I Married a Monster From Outer Space (1958)
Spare a thought for poor Marge (Gloria Talbott), who marries the love of her life Bill (Tom Tryon) just hours after he has been waylaid by an extraterrestrial and transformed into a host for alien life. Marge is no dope, though, and she does (eventually) become suspicious enough of her husband’s strange behaviour to follow Bill into the woods one night, where she sees him communing with his Martian overlord, or whatever it’s supposed to be. As it turns out, the aliens from Bill’s (I know it’s not Bill, but let’s call him Bill for the sake of preserving our collective sanity) home planet have run out of females, because of radiation (or something), and have a rather nasty plan to replace the human males in town and then set about altering the human females so that they can bear alien life and replenish the population back on Vlaaku (I just got tired of the phrase ‘home planet’ and made that one up).
I Married a Monster from Outer Space is the kind of title that suggests to the audience that they may as well just go ahead and lower their expectations because they’re probably going to see something that might possibly involve a man in a gorilla suit with a diving helmet on. That isn’t the case this time around, and what we have here is more along the lines of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, a tense, deliberately-paced drama full of dread and paranoia, played entirely seriously despite, you know, everything. And it actually works. Neither of the leads are particularly distinguished actors - horror/sci-fi fans might know Gloria Talbott from Bert I. Gordon’s The Cyclops or Edgar Ulmer’s The Daughter of Dr. Jekyll (both 1957), while fans of sleazy, soapy melodramas might remember Tom Tryon from The Unholy Wife with Diana Dors (1957) - but they both do creditable work in bringing some level of plausibility to the story, although it’s often hard to feel sorry for Gloria Talbott because of her intensely unsympathetic cheekbones. I notice some reviews poo-pooing the special effects but most of them are fine, and some - like the flashing lightning revealing Bill’s true alien identity - are pretty cool.
I Married a Monster from Outer Space is quite a rarity in 1950s science fiction in that the film is very nearly as entertaining as the poster. There are a handful of moments when the seams start to show, but this is a professional production, with everyone involved making a concerted effort to make a serious, scary film. You can do your part to repopulate the planet Vlaaku by ordering I Married a Monster from Outer Space from our Vlaakuvian pod-people stationed at the Warner Archive, who will telepathically beam the film directly into your re-engineered brain, or failing that, will sell you a burn-on-demand DVD if you ask nicely. As usual, Warner Archives have got the best possible transfer from the best available print, and present the film in its proper 1.85:1 ratio unlike certain DVD releases I could mention.
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