Dr. Miles Bennell Doctor, will you tell these fools? I'm not crazy. Make them listen to me before it's too late.
Most-quoted character in Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956): in 21 of its 31 quotes
Most scenes with: Dr. Kauffman (3), Jack Belicec (3), Becky Driscoll (2)
It started - for me, it started - last Thursday, in response to an urgent message from my nurse, I hurried home from a medical convention I'd been attending. At first glance, everything looked the same. It wasn't. Something evil had taken possession of the town.
More lines from Dr. Miles Bennell
14 quotes Dr. Miles Bennell Dr. Miles Bennell [discovering that Becky is also divorced]
Well, I guess that makes us lodge brothers now...except that I'm paying dues while you collect them.
Dr. Miles Bennell [voiceover]
Sick people who couldn't wait to see me, then suddenly were perfectly all right. A boy who said his mother wasn't his mother. A woman who said her uncle wasn't her uncle.
Dr. Miles Bennell [voiceover]
Driving home, I had a lot of questions and no answers. How could Jimmy and Wilma seem so normal now. Surely I had done nothing to cure them. Maybe they wanted me to feel secure but why?
Dr. Miles Bennell Maybe they're the result of atomic radiation on plant life or animal life. Some weird alien organism - a mutation of some kind...Whatever it is, whatever intelligence or instinct it is that govern the forming of human flesh and blood out of thin air, is fantastically powerful...All that body in your cellar needed was a mind...
Dr. Miles Bennell In my practice, I've seen how people have allowed their humanity to drain away. Only it happened slowly instead of all at once. They didn't seem to mind...All of us - a little bit - we harden our hearts, grow callous. Only when we have to fight to stay human do we realize how precious it is to us, how dear.
Dr. Miles Bennell Drugs dull the mind... maybe that's the reason.
Dr. Miles Bennell Keep your eyes a little wide and blank. Show no interest or excitement.
Dr. Miles Bennell I never knew fear until I kissed Becky.
Dr. Miles Bennell And so I ran. I ran! I ran! I ran! I ran as little Jimmy Grimaldi ran the other day.
Dr. Miles Bennell Help! Wait! Stop. Stop and listen to me!...These people who're coming after me are not human.
Dr. Miles Bennell Look, you fools. You're in danger. Can't you see? They're after you. They're after all of us. Our wives, our children, everyone. They're here already. YOU'RE NEXT!
Dr. Miles Bennell I've been afraid a lot of times in my life. But I didn't know the real meaning of fear until... until I had kissed Becky. A moment's sleep, and the girl I loved was an inhuman enemy bent on my destruction. That moment's sleep was death to Becky's soul, just as it had been for Jack and Teddy and Dan Kauffman and all the rest. Their bodies were now hosts harboring an alien form of life; a cosmic form, which to survive must take over every human man! So I ran! I ran! I ran as little Jimmy Grimaldi had run the other day. My only hope was to get away from Santa Mira, to get to the highway, to warn the others of what was happening!
Dr. Miles Bennell Don't just sit there measuring me for a straightjacket, do something! Call for help! Oh, what's the use?!
Scenes with Dr. Miles Bennell
6 scenes Miles What's the matter with them?
Sally They wouldn't say. You know, usually people can't talk enough about what's ailing them.
A strange neurosis, evidently contagious, an epidemic mass hysteria. In two weeks, it spread all over town.
Miles What causes it?
Worry about what's going on in the world probably.
Miles This is the oddest thing I've ever heard of. Let's hope we don't catch it. I'd hate to wake up some morning and find out that you weren't you.
Miles You really want to know?
Mmm-hmm.
Miles [after kissing her]
Mmmm, you're Becky Driscoll, all right!
Is this an example of your bedside manner, doctor?
Miles No, ma'am. That comes later.
Stop trying to rationalize everything, will ya? Let's face it, we have a mystery on our hands!
Sure you have. A real one! Whose body was it and where is it now? A completely normal mystery. Whatever it is, it's well within the bounds of human experience and I don't think you ought to make any more of it.
Miles Look, I wouldn't if I hadn't looked in Becky's cellar! How do you explain away the body I saw there?
I don't think you saw one there.
Miles You don't think I saw one here either?
I know you did because three others saw it too.
Miles But I dreamed up the second one?
Doctors can have hallucinations too.
What are you going to do?
Miles Get help. I hope whatever's taking place is confined to Santa Mira! [picks up the phone] Operator. This is Dr. Bennell. This is an emergency. I want to talk to the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Los Angeles.
Can you convince them?
Miles I've got to.
Where did they come from?
Miles So much has been discovered these past few years. Anything is possible. Maybe the results of atomic radiation on plant life or animal life...some weird alien organism, a mutation of some kind.
Why should they take the form of people--of us?
Miles I don't know. Whatever it is...whatever intelligence or instinct it is that can govern the forming of human flesh and blood out of thin air is...well, it's fantastically powerful, beyond any comprehension, malignant. All that body in your cellar needed was a mind, and it was...
And it was taking mine while I was asleep.
We can't let you go. You're dangerous to us.
Don't fight it, Miles, it's no use. Sooner or later, you'll have to go to sleep.
Miles, you and I are scientific men. You can understand the wonder of what’s happening. Now just think, less than a month ago, Santa Mira was like any other town. People with nothing but problems. Then, out of the sky came a solution. Seeds drifting through space for years took root in a farmer's field. From the seeds came pods which had the power to reproduce themselves in the exact likeness of any form of life.
Miles So that's how it began...out of the sky.
Your new bodies are growing in there. They're taking you over cell for cell, atom for atom. There is no pain. Suddenly, while you're asleep, they'll absorb your minds, your memories and you're reborn into an untroubled world.
Miles Where everyone's the same?
Exactly.
Miles What a world. We're not the last humans left. They'll destroy you!
Tomorrow you won't want them to. Tomorrow you'll be one of us.
Miles I love Becky. Tomorrow will I feel the same?
Miles No emotion? Then you have no feelings, only the instinct to survive. You can't love or be loved! Am I right?
You say it as if it were terrible. Believe me, it isn't. You've been in love before. It didn't last. It never does. Love. Desire. Ambition. Faith. Without them, life is so simple, believe me.
Miles I don't want any part of it.
You're forgetting something, Miles.
Miles What's that?
You have no choice.
