Marriages start out with wine, generally. A toast with Champagne at the reception is one of the first things people do as an officially married couple. But, perhaps her father tried to save a few bucks. Prosecco instead of Champagne just flat-out jinxes a marriage, if you ask me. Spring for the good stuff.
Hollywood has depicted marriage in a less than flattering light. Realistic, maybe, but not always picture perfect. Streetcar Named Desire, The Godfather and The Odd Couple spring to mind. As it has been written, things do fall apart. This week our trio of films deals with marriages that were doomed from the words "fade in."
I Married a Monster from Outer Space, from 1958, pretty much spills it in the title. A newlywed bride discovers that her husband is actually, well, a monster from outer space. The happy couple is shown toasting their marriage, presumably with a nice sparkling wine. Obviously, some things are beyond a Champagne fix.
In Monster, they borrowed a page or two from Invasion of the Body Snatchers. The bride in question wasn't the only woman in town whose husband suffered an alien takeover. Body snatching was a big thing in the late '50s.
If you have been wondering when we would pair a movie with a wine from Beaujolais that is not red, although I don't know why you would wonder that, here it is. Alien, from Domaine Saint-Cyr is 100% Aligoté, which is more than we can say about the husband in Monster. It comes highly recommended, as it should at $50 a bottle.
Then there is The Bride and the Beast, from 1958. This guy gets married, his pet gorilla tries to make it with his wife, and she kinda digs it. If you guessed that storyline to be from a script by Ed Wood, you are correct.
The story unfolds around a newlywed couple who discover that she was a gorilla in a previous life. He happens to have a pet gorilla in the house. A recipe for disaster. The one-sheet cries out, "Human mate for jungle brutes." Oops, gave it away. I can't seem to think of another film which centers on a husband losing his wife to an ape, but maybe there is one in the porn world.
Gorilla Wines has a number of Italian bottlings, all of which contribute to the conservation effort to save the African Mountain Gorillas. They say there are only a thousand of them left, so it is a good cause. Try the Gorilla Primitivo, which is actually Zinfandel in an Italian disguise.
1951's Bride of the Gorilla works the same turf as the previous B-movie, but with a different plow. Raymond Burr plays a guy who has a curse thrown onto him by, well, it doesn't matter. It's a curse. It turns him into a gorilla-like beast, but the wife doesn't dig it. Maybe she should have met the ape from the other flick.
Gorilla comes from Jason Oliva Wine in South Africa's Stellenbosch region. It is a Bordeaux-style blend which is heavy on the Cabernet Franc. The price is listed at just under $100 a bottle.
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