Overlooked Movies: I Married a Monster from Outer Space

"They're not human, but they want human women!"

Okay, so that line doesn't appear on any of the posters for this movie, but it pretty well sums things up. The question is, however, why do they want human women? I'm not telling, but I'll let you in on a couple of things, one of which is that what we have here is another of those '50s movies in which the aliens are taking over the bodies of the locals. After Gloria Talbot marries Tom Tryon, she notices that he's not quite the same guy he was before they married. She eventually finds out that his appearance has been duplicated by one of the aliens who doesn't look at all like him.

Sound familiar? It was a common theme in '50s SF movies, including the better-known Invasion of the Body Snatchers. This movie is almost as good as that one, and if you haven't seen it, it's well worth a look. Tom Tryon starred, and he went on to have a successful career as a writer than as an actor, with novels like Harvest Home and The Other that sold a ton back when they were published. Now I suppose they qualify as forgotten books.

This post originally appeared on December 21, 2011.

Overlooked Movies: Robinson Crusoe on Mars

I've been hearing good things about a new book called The Martian, and I was reminded of this movie, which I saw in the theater long ago.  We've learned a lot about Mars since then, and we know that nearly nothing in this movie is possible. That doesn't mean it's not still fun, though.

Paul Mantee plays Draper, the survivor of a space accident.  Adam West plays the other astronaut, but he's in the movie only briefly.  He doesn't survive.  A monkey named Mona does, though, and makes the movie more fun.  

Draper learns how to survive on Mars and eventually finds himself a man Friday, an alien enslaved by other aliens.  There's some cat-and-mousing as the masters try to retrieve their slave, and the canals of Mars come into play.  

I can't guarantee you'll like this movie as much as I did when I first saw it, but you might if you can put aside your disbelief for a while.  It has a very high rating on Rotten Tomatoes, if that matters to you.