This is my entry in the Luso World Blogathon hosted by Crítica Retrô and Spellbound with Beth Ann
As Joe Bob Briggs writes in his enormously entertaining tome Profoundly Disturbing: "Unlike Frankenstein and Dracula, Creature from the Black Lagoon had no literary pedigree." The previous two were, of course, based on previously published (literary) novels: "Frankenstein" was based on a novel by Mary Shelley, written in 1818 and "Dracula" was a based on a novel published in 1897 by Bram Stoker.
The "Universal Monsters", as they have come to be known, were all influential in the early days of horror cinema. The Invisible Man also came from a literary background, having been based on H. G. Wells' classic novel. The Phantom of the Opera had been based on a novel by Gaston Leroux. While the other films were based on legends (The Mummy and The Wolf Man), Creature from the Black Lagoon had it's origins based on "a conversation at a cocktail party" (again, from the Briggs entry).
Side note: Creature from the Black Lagoon, without the definite article "the" preceding it is actually the correct title. For years, before I actually acquired a DVD of the film, I thought it's title was The Creature from the Black Lagoon...)
Remote unexplored areas of the Earth often had such legends. And Hollywood often made use of such local stories to turn into shock films. You can find this kind of thing going on from the early days to modern times. One of the first such "legends translated to film" movies was a silent film from 1915, The Golem, which told of an animated creature made from clay, a Jewish folklore tale.
Creature has it's legend come to us from the stories told by natives of the Amazon jungle, about a half-man half-fish creature that came out of the remote jungle to claim a female once a year. (Kind of like the natives in King Kong, who ritually sacrificed one of their virgin females to the giant ape to appease it.)
Creature takes place in, of course, the Amazonian jungle of Brazil, although it wasn't actually filmed there. Production costs pretty much made it prohibitive, so parts of California and Florida do the substitution thing, and for someone who has never been in the jungle, I guess they didn't do too bad a job of it. The film was directed by Jack Arnold, the same man who brought us It Came from Outer Space, The Incredible Shrinking Man, Tarantula! and The Space Children.
Besides the Brazilian location of the story, the Portuguese connection also extended to one of the stars of the movie, Nestor Paiva. Paiva has also been featured in other movies reviewed here, including Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter and The Madmen of Mandoras. He has over 400 films to his credit, although quite a few of them fall into the category of what I call "blink and you'll miss him". Here he plays the captain of the ship and has a significant presence in the film.
The most interesting thing I found in my research was that there was apparently something of a feud between the actors that played the Creature. Yes, there were two. Ben Chapman was in the suit whenever the creature was on land, and swimming star Ricou Browning did the swimming scenes. Apparently Browning had been going around signing autographs on pictures of the creature taken when on land. Chapman got a little irked about it since Browning was actually autographing pictures that were actually him instead.
One of the things that the aforementioned author Joe Bob Briggs points out is how popular this movie was with prepubescent boys, indicating that probably the primary infatuation was not for a pretty cool looking monster, but a pretty hot looking female co-star, and that swimsuit had a lot to do with it. No wonder she attracted the creature's attention.
Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954):
The narrator (voiced by Art Gilmore) begins the movie with a mélange of Biblical and evolutionary theory of the creation of the Earth.
"In the beginning, God created the heaven and the Earth, and the earth was without form and void. This is the planet Earth, newly born and cooling rapidly, from a temperature of 6000 degrees to a few hundred in less than five billion years. The heat rises, meets the atmosphere, clouds form and rain pours down upon the hardening surface for countless centuries. The restless seas rise, find boundaries, are contained. Now, in their warm depths, the miracle of life begins. In infinite variety, living things appear, and change, leaving a record of their coming, of their struggle to survive, and of their eventual end. The record of life is written on the land, where fifteen million years later, in the upper reaches of the Amazon, man is still trying to read it."
I understand the need to appease the Catholic Church and other religious factions that, at least in the 50's, had a strong influence on what was presented in the movies, so that first line coming directly from Biblical scripture was probably somewhat necessary. But since no such creature appears in Biblical scripture as the Creature, I don't really see the point.
The actual beginning of the movie finds an archaeological dig discovering an odd looking hand embedded in the rock.
The scientist in charge, Dr, Maia (Antonio Moreno), takes the fossil back to civilization to try to study it, leaving two of his native helpers, Luis (Rodd Redwing) and Tomas (Perry Lopez), in charge. (BTW, neither Lopez nor Redwing are actually Brazilian.) Dr. Maia heads back to civilization, but neither he nor the two natives are aware that a live creature lurks in the nearby lagoon.
