User Reviews

'I Married A Monster From Outer Space' should be ranked as one of the great 50s sci-fi/ horror films. I was really surprised at how well done this movie was. I guess I was expecting a Ed Wood type film, which wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing, but what I saw, was an above average, well acted and directed movie. This film was surprisingly well done. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It held my attention from start to finish. Creepy alien monsters keep popping up throughout the movie. It had a sense of suspense running throughout the film. This movie grabs your attention fast and just doesn't let go. It was great. 'I Married A Monster From Outer Space' is a must see for all 50s sci-fi, horror, monster movies fans.

This was such a great time to be a kid. We had a constant ration of these cold war movies. We were taught to duck and cover if we saw a nuclear flash. My sister and I went to see this as part of a double feature with "The Blob" about four times. Like "The Invasion of the Body Snatchers," there were aliens who were up to no good. Since they were the incarnation of the communists, they had no soul. They were there to force their ideology on us all, turn us into zombie like automatons. The danger in this movie came from the authorities who had been absorbed by the space critters. You just couldn't trust the police. The good thing was that if you knew who they were, you could kill them pretty much like other humans. And, when they died, they turned into pudding or applesauce or something that flowed out of their sleeves and pants legs. The hard part was like in "Invasion." You had to get the word out and convince people that what you were saying weren't the rantings of a lunatic. Nevertheless, we can take solace that good will out and the good old American way will turn those suckers into pudding.

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 dreadful title, this is a well made, thought provoking Sci-fi film. A young bride discovers that her husband is not the man she fell in love with, but a hideous alien in a specially constructed shell. The thought provoking part, is the ambiguous character of the aliens. At first you are convinced that these ugly creatures are on earth for evil intent. as the film progresses, you are aware of their desperation to survive, even if they have to kill to do it. In one excellent scene, a hooded alien stares longingly at a doll in a shop window, and then ruthlessly kills one of the locals without a second thought. this stimulates both compassion and revulsion. Both Gloria Talbott and Tom Tryon as the leading actors, give good understated performances, and in the final scene, Tryons' alien becomes a terribly pathetic creature whose only desire was to see the continuation of his race. Are the aliens good or evil? the jury is still out.

The movie talks upon an aircraft from outer space that arrives to earth and go out aliens and they are hanging with human beings . As Aliens from Outer Space are slowly switching places with real humans . One of the first switching is an attractive young (Tom Tryon) about to get wedded to a beautiful girl called Marge (Gloria Talbott). One year marriage later she still feels there are numerous rare things about him , as he doesn't have feelings , nor emotions. A horrified Marge then attempts to warn everyone of the alien threat .

It's a typical B movie of the 50s , it has suspense , thriller , tension and fun . Tom Tryon as the alien husband is fine and Gloria Talbott as his distrustful wife is enjoyable , she usually was in sci-fi films by that time . There appears a very secondary role , Ty Hardin , who along with Tom Tryon were two beefcakes who habitually played movies for youth . In fact , the scene at the beach gave movie audiences their first look at Ty Hardin's bare chest . Special effects , FX , are average , though by that time were quite well ; they are in charge of John P.Fulton , a craftsman with great experience and a long career from the silent cinema . Production design by Henry Bumstead who has worked along with Alfred Hitchcock (Vertigo, Topaz) and today continues , being Clint Eastwood's usual set decorator (Unforgiven , Mystic river) . However , the sets in aircraft interior are ridiculous and embarrassing . The motion picture was regularly directed by Gene Fowler Jr , he was a famous editor and occasionally director of Western as ¨The Oregon Trail¨ and terror as ¨I was a teenage wolf¨ . The flick will appeal to science fiction and fantastic movies fans . Rating : Mediocre but amusing .

In Norrisville, Bill Farrell (Tom Tryon) leaves his bachelor party on the eve of his marriage with Marge Bradley (Gloria Talbott). He is abducted by an alien that takes his shape and marries Marge on the next day. Marge feels something strange with Bill and one year later she realizes that he is a totally different man. One day, Marge follows Bill and he goes to the woods; she finds that he is an alien and sees his spacecraft. She tries to tell to Washington and to the FBI, but the aliens have dominated key people in town that do not allow any sort of communication with the exterior world. What is the intention of the alien invasion?

"I Married a Monster from Outer Space" is a great sci-fi movie from the 50's. The storyline is a rip-off of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers", with aliens switching places with humans in a small town with the purpose of breeding. But the plot is well-constructed and supported by good performances. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "I Married a Monster from Outer Space"

Some of those sci-fi movies from the '50s linger in the memory because of the way they dramatize our most personal fears. "The Incredible Shrinking Man," for example, plays upon a man's fear of becoming weak and inadequate. "I Married a Monster from Outer Space" deals with a woman's fear of entering into a relationship which proves disappointing or even disturbing. (Some say the movie is a disguised account of a woman's marriage to a gay man.) I'm not sure I'd call the resulting movie a "classic," but its quiet, moody, and compassionate quality clearly puts it above most of the noisy, special-effects extravaganzas of today.

