The night before his wedding, the groom is abducted on a lonely country road by something alien. After a year the new bride is increasingly concerned: why can't she get pregnant? Why does her husband seem like a stranger, how is it he can see in the dark, and why do dogs suddenly hate him?
His friends change too and they have a secret cabal hiding in plain sight. When alone they talk about the coming takeover and how the human body, although poorly constructed, does afford some pleasures. Our bridegroom is troubled: stirrings of love are unsettling to an alien invader.
After so many lies, it is finally a relief when the husband and wife come clean and tell the truth. She knows and he tells her the plan.
Low budget but much better than it's cheezy title would suggest. Efficient at only 77 minutes: we get right to it. It was actually pretty well liked at the time and since.
I love the 50s ambiance, with the convertibles, country supper clubs, men in sport coats and women with those hefty armored brassieres (or maybe that's all Gloria Talbott).
Bullets won't stop the glowing invaders, but the dogs know just what to do and are eager to tear at that exposed anatomy, as if they've been waiting for this moment. The aliens die ugly.
This is a surprisingly rich story because of several themes running in parallel:
A woman's marriage paranoia, of a husband turning cold and unloving. On the other hand: he is strong and mysterious, which is kind of exciting, right? But what if he should turn into one of those terrifying space aliens during an intimate moment: yikes!
Strange to say: she's having sex outside her species when movies couldn't even show interracial dating.
And yet, we don't like the sleazy drifter (the always dangerous James Anderson) who is stalking our bride, so don't we have a sneaking admiration for the cop-aliens who dispatch him in an efficient police-state manner?
Hints of a crypto-gay subculture: childless, unhappily married men who recognize each other and have secret lives that could get them killed. Note that the town doc knows where to find "real men": at the Maternity Ward.
Leading man Tom Tryon said the critics never forgave him for being in a movie with this title. He was happier as a novelist, for example writing both the book and the screenplay for The Other (1972).
The town bartender is "Slapsie Maxie" Rosenbloom, a boxer who had a second career playing comical palookas for Hollywood.
Available on DVD. [Later: on Blu-ray from the Australian Imprint label].
Re: I Married a Monster from Outer Space (1958)
Posted: April 12th, 2023, 10:01 am
by Hibi
Haven't seen this film in a long time. Wish TCM would air it. (think it's Fox). The film is better than the title implies.
Re: I Married a Monster from Outer Space (1958)
Posted: April 12th, 2023, 10:35 am
by jamesjazzguitar
Wmcclain: Thanks for creating the most interesting movie related threads at this forum!
Note that when it comes to Gloria Talbott: her look is rooted in 50s bra design, as well as her own physical attributes.
I find it funny when Gloria is in a western but still using such 50s undergarments).
I first discovered Gloria in the Bogie, Joan Bennett film We're No Angels. But she shows up in all types of films and TV shows. In that film Gloria played a nice gal, but I find Gloria is in her element when she plays the bad girl (often very bad).
Re: I Married a Monster from Outer Space (1958)
Posted: April 12th, 2023, 1:59 pm
by Hibi
Gloria is a guilty pleasure of mine. I love all her monster/horror flicks! (though she did appear in "normal" films too!).
Re: I Married a Monster from Outer Space (1958)
Posted: April 12th, 2023, 2:13 pm
by Intrepid37
This was an accompanying feature to The Blob in my local theater. It was summer and I went to the show 5 afternoons in a row for this double feature. I remember giving a complete and engrossing description of Married a Monster to several of my cousins as we lounged on the grass in a public park. They hung on every word.
While The Blob was more exciting in terms of action - and was in glorious color - I Married a Monster from Outer Space was the more impressive movie on me. Scarier, as well as being thought-provoking. Nuanced in the sense that the "Monsters", in the end, have a pretty understandable survivalist reason for the invasion they've undertaken. And they are not without emotion - like those from Invasion of the Body Snatchers, for example.
