Casei-me com um Monstro

With a title this corny, I was expecting a lot of laughs, a fun B-movie with Ed Wood-style film-making. Well, I got them, but that mostly in the beginning. The bulk of the film is quite serious and holds up pretty well, even today.

The best lines, in the opening segments, come from "Marge" (Gloria Talbott), the one I quoted for the subject head. She said that on her wedding night at the restaurant, since her new husband seemed to be ignoring her. You see, her hubby had already been taken over by an extra-terrestrial being the night before. He just wasn't himself after that.....but who knew? Unfortunately, nobody for quite awhile in this story, which made life rough for poor "Marge Ferrell."

The lines in this film weren't just corny. Some of them were downright funny. At the guy's bachelor party, which began the show, the men had some humorous lines about marriage and freedom, and later in the show there are a couple of funny scenes. Later one of Marge friends acts goofy and remarks, "I just love to rehearse for weddings, especially when they are my own!" However, the story begins to get serious after the first 10-15 minutes and gets more and more so after Marge follows her husband one night and sees her odd-acting husband is not the man she thought she married. Laser beams and a spaceship will do that to you! From that point, it becomes a very familiar story for fans of sci-fi: something we've seen in a lot of films the past 50 years - aliens transform into humans and one that hasn't gets burned by family and friends she trusts because she doesn't realize they, too, have also turned into aliens.

In other words, this has a lot of "Invasion Of The Body Snatchers" type of paranoia story, just without the pods. "Invasion" was released two years earlier than this in 1956. Hollywood, lacking imaginative writers the past few decades, continues to make films with the same storyline as you see here., but this one can be excused because it was still fairly early in the genre.

Thanks to the actors here, and a few different twists, the movie keeps your attention. The only frustration is to see a person telling the truth and not being believed. Talbott, to me, was a familiar face because she acted in many television shows in the 1960s while Tyron, who got some hype for starring in "The Cardinal," a big-name film that bombed at the box office, wound up being a better writer than an actor. But when it comes to '50s sci-fi films, great acting isn't a requirement anyway, and most of us don't watch it for that.

Overall, this is pretty good, nothing super but certainly worth a look now that there is a good DVD transfer of it available. Yes, it is far better than the stupid title but still: don't take it too seriously - just have fun with it.

Note: the police captain was played by John Eldredge, a regular guest on "The Adventures Of Superman," in which he almost always played a villain. Also ex-boxer Maxie Rosenbloom is his normal entertaining self in here, playing, as usual, a bartender.

Often over-looked gem from the 1950s, in which Gloria Talbott plays a young bride who discovers that her husband is actually an alien impostor, a member of an advance force of alien invaders who are secretly replacing the male populations in Gloria's town.

The female population on the alien's home planet has been wiped out by solar radiation prior to a nova, so their race is dying out. Now the aliens hope to `alter' the bodies of the Earth women so they can produce alien children. The script by Louis Vittes does a good job of dealing with the most unsettling aspect of the plot; alien husbands doing things with their human wives that only HUMAN husbands are supposed to do.

Vittes also manages to weave some very sly humor into the story. When Gloria goes to the local doctor for help in battling the aliens, he quickly realizes that the only men in town who are verifiably human are the ones whose wives are pregnant. So we see him hurrying into the waiting room of the hospital's maternity ward to round up a pose' to battle the aliens! Funny.

The aliens are scary and well designed, and the ray gun effects by ace effects artist John P. Fulton are above average. Don't be fooled by the unfortunate title; this is a fine entry to the list of 1950s sci-fi films.

Another thinly veiled reference to the Communist witch hunt, 'I Married A Monster From Outer Space' is a movie with a cheesy title and a decent story. Aliens have come to Earth to impersonate American men while using a ray-gun on the women (they really don't like hookers). The flip here is that while they ARE taking over the bodies & lives of the men they capture, they're trying to live the way we do. Are they also trying to love? It's almost touching. Even though the classic paranoia sci-fi flick 'Invasion Of The Body Snatchers' is an obvious influence, the second half is where the two movies diverge. You can almost root for the body snatchers in 'I Married A Monster'.

The B cast never humiliate themselves, but none of them are particularly memorable either. Gene Fowler Jr. (longtime editor, sometime director) leads his actors through the paces in competent fashion. Tom Tryon and Gloria Talbott don't cause too many sparks, but they're not really supposed to. Along with the actual subversion of humanity, this is also an allegory for how newlyweds can quickly grow apart and---okay, I'll say it---alienated. And although this movie is classified as horror/sci-fi, the American Film Institute saw fit to nominate it for their list of 400 great American love stories.

Filled with subtext and double-meanings (as so many overlooked B movies are), the flick accomplishes more by saying less. The F/X are about as dated and obvious as such things get, but they weren't perfect in other '50s genre films either. You might laugh at 'I Married A Monster', but you could do much worse for 78 minutes. This can't be said for half the modern movies out there, but you SHOULD look closer at this one.

Despite the fact that this film has a ridiculous title, it really is quite a little gem. During the 1950's the spread of Communism was the great fear in America and many films reflected this through the analogy of aliens infiltrating society. This movie is one of them....aliens taking over the population without being noticed....the guy next door may be a Communist (or a monster from outer space). Gloria Talbot,who appeared in a score of 50's movies (whatever happened to her?) does a good job as the suspicious wife but she wears one of the strangest pointed bras you've ever seen and even wears it in bed! Tom Tryon sleepwalks through the part of the husband, which in this film is appropriate for the role. He was a very bland actor and eventually went on to a sucessful career as a novelist. The black and white cinematography is well done and the film evokes a sense of impending doom. The special effects, which are limited, are not too bad...remember this was 1958. This film is a standout in a series of lower budget movies of the time but the awkward title may cause some to pass it by. Recommend it to a friend.

This has to definitely be one of the better science fiction films of the mid to late 1950's. The only thing that hurts this film is the lousy title. The thing that really impressed me about it is the fact that this film isn't a typical B-movie. In fact, this film gives you a very thought provoking story as well as what another person said, a kind of poignancy that you never would expect from this type of film. In fact, you pretty much feel that towards the end of the film that Marge is actually falling for the alien posing as her beloved Bill. Also, you pretty much feel sorry for the impostor at the end as he is beginning to experience the emotions that he never had, especially love. Unfortunately, the film is undone by its typically lousy 1950's B-movie title. However, once you look past the title and look at how good the story is, you will see that this film is a pretty decent film.