Gloria Talbot is both persuasive and appealing as the puzzled but faithful wife. (None of the shallow, comic-book character of Lara Croft here!) And the almost-too-good-to-be-true looks of the sexually-ambiguous Tom Tryon are put to effective use as the husband. As usual, the film's makers find an excuse to get his shirt off so we can get another look at that much-photographed torso. In this same scene, you'll also spot a bare-chested Ty Hungerford, just before he changed his name to "Ty Hardin" and became "Bronco" on the TV series. (And no, there's nothing sexually ambiguous about Ty.) Curiously, both men are included in the book, "Lash! The Hundred Great Scenes of Men Being Whipped in the Movies." Hardin's flogging in a "Bronco" episode ranks 26th and Tryon's whipping in "The Cardinal" ranks 46th.

This movie was almost certainly inspired by the McCarthian communist "witch hunts" of the 1950's.The choice of title for this movie certainly does not do the film justice,which is probably why the film isn't thought of as being in the same league as"Invaders from Mars" and "Invasion of the Body Snatchers",another two films which develop the theme of this hidden "enemy within".Althougth, in my opinion, not as good as those films,it is still,nevertheless,worth adding to the collection of any sci-fi film fan. I do feel that this was one of Gloria Talbot's better film roles.The plot unfolds fairly evenly,with Tom Tyron body being taken over by an alien in the first few scenes.What gradually follows is the actual extent of the alien takeover and their intentions.This movie is available on DVD.

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.

This 1950's sci-fi horror immediatly looked like it would be seven shades of goofy. With a title and cover like that how could it possibly not be?

It tells the story of a woman who notices dramatic changes in her new husband and begins to have suspicions that he may not be himself anymore.

Less goofy than I immediatly thought it's essentially a tweeked Invasion of the Bodysnatchers (1956) but retains enough originality to have its own identity.

Fairly creepy in places and well paced it's a very competently made movie for its time though certainly would have benefitted from a bit of additional time.

For fans of that genre this is a perfectly passable piece of cinema but light on surprises.

The Good:

Well made for its time

Above par finale

The Bad:

Fairly flat in places

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

The creators were NOt animal lovers

Aliens are teetotal

When Marge Bradley (Gloria Talbott) marries Bill Farrell (Tom Tryon), she gets a surprise when she finds out that he's been possessed by an alien, and that aliens are possessing the other men in town. There's not much here that you haven't seen in other such movies. I guess it's just eye-opening that the star is the guy who wrote "The Other". Still, the idea of aliens wanting to impregnate earth women is an interesting idea (Mike Nichols visited this idea with "What Planet Are You From?"). Anyway, there's the ubiquitous '50s stuff: men wearing gray flannel suits and women wearing pointy bras, plus spiffy cars. I wonder if there's ever going to be a movie where the aliens win.

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.

This movie is often made fun of and somehow makes it onto lists of the worst Sci-Fi movies. It really doesn't deserve either fate. I suppose for people who don't appreciate or understand 1950s cinema it's an easy target.

Contrarily, the sexual politics and Cold War politics of this film are fascinating. it is essentially a riff on Invasion of the Body Snatchers, but brings in the sensationalism so characteristic of family and romantic melodrama of that era to a far greater degree than Body Snatchers.

But if you don't want to get quite so heavy, you can also simply watch this movie as a fun science fiction fantasy. There are some simple but very effective special effects throughout, and a particularly effective and gruesome moment when the bride of the monster discovers that he is an alien. The way in which aliens die is also, again, simple but pretty cool. In fact I wonder if the effect of how the aliens die in this movie impacted the similar but even more gruesome, color effects in similar movies of the '60s and '70s.

Anyway, this movie is considered a minor classic of the era, not on the same level of invasion of the Body Snatchers but still respectably compelling and entertaining.

Not a bad little film about aliens taking over the bodies of men in a small town to mate with their wives. The dumb title conceals that this is a subtle, well-made, intelligent little sci-fi tale. It's short and atmospherically directed with some truly creepy scenes. This movie had to approach the point of sex very carefully (due to the Production Code) and they did AND pulled it off. The alien makeup is gruesome (as it should be) and there's some fairly graphic gore (for 1958) at the end. The acting is mostly good--especially by Gloria Talbott as a wife who comes to realize what's going on. Tom Tryon, as her possessed husband, has a nice body and is very handsome but totally bland as her husband. Still, a good little sci-fi film. Worth catching.

A young wife (Gloria Talbot) discovers an alien has taken over the body of her husband (Tom Tryon) and soon realises that he may not be the only possessed man in the town. Perhaps best known for being better than its tabloid title, 'IMAMFOS' is a pretty good sci-fi shocker. One of a number of 'aliens need men/women to repopulate their dying world' films, 'IMAMFOS', while a budget concoction, is nicely filmed with good acting (especially Gloria Talbot), limited but effective special effects, and an excellent, oozy finale. Like most 'take over the body' movies, the physics/biology of the process is never explained but the black cloud absorbing the to-be-copied victim adds a nice visual touch. Despite a number of plot holes and inexplicable events (primarily with respect to the copying), the film is a well-made, clever, and entertaining example of the 'paranoid 50's' canon of 'fifth-column' sci-fi thrillers.