I have this movie in my collection - I rented the DVD and made a back up. It's one of my favorite items. I'm very nostalgic when it comes to the monster movies from my childhood.
Re: I Married a Monster from Outer Space (1958)
Posted: April 13th, 2023, 1:23 am
by EP Millstone
Hibi wrote: ↑April 12th, 2023, 1:59 pm
Gloria is a guilty pleasure of mine. I love all her monster/horror flicks! (though she did appear in "normal" films too!).
Hibi wrote: ↑April 12th, 2023, 1:59 pm
Gloria is a guilty pleasure of mine. I love all her monster/horror flicks! (though she did appear in "normal" films too!).
I'm a fan of Gloria Talbott, particularly in Daughter of Dr. Jekyll, despite the fact that Andrew Sarris, in his critique of Edgar Ulmer, wrote that the film has a: "scenario so atrocious that it takes forty minutes to establish that the daughter of Dr. Jekyll is indeed the daughter of Dr. Jekyll."
Re: I Married a Monster from Outer Space (1958)
Posted: April 13th, 2023, 9:44 am
by jamesjazzguitar
I'm a fan of any actress that adds juice to a film that stars John Agar as the lead actor. Here's looking at you Gloria Talbott and Cleo Moore.
Hibi wrote: ↑April 12th, 2023, 1:59 pm
Gloria is a guilty pleasure of mine. I love all her monster/horror flicks! (though she did appear in "normal" films too!).
Hibi wrote: ↑April 12th, 2023, 1:59 pm
Gloria is a guilty pleasure of mine. I love all her monster/horror flicks! (though she did appear in "normal" films too!).
I'm a fan of Gloria Talbott, particularly in Daughter of Dr. Jekyll, despite the fact that Andrew Sarris, in his critique of Edgar Ulmer, wrote that the film has a: "scenario so atrocious that it takes forty minutes to establish that the daughter of Dr. Jekyll is indeed the daughter of Dr. Jekyll."
Yes, I was going to mention this film. For some reason I never see it on tv. Been decades since I've seen it on some local station. I wish TCM hadn't done away with Underground.
Re: I Married a Monster from Outer Space (1958)
Posted: April 13th, 2023, 3:07 pm
by Intrepid37
Hibi wrote: ↑April 13th, 2023, 10:24 am
Been decades since I've seen it on some local station. I wish TCM hadn't done away with Underground.
Word.
I haven't watched a film on TCM in weeks - and it looks like it'll be weeks more. I've never experienced a drought that lasted as long - and it's looking like that's just how it's gonna be from now on.
Re: I Married a Monster from Outer Space (1958)
Posted: April 13th, 2023, 3:37 pm
by Hibi
jamesjazzguitar wrote: ↑April 13th, 2023, 9:44 am
I'm a fan of any actress that adds juice to a film that stars John Agar as the lead actor. Here's looking at you Gloria Talbott and Cleo Moore.
LOL!!!
Re: I Married a Monster from Outer Space (1958)
Posted: April 13th, 2023, 9:58 pm
by jameselliot
I Married A Monster From Outer Space--not to be confused with the Diana Dors/George Gobel movie I Married A Woman--looks like an extended episode of the original Outer Limits TV series with its terrific crisp, noir cinematography and creature design. The Colossus of New York also had that look.
Re: I Married a Monster from Outer Space (1958)
Posted: April 14th, 2023, 12:37 am
by EP Millstone
jameselliot wrote: ↑April 13th, 2023, 9:58 pm
I Married A Monster From Outer Space . . . looks like an extended episode of the original Outer Limits TV series with its terrific crisp, noir cinematography and creature design . . .
I agree! When I watched I Married a Monster from Outer Space, I thought the exact same thing!
From the Internet Movie Database: "Included among the American Film Institute's 2002 list of 400 movies nominated for the top 100 top 100 America's Greatest Love Stories movies." Oh, that AFI!
