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ALTHOUGH the risible titles of the movies I Was A Teenage Werewolf and I Married A Monster From Outer Space conjure up trashy, drive-in fodder, they are compelling parables of conservative America's fear of youth rebellion and communism in the late 1950s. They were also made not by some schlocky director but by the respected film editor Gene Fowler Jr, who has died aged 80.
Gene Fowler Sr, scenarist, biographer and Hollywood personality, took his son to the movies from an early age. One film that made a deep impression on the young man was Metropolis, Fritz Lang's futuristic allegory in which Brigitte Helm played both a saintly woman and a malign robot made in her image. It is not fanciful to see the influence of Metropolis on I Was A Teenage Werewolf and I Married A Monster From Outer Space with their themes of dual personalities, nor of the influence of Lang, a number of whose films Fowler Jr edited at 20th Century Fox.
After studying at the University of Southern California, Fowler joined Fox as...