Dr,. Maia meets up with Dr. David Reed (Richard Carlson) and his colleague, Kay (Julia Adams). Kay is also David's girlfriend, although he seems to be reluctant to make it an official relationship (as in, marriage). Dr. Maia shows Dr. Reed and his associates the fossil and wangles to get funding to dig deeper for the rest of the skeleton.
Meanwhile, back at the encampment, the live creature attacks and kills Luis and Tomas. Guess it doesn't like the intrusion in his home.
As the crew, along with the captain (Nestor Paiva) of the boat, called the "Rita", sail up the river, they discuss for what they are searching. Dr. Williams (Richard Denning) proves himself to be all about success as opposed to scientific inquiry. (Dr. Williams, as opposed to the creature, seems to be more in line with being considered the villain at this point, if not just an extremely unlikable character... (and hey may prove to be more unlikable as time goes on.)
When they arrive at the camp, the crew finds the bodies of Luis and Tomas. The captain suggests it may have been a jaguar that attacked them. But that doesn't dissuade them from their objective. They jump right away into trying to dig out the rest of the skeleton. But they don't have any success. Dr. Reed suggests they sail up river to an area known to the locals as the "Black Lagoon", because he theorizes that the rest of the remains may have been taken that way by forces of nature.
They sail up to the Black Lagoon where they do some investigating, all under the watchful eye of the creature, who is probably wondering what he did to deserve having a sudden wave of interlopers in his humble abode. After they find some interesting rocks they go back to the boat, but Kay wants to go for a swim. And the creature, seeing Kay in her swimsuit, has decided he doesn't dislike ALL these interlopers after all...
When Kay gets back aboard , something gets caught in their net, and, boy, is it a STRONG thing. It almost threatens to capsize the boat. When they finally get the net up above water, it has been totally demolished, leaving them to wonder just what kind of fish could no that! (Hint, fellas... that's no fish... Not even Jaws, which was still years down the road and miles away...)
The guys decide to go back down to look for this elusive creature (which considering how it demolished that net, seems a bit over-confident...). And Williams is proving more and more to be at odds with the rest of the scientists. He wants to kill the creature, rather than just take it hostage for study. While underwater they finally spot the creature and Williams fires his spear gun at it. But apparently it just pissed off the creature rather than kill it.
Back on the ship, the creature tries to take the new found love of his life, but she isn't so hot for him and resists. Eventually the scientists chase him down and trap him. Williams is all for packing up and going home with their prize, but Reed says they HAVE to investigate the creature's home a bit more. Williams, entirely out of character for being one to concede, actually lets Reed have his way. They go, leaving the creature under the care of the other scientist who has accompanied them. (I never hear them call him by name, but the credits list him as Dr. Thompson. He is played by Whit Bissell, who many of you will recognize as a prolific secondary character from TV and movies).
The creature escapes it's cage and attacks Thompson who, despite serious injury manages to drive off the creature. As a result, Reed decides that they must leave, despite Williams insistence that they stay, because after all, the creature means more to him than lives of any bystanders. You get the idea that the creature is missing a bet on who the most threatening of these interlopers is when it is attacking...
They try to leave, but the creature isn't quite through with them yet. It sets up a blockade to keep them from leaving. (A last ditch effort to make a final play for Kay to change her mind and set up house with him?) Ultimately the creature makes that last ditch effort, but even this is fruitless.
Creature from the Black Lagoon sparked two sequels, Revenge of the Creature and The Creature Walks Among Us, both featuring Ricou Browning as the swimming creature, but with two different actors filling the suit on land. Some of the scenes may look a little odd on screen, angles featuring the creature advancing to the camera and some of the underwater scenes. This is because the film was originally released in 3-D. It wouldn't be much longer before the 50's fad of 3-D faded. In fact, the aforementioned sequel, Revenge of the Creature is credited as the final gasp (no pun intended). I would love to see some of these in the original 3-D.
Both sequels finally moved the creature to Florida, where it still struggled to find a suitable companion, but being butt ugly, he had no success in Florida either. The creature pops up now and again in films. One of the better appearances was the 80's movie The Monster Squad (a movie that was promoted as a kid's movie, but I suggest you watch it with older kids, as it may be just a bit spooky for pre-teens...)
Another movie well worth checking out is the recent Oscar darling The Shape of Water which was inspired by the older movie.
Well, folks, the old Plymouth is not ready for an underwater trip, so I hope the roads aren't flooding on the way home. But just in case, I'm packing a couple of cans of Flit.
Drive safely.
Quiggy
