A bunch of military paratroopers descend on a freefall flight and as a group from NATO wait for them to land they disappear in to thin air
A good opening hook and as the film continues you get the impression that the production have no idea to develop the film outside of the opening hook . In fact despite being a science fiction B movie you get the feeling the production crew are wanting to make a James Bond film and the premise does feel Bond like in many ways . Patrick Allen as Bob Megan is basically channeling Bond as he lights up a cigarette and eyes up every piece of skirt in sight . George Sander is a surrogate M while Neil Connery could easily be a surrogate Q How pathetic is that ? They couldn't get Sean Connery to star in THE BOY STEALERS as Bond but as a way of compensating for this they got Sean's brother !
One genuinely does wonder if at early draft stage THE BODY STEALERS may have been conceived as a straight forward esponaige thriller and rather late in the day became a science fiction genre movie ? Certainly there are scenes that remain confusing such as the culmination of a scene where Jim Radford pursues the mysterious Lorna and the rushed explanation of the ending . Quite often THE BODY STEALERS makes the top ten worst science fiction lists of people who have seen it . It's possibly not that bad and for a B movie the production values aren't all that bad simply because it is very talkative and therefore isn't reliant on special effects , but the problem is the screenplay is painfully under developed and its only al highpoint after the effective opening scene is a government minister being worried about Scotish nationalists repopulating the Highlands