Wow what a title, "I Married a Monster from Outer Space"! But as with other reviewers, I must agree that this movie really isn't nearly as bad as its title. It has many elements which will remind you of Invasion of the Body Snatchers - aliens take over the local people of small-town rural America, but you wouldn't know it because they take human forms. In this case, the aliens seem to like newly wed couples, and they are working on a way to successfully breed with humans to populate Earth with their species. For some reason, they completely ignore the local bar floozies who try to bed with them... hmmm... Of course, one astute young housewife realizes that not all is right in her marriage and in Morrisville, and she investigates. Don't let the title fool you into thinking it's an Ed Wood-style disaster because it isn't. It's definitely worth watching.

I rate this right up there with other 50s sci-fi classics, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Day the Earth Stood Still, and Them. The title makes you think you're in for a radioactive-teens-with-fangs-from-outerspace bomb. This is anything but. Excellent acting, tight direction, believable dialog, and truly creepy aliens give this a black and white thumbs up. Remade recently in a faithful adaptation, but despite (or because of) the color photography and bigger budget, this 50s version remains the better bet to watch.

The Fifties were a notable decade for Sci-Fi films. The Cold War was on, and there was rampant paranoia about Communism; a generalized paranoia that was fueled in a large part by McCarthy and his "House Un-American Activities Committee". Personal example of the time: I was born in the same year as this film was made, and I grew up in a house that had been built to my parents' specifications to include a real bomb shelter in its basement. Movies such as the classics "Invasion of the Body Snatchers", and "I Married a Monster From Outer Space" played on this theme, translated into Sci-Fi films.

The sensationalist title belies the quality of the film and its well-told storyline. Although I am also fond of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers", which has a similar theme, it lacks the heart of the subject of this review, in my opinion.

Marge (Gloria Talbott) and Bill (Tom Tryon) are getting married, but Marge doesn't realize at first that the night before the wedding her groom's body was taken over by an alien being. She notices the differences in his personality but brushes them aside. She soon comes to realize the true nature of what she has married, and of course tries to warn everyone, and stop the invasion of aliens...aliens who are taking over the menfolk of her town in the hopes of breeding with the women and establishing a colony on Earth. The theme is: "They look just like us....but they aren't! And they'll take over!" This is Communism as represented by the Sci-Fi genre, and it was very popular in the Fifties. The movie industry was feverishly pumping out lots of low-budget films meant to distract the American public at the local drive-in theatre. However, "I Married a Monster From Outer Space" seems to be one of the accidental gems.

Tom Tryon makes for a very likable alien. He's tall, handsome, and manages to make his character very sympathetic as the film progresses. He starts to understand and appreciate Earth, its culture, and his beautiful wife Marge, as she simultaneously pulls away upon discovering that what she is living (and sleeping) with isn't really her husband. And as always in Sci-Fi, the dogs always know who's the alien and who's the human. Marge's present of a dog to Bill results in an episode that jolts her into realizing that something is truly wrong.

Subtle performances by both Tryon and Talbott help immensely. Both were highly respected and capable actors of the time, and Tryon in particular manages to go from gentle and kind to menacing with a very subtle and believable ease in this film. Tryon was in several well-known films, and received especially good critical reviews for his role in the film "The Cardinal". Interesting bit of trivia: he was also considered by Alfred Hitchcock for the role of Sam Loomis in "Psycho." There are the typical Sci-Fi low-budget special effects, but what makes the film really work is the telling of the story in a manner that pulls you into all of the characters, despite the obvious shortcomings of the budget.

Note: Tom Tryon retired from acting in the late 1960's and became a successful novelist, publishing as Thomas Tryon; I remember my mother buying some of his books such as the bestselling "The Other", "Harvest Home", and "Crowned Heads", all of which I thoroughly enjoyed.

Released in 1958 and shot in B&W, "I Married a Monster from Outer Space" stars Gloria Talbott as a newlywed in Southern Cal who starts to suspect her husband is an alien from outer space (Tom Tryon).

Despite the silly title, the tone is serious and the special effects regarding the aliens and the way they possess people (or whatever) are quite good for the era. Right from the get-go the viewer knows who's being taken over and we then observe the protagonist slowly figure it out, which leads to a well-done confrontation between the wife and non-husband. The second half reveals why the aliens do what they do and it's kinda melancholic. All this points to why it's considered a minor cult classic. Movies like this are worthwhile simply as historical artifacts to view American society in the late 50s, but compared to Sci-Fi giants from the 50s like "The Day the Earth Stood Still" (1951) and the monumental "Forbidden Planet" (1956) "I Married a Monster from Outer Space" is second rate.

The film runs 78 minutes and was shot in Bronson Canyon, Griffith Park and Los Angeles, California.

GRADE: C+

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.