the adaptation of the 1963 novel. This film marked a big departure from the three films that had preceded it. It was in color, it had a big budget, and it was a comedy. Set in and around San Francisco,
Good Neighbor Sam
is a film that still holds up forty years later as great entertainment.

Sam Bissell is a likeable young man raising a family in the suburbs and commuting to work each day at the office of Burke and Hare, an advertising agency where the executives are successful but less than ethical. Early in the film, Sam laments his boring nine-to-five life, foreshadowing similar complaints that would be raised in Finney's 1977 novel,
The Night People.
Sam's wife is the lovely, blonde Minerva, whom he calls Min.

The film's plot follows two main threads. One concerns an ad campaign for Nurdlinger Eggs. Mr. Nurdlinger is played by Edward G. Robinson, who enjoys the role of the puritanical dairy man who threatens to fire the Burke and Hare agency because all of their executives are libertines. This leads Sam's boss to promote him from the art department to account executive in charge of the Nurdlinger egg campaign —Sam is the only man in the company who appears to live a clean, family-oriented life. Sam's intention to "strip away the sham and pretension" from advertising is bound to fail.

The second thread concerns Min's old school friend, Janet Lager-lof, who moves in next door to the Bissells after returning from Europe. While Janet in the novel was simply an attractive next-door neighbor, in the film she is a rather exotic woman with a foreign accent and a devil-may-care attitude, played by Austrian actress Romy Schneider. Sam must pose as her husband in order for her to inherit fifteen million dollars from her late grandfather, who left a will insisting that her marriage be sound for the inheritance to be paid.

The theme of the film is simple: the older generation, represented by Mr. Nurdlinger and Janet's dead grandfather, do not approve of the loose morals of the younger generation, and they use their wealth to try to force younger men and women to behave in ways they believe are appropriate. Nurdlinger wants a clean ad campaign, and Sam tries to give it to him. Janet's grandfather wanted a happily married granddaughter, and Sam also attempts to provide this. The irony of both situations is that they can only come true through falsehoods, with Sam — truly a good neighbor to all — the hapless participant in both shams.

Of course, neither lie is easily maintained, and the film finds its humor in Sam's attempts to keep up a good front as his life grows ever more complicated. Sam's interior monologue from the novel is gone, as is much of the novel's racy content — Sam is barely tempted by Janet's charms in the film, except for one scene where he imagines the result of an attempt at seduction. In the end, all is well, as Sam returns to his life with Min and Janet presumably inherits fifteen million dollars — a million of which she promised to give to the Bissells. The novel's final twist is missing; in the book, a second will is discovered that deprives Janet of her inheritance. In the film, the money is forgotten in the end as everyone lives happily ever after in a suburban world of artifice maintained by a series of deceptions.

Two years after
Good Neighbor Sam
was released, another big-budget color adaptation of a Jack Finney novel hit the movie screens. This time, it was
Assault on a Queen,
adapted from Finney's 1959 novel of the same name, which had been written and published four years before the novel that served as a basis for
Good Neighbor Sam.
The film version of
Assault on a Queen
was written by Rod Serling, whose television series,
The Twilight Zone,
is said to have owed a debt to Finney's time travel stories of the 1950s. This film had its premiere the same spring that Finney's play,
This Winter's Hobby,
ran briefly in Connecticut and Philadelphia before closing.

Assault on a Queen
stars Frank Sinatra as Mark Brittain, a sailor who is down on his luck. He is recruited by Vic Rossiter and Eric Lauffnauer, who are relying on money supplied by Rosa Lucchesi to dive for sunken treasure. Set to a jazzy score, the film is a star turn for Sinatra who, at age 51, romances the lovely 29-year-old Italian actress, Virna Lisi. Unlike the novel, where Lauffnauer plans to raise the submarine from the start and rob the
Queen Mary,
everything in the film happens by coincidence. Mark discovers the sunken U-boat while diving for sunken treasure; Lauffnauer happens to have been a U-boat commander and suggests "why not play pirates?"