Kevin McCarthy and Don Siegel Cameos Invasion of the Body Snatchers

The 1978 remake contains two cameos that function as a direct line to the 1956 film: Kevin McCarthy, who starred as Dr. Miles Bennell in the original, and Don Siegel (in Body Snatchers, as director), who directed it. Both appearances are brief. Both are load-bearing.

Kevin McCarthy runs through traffic shouting the warning from the 1956 ending

The 1956 Invasion of the Body Snatchers ended, after studio-ordered reshoots, with McCarthy's Dr. Bennell stranded on a highway, lunging at cars and shrieking "They're here! You're next!" Philip Kaufman (in Body Snatchers, as director) picks up that image twenty-two years later. McCarthy appears in the streets of San Francisco, hammering on the windshield of Matthew and Elizabeth's car, still running, still shouting the same line.

"If Kevin McCarthy had metaphorically been running for 20 years from a small place out in the country shouting, 'They're here! They're here!' and finally arriving in the big city, he's the bearer of that theme." — Philip Kaufman, It Came From Blog (2018)

McCarthy delivers the line exactly as he did in 1956 — the same desperate pitch, the same futile urgency:

"They're here! Help! They're coming! You're next!" — Kevin McCarthy, Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978), dialogue (reprising his 1956 role)

The cameo is the film's premise in miniature: the 1956 warning was never heeded, the pods kept moving, and they have now reached San Francisco.

McCarthy told Kaufman about an encounter on location.

"The guy said to Kevin, 'What are you guys doing here, Invasion of the Body Snatchers? Weren't you in the first?' And Kevin said, 'Yeah.' And the guy said, 'That was the better one.'" — Philip Kaufman, It Came From Blog (2018)

Don Siegel plays the taxi driver who delivers Matthew and Elizabeth to the pods

Siegel, who died in 1991, had directed the original for Allied Artists under conditions he resented — the studio had tacked a framing device onto his bleaker ending. Kaufman approached him as both a tribute and an apology, and cast him as the cabbie who takes Matthew and Elizabeth to the airport. The driver is already a pod. The cab ride is the trap.

"Too often people rip off films without acknowledging the source, and I wanted to fully acknowledge the original by putting Don Siegel in that taxi cab driving them to the airport." — Philip Kaufman, It Came From Blog (2018)

Kaufman also consulted Siegel on the ending he hadn't been allowed to make.

"Kaufman drew inspiration from earlier versions of the story, having talked with Don Siegel about the original movie, which was supposed to end on a darker note until the studio forced a happier finale." — Screen Rant (2023)

Siegel's cut of the 1956 film ended with Miles alone on a highway, screaming at cars that would not stop — no framing device, no FBI rescue, no resolution. Allied Artists overruled him and added hospital bookends that turned the nightmare into a closed case (see The 1956 Original).

"The film was nearly ruined by those in charge at Allied Artists who added a preface and ending that I don't like." — Don Siegel, quoted in Alan Lovell, Don Siegel: American Cinema (British Film Institute, 1975)

Siegel's cab driver radios his dispatcher: "6-10 proceeding south to airport, carrying two passengers, type H. Repeat. Type H." The "Type H" — presumably for "Human" — confirms the driver is already a pod, using his cab to deliver unconverted humans to their replacement. (TV Tropes)

The 1978 remake finishes the job. Matthew discovers he is alone, the pods have won, and his scream is the last thing the audience hears — the ending Siegel had wanted twenty-two years earlier.

Robert Duvall on the swing

A third cameo runs in the same register: Robert Duvall, uncredited, playing a silent priest on a playground swing in an early San Francisco scene. Kaufman framed it as generic horror-movie furniture.

"We were good friends... I just thought if you're going to make a horror movie, you've got to have a priest in it." — Philip Kaufman, It Came From Blog (2018)

The priest on the swing doesn't speak; he's already been assimilated.

Philip Kaufman and Michael Chapman also appear on screen

The cameo tradition extends to the crew. Philip Kaufman plays the impatient man knocking on the door of a phone booth Matthew is using, and voices one of the officials Matthew reaches on the phone. Cinematographer Michael Chapman plays the creepy janitor at the Health Department — the figure glimpsed through glass doors watching the characters in the hallway. (tvtropes, imdb)