Movies and Communism the Red

Movies and Communism

The Red Menace on Film and the McCarthy Menace on Film: "I Married a Monster from Outer Space" and "Silver Lode"

The B-movie thriller "I Married a Monster from Outer Space" seems to be a clear metaphor for the communist threat of the 1950s. In the film, the innocent young bride Marge Farrell seems to represent all ordinary, God-fearing Americans. She marries a man, Bill, who seems to change overnight after the loving couple 'ties the knot.' When formerly Bill used to openly show affection towards Marge, now he is cold and distant. He spends most of the nights away from her, presumable at a local bar, but has stopped drinking. Also, Marge cannot get pregnant. Gradually, she learns the horrible truth: Bill and many other men on earth have been taken over by a race of aliens from the Andromeda Nebula. They are possessing humans in order to use the humans to repopulate their kind all over the galaxy.

The parallels between the aliens with what Americans thought to be the characteristics of communists seem clear. Many Americans believed that communists looked like 'you and me,' and could be scout leaders, teachers, even husbands and wives. But fundamentally, the communists were 'different,' and careful observation would yield the truth. The communists would show subtle clues that could alert a careful and discerning observer what they were up to, so it was essential to be vigilant. Communists were thought to be 'planted' in ordinary institutions, and would spread their ideology and doctrine like a cancer. Instead of infiltrating America from without, the Red Menace would infiltrate America from within.

The analogy between aliens and communists obviously says much more about ordinary American's perceptions of communism than communist ideology itself. The film does not show a communal alien society, or show the aliens embodying or advocating any of the ideals of communism. What Americans 'picked up' upon was the fears touched off by the Alger Hiss scandal, for example, that communists might be lurking in the State Department, or might be poisoning their minds unintentionally through propaganda in the movies. Americans feared they could wake up one day and there 'one of them' would be beside them -- a person who was formerly your friend, or even your spouse, and was now an entirely inhuman creature. These deceptive beings masquerading as normal people must be rooted out, or Americans' freedoms would be taken away.

This dehumanization of communists by the media caused many Americans to validate the McCarthy persecution of alleged communists. By viewing communists as unknowable, evil entities with subtle techniques of overtaking the world, any recourse against the communists was seen as justified. The desire to procreate and to 'make more' of their 'kind' is inherent in the fears expressed by "I Married...," as well as films like "Invasion of the Body Snatchers,' which has a similar theme of possession and overtaking an individual's real identity and form by an outsider. However, the fact that the aliens are unable to procreate with human females shows the 'flaw' to their plan -- they cannot repopulate their species using true, red-blooded American females like Marge.

The aliens attack presumably the most vulnerable 'creatures' on earth, women, and use sexual means to do so. This is supposed to make them seem particularly dastardly. Marge looks even more vulnerable as she looks for aid, but finds that more and more men on the earth have been taken over by 'them.' Even individuals in conventional, male authority figures like the police have been infiltrated by aliens. However, the idea of the questionable nature of the law implied in "I Married a Monster from Outer Space" is not confined to anti-communist films. Anti-McCarthy films like the Western "Silver Lode" show how similar themes, even a similar plot, can be used for the opposite ideological purposes. In "Silver Lode," one Marshall McCarty, unjustly accuses John Ballard of murder on the day of his wedding. The townspeople turn against Ballard, trusting 'the law' rather than Ballard true good nature, which they should know. To the townspeople, Ballard, once good, is now 'bad,' and while "I Married a Monster from Outer Space" suggests that people should believe that friends and neighbors can 'change' quickly, as if on a dime, in terms of their ideology, "Silver Lode" suggests just the opposite, that individuals should trust not the McCarthys of the world, but instead trust the reputations of their loved ones and friends.

Silver Lode" shows how easily hysteria can be created by the authorities for their own nefarious purposes, while "I Married a Monster from Outer Space" suggests that not enough hysteria and concern is shown on the part of the authorities. One of the markings of the aliens is their lack of emotion (just as the Red Menace was often portrayed as a marching army of faceless automatons from the U.S.S.R.). The overwrought emotion of Marshall McCarty in "Silver Lode" is what 'counts against' the Marshall as a character in terms of the audience's sympathy.