CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON (1954)
— RANKING: 72 —
BEAUTY AND THE BEAST REVISITED: The ancient myth, so essential to the fantasy genre in literature and film, was spruced up with contemporary scientific jargon for the sci-fi genre. Julie Adams is the beauty on the beach. Courtesy: Universal.
CREDITS
Universal International Pictures; Jack Arnold, dir.; Harry Essex, Arthur A. Ross, scr.; William Alland, pro.; Henry Mancini, Hans J. Salter, Herman Stein, mus.; William E. Snyder, cin.; Ted J. Kent, ed.; Hilyard M. Brown, Bernard Herzbrun, art dir.; Russell A. Gausman, Ray Jeffers, set design; Charles “Scotty” Welbourne, special F/X photography; Milicent Patrick, creature design; 79 min.; B&W; 1.37:1 (original), 1.85:1.
CAST
Richard Carlson (David Reed); Julie Adams (Kay Lawrence); Richard Denning (Mark Williams); Antonio Moreno (Carl Maia); Nestor Paiva (Lucas); Whit Bissell (Dr. Edwin Thompson); Ricou Browning (Gill Man, water sequences); Ben Chapman (Gill Man, land sequences).
MOST MEMORABLE LINE
We didn’t come here to fight monsters.
DAVID TO MARK
BACKGROUND
The inspiration for Universal’s last great monster franchise resulted from a dinner conversation that took place in 1941. William Alland, then an actor, had just played the reporter in Citizen Kane, and his director, Orson Welles, introduced him to Mexican filmmaker Gabriel Figueroa. The famed raconteur told the dinner guests about a legendary creature of the Amazon reputed to be half man, half fish. Later, as a B movie producer, Alland was searching for a new, original creature with some scientific, rather than supernatural, basis. His memory of that long-ago conversation led to the idea of the Gill Man.
THE PLOT
An annihilated expedition leaves in its wake one fossil from tens of thousands of years ago. When Dr. Reed studies the piece, he becomes convinced that it may provide evidence of a missing link between life in the water and on land. He and a high-ranking scientist, Mark Williams, penetrate the Amazon’s mysteries, initially unaware that a single specimen survives from the Devonian Period. The creature, in the meantime, is growing ever more intrigued by their female companion, Kay Lawrence.
THE FILM
Creature has wrongly been identified as Universal’s first foray into 3-D. Actually, It Came from Outer Space (1953) preceded Creature by almost a year. Both were released in “polarized” three-dimension format, which required that each eye be covered by a piece of plastic-like material, gray-green in color, inserted into special glasses. The better-remembered, if inferior, “anaglyph” approach, involving one red and one blue eye cover, was mostly reserved for comic books. These special editions, published in a larger-than-usual format, were a forerunner of today’s graphic novels. The 3-D print of Creature that is available for rental has been converted from polarization to anaglyphic.
The Gill Man, always intended to resemble an upright penis, was designed by one of Disney’s artists, Milicent Patrick, in collaboration with pioneering makeup specialist Bud Westmore (1918–1973). Jack Kevan constructed the bodysuit; Chris Mueller provided the head sculpting. Two costumes/suits were created, one lightly colored for land scenes, and the other darker for in-water sequences. The Gill Man’s notably different manner of moving on land and water was due to the fact that he was played by two stunt performers.
THEME
Creature became the most omnipresent example of the beauty and the beast motif since RKO’s King Kong (1933). That film established the theme of two men competing for a female until they are forced to join forces against “It.” King Kong’s lack of any scientific rationale disqualifies it, greatness aside, from consideration here. In Creature, however, science drives the fiction. The film revives the idea of a beast that, in its primitive simplicity and utterly romantic captivation with the female, earns more emotional support from the audience than either of the “heroes.” Notable too are the advances made by women in the United States during the two decades between this new variation on a theme and the epic Kong. Whereas Ann Darrow (Fay Wray) accompanied Kong’s explorers for no other reason than her value as a beauty object, here Kay, however lovely, comes along for the ride as an equal partner and respected scientist. Producer Alland and director Jack Arnold refused to use one of the studio’s many blonde Marilyn Monroe look-alike contract starlets, insisting that brunette Adams, her physical perfection aside, would offer up an assertive and intelligent female lead more in tune with the times.
TRIVIA
Many B movie aficionados consider the sequence in which the underwater creature swims beneath Kay, mimicking her every move, to be the most erotic G-rated (though the current rating system was not in effect until late 1967/early 1968) sequence of all time.
In The Seven Year Itch (1955), the heroine, played by Marilyn Monroe, goes on a date with a married man (Tom Ewell) to the movies to see Creature from the Black Lagoon. Shortly after they exit, she expresses sympathy for the creature as a misunderstood male searching for love. The iconic moment in which she steps over a subway grating and her dress blows up above her thighs occurs immediately thereafter. Here is one of the first great examples of a work of lowbrow popular culture being incorporated into a more upscale project.
Producer Alland continued the cross-pollination of monster movie with science-fiction film in both sequels. In Revenge of the Creature (1955), psychologists, as well as ichthyologists, attempt to understand the relationship of the missing link to contemporary mankind; The Creature Walks Among Us (1956) deals with the creature’s transformation from gills to lungs as he—that is, it!—relives humanity’s own evolution.