MovieChat Forums > Earth vs. the Flying Saucers (1956) Discussion > Hugh Marlowe looked old enough to be Joa...

Hugh Marlowe looked old enough to be Joan Taylor's father

posted 12 years ago by spotlightne
8 replies | jump to latest

Bad casting. When the movie started and Hugh said to Joan, 'we've just got married'. I thought 'no way, you're way too old for her, grandpa.

Apparently he really was 18 years older than her but I think he looked about 30 years older. An ego boost for him but looks really stupid on film.

And Grandon Rhodes, who played Joan's father, was only seven years older than Hugh. Even Grandon looks younger than Hugh from certain angles. Grandon has far fewer lines than Hugh has.

LOL. Casting in those days was absolutely ridiculous. Only geared towards pumping up actors' egos. Hugh is probably trying to pass himself off as about 30, but he fails miserably.

[–] hobnob53 12 years ago

I think you have some odd ideas about age and aging.

Hugh Marlowe was 18 years older than Joan Taylor but no way he looked like her father. In fact, given their age difference they always looked reasonably compatible in age. Clearly he's older, but they looked closer then 18 years apart -- in part because Joan Taylor always looked a little older than her years. She was 26 during filming but looked about 30. Marlowe, 44 during filming, could pass for 37 or so.

Big age discrepancies between leading men and women were hardly confined to the 1950s. You can find such differences today too. Credible or not, that's just the way Hollywood operates.

Incidentally, you're wrong about one fact: Grandon Rhodes does not play Joan Taylor's father. Her father (General Hanley) is played by Morris Ankrum, who was 15 years older than Hugh Marlowe in real life, if that makes any difference. Ankrum looked perfectly believable as Joan's father and Hugh's father-in-law. As for Grandon Rhodes, no way he looked younger than Marlowe in any scene from any angle. His balding gray hair and crabby, older-sounding voice make him seem 20 years older then Hugh, whom he nonetheless outlived by five years.

[–] cyninbend-149-610489 9 years ago

I agree. And she was his secretary--women always get crushes on authority figures--teachers, bosses, and if not your boss, the boss down the hall, your boss's boss or his boss. We used to tease each other over the old guys our friends would get crushes on. They were nobody we would have been attracted to outside of college, etc. We knew it.

Hollywood always overdoes the age difference acceptability, and does not care if there is a power thing to explain why Helen Hunt would have been attracted to Jack Nicholson, or whoever was attracted to Sean Connery. If they were in a power role it would be more credible--that's in our DNA when we needed a provider that could could care for us while pregnant, and our children while vulnerable. It's not just greed on behalf of women, it's biology. Millions of years of the survival of the fittest--the one who fell for the provider and protector, while the other women who fell for the other guys without food, shelter, protective capacity, and later money died, starved, etc.

Anyway, Joan would have fallen for her boss, and he for her, so it's good casting. If she were few years younger, no way--she'd be in college or dating college guys at least. But he had to be older to have been assigned responsibility for a missile testing program that cost millions. They don't give those to 30 year olds--he'd have to have been at least 25 to get his PhD. Then, he'd have to work his way up, ten years minimum? So it all made sense.

[–] oldblackandwhite 12 years ago

How old are you, spotlightne, about 13? Young women like us older guys, because we not only have more money, but more brains. It was Joan who got the ego boost.

For your homework, watch old Perry Mason episodes until you can tell which judge is Morris Ankrum!

He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good... St. Matthew 5:45

[–] mwmtampa 11 years ago

I agree that the age difference was irrelevant. To me they looked about 10-12 years apart on film, but never gave it a second thought til reading about it here.

[–] bastasch8647 11 years ago

Yep, not only was the age difference irrelavant, Marlowe didn't look that "bad". We should recall that people of that era really did seem to age earlier than subsequent generations. And Marlowe does look somewhat young when his hair gets mussed and falls over his forehead - the classic "boyish" fashion - in the underground control center, and then again in most of the Washington DC saucer battle ... then in the final beach scene. His body is youthful and fit - as is Joan Taylor's. A good movie with a good protagonist couple.

[–] trprt77 10 years ago

While I think Marlowe looked slightly older than Taylor, I don't think it was that blatant.

As to guys aging differently back then, it was due to that wonderful 40's and 50's diet of scotch and smokes!

[–] simon-282 10 years ago

one might forget 5 years earlier in 1951 ,he lost his girlfriend to an alien klaatu ..lost his credibility ..so being in an alien flying saucer environment,,saying,,oh no not again....he had aged somewhat ,from the day the earth stood still..i think hugh was in the the best and second best,sci-fi pictures of all time..wouldve been interesting if he did an media interview about these movies...on one of the tonight type shows but the producers and writers of those to-nite shows,,are not thinkers. ,,and they live in hollywood..

[–] bastasch8647 8 years ago

one might forget 5 years earlier in 1951 ,he lost his girlfriend to an alien klaatu ..lost his credibility ..so being in an alien flying saucer environment,,saying,,oh no not again

Funny stuff!

:)