| I Married a Monster from Outer Space | |
|---|---|
original 1958 movie poster |
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| Directed by | Gene Fowler Jr. |
| Produced by | Gene Fowler Jr. |
| Written by | Louis Vittes |
| Starring | Tom Tryon Gloria Talbott |
| Cinematography | Haskell Boggs |
| Editing by | George Tomasini |
| Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
| Release date(s) | October 1, 1958 |
| Running time | 78 min. |
| Country | USA |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $175,000 (estimated)[1] |
I Married a Monster from Outer Space is a 1958 science fiction film, directed by Gene Fowler Jr. and starring Tom Tryon and Gloria Talbott.
The story centers on freshly married Marge Farrell who finds her husband Bill strangely transformed soon after her marriage: He is losing his affection for his wife and other living beings and drops various earlier habits. Soon she finds out that Bill is not the only man in town changing into a completely different person.
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Soon after her marriage, young bride Marge Farrell notices her husband Bill is acting strangely. He doesn't show any affection towards his wife or other living beings, including pet dogs which he used to love. Marge also becomes concerned that she cannot get pregnant. She then notices that the husbands among her social connections are acting the same way. One night she follows Bill when he goes for a walk and finds that he's not the man she knew but an alien impostor: An extraterrestrial lifeform deserts his human body and enters a hidden spaceship. Bill eventually explains to her that all the females from his planet were killed and that he and his kind are taking over human males so that they can mate with women and save his race. Marge is horrified and tries to warn others of the plot, but too many men have already been taken over, including the Chief of Police. Finally she finds that her doctor believes her, who summons a posse to attack the aliens in their hideout. Although gun bullets can't hurt the invaders, they are defenceless against the pair of German shepherds that the men bring with them, and are finally killed. In the spaceship, the men find the human captives alive, including Bill. An army of spaceships lifts off around the world, seeking a new refuge.
Due to its exploitative title, I Married a Monster from Outer Space has long been ignored by critics and film historians, though it received respectable reviews in later years.[2] Danny Peary described it as "an intelligent, atmospheric, subtly made sci-fi thriller",[2] Tom Milne of Time Out magazine found "good performances, strikingly moody camerawork, a genuinely exciting climax",[3] and Leonard Maltin called it a "pretty good little rehash of Invasion of the Body Snatchers" with "some nice, creepy moments".[4]
The Aurum Film Encyclopedia concluded that "while the film was clearly fuelled by the Cold War mentality of the fifties, in retrospect it is its sexual politics that are more interesting, and disturbing".[5] The hint at a subtext of "sexual angst" by Tom Milne[3] is emphasised by German critic Georg Seeßlen, linking I Married a Monster from Outer Space and Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (1958) to Film noir: Their subjects in common, states Seeßlen, are the distrust between the sexes and the depiction of marriage as a trap where the death of one partner seems inevitable.[6]
In 1998, the now defunct UPN television network produced and aired a remake of the film simply titled, I Married a Monster,[7] with Richard Burgi as the alien husband.
In 2004 Paramount released a DVD of the film which, other than the open matte, full frame (1.33:1) format of the 1998 VHS release, cropped the image to modern 16:9 (1.78:1) TV format. The Internet Movie Database lists 1.85:1 widescreen as the film's originally intended format.[8]
The label L'Atelier 13 released a Spanish language DVD under the title Me casé con un monstruo del espacio exterior.