And so we come to the last movie of the Universal Monster series box set.
I've really been looking forward to 1954's The Creature from the Black Lagoon (hereafter "Creature"). I may actually have seen it as a kid on our local Northern Indiana midnight show, Creature Feature, but I remembered very little of it. Really, only a few famous images. I was anxious to see it again.
The story is set in the Amazon, where a local scientist and his assistants find a fossilized claw buried in rock. Unable to identify it, he goes to the local marine biology institute and talks his friends there into funding an expedition to recover more of the fossil. As the scientist is away, however, an unseen creature -- you just see the claw -- shows up at his camp and kills his two assistants.
When the expedition arrives, they find the two murdered fellows and assume it's a jaguar. When they fail to dig up any more of the fossil, they head upriver in their boat, the Rita, to the infamous "Black Lagoon" to search there. At this point, the expedition consists of the scientist, three more scientists from the institute, the captain and his crew of two, and the girlfriend of one of the scientists, Kay.
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| They definitely could use a bigger boat. |
What they don't realize is that they're being stalked by the Creature. As he spots Kay swimming in a terrific scene where he swims upside down under her, the Creature becomes infatuated and starts multiple attempts to abduct her. Once they realize he exists and he's pissed off at their intrusion, it becomes a struggle between man and Creature.
There's a lot to like here. The Amazon jungle is pretty well done, filmed in both Hollywood and on site in Florida. We've been to the beautiful Silver Springs in Ocala many times (one of our family Christmas cards was taken there) which is where I thought it was filmed, but it turns out that Silver Springs was where they filmed the sequel. This movie was filmed at Wakulla Springs.
The underwater filming was amazing for its time and made even more so because the Creature costume doesn't have an air tank. The director didn't want air bubbles rising from the Creature, so the stunt swimmer, Ricou Browing, was holding his breath in every underwater shot. Imagining how claustrophobic that must have been is pretty nightmare inducing. That guy was a hero.
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| No air tank. Think about it. |
The movie has a famous 3-note musical theme that plays almost every time the Creature appears. It's probably been used countless times in other movies since, but it was created for the Creature and really wears out its welcome. After a while, it's so overused it becomes funny. Apparently studio execs are responsible for demanding it be used over and over and over. Click on the video here and you'll recognize it instantly.
Speaking of overused, the image of the Creature's claw reaching out is also in many, many shots. It's pretty chilling at first, but gets less every time you see it.
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| You see shots like this A LOT. |
The beginning of the movie is also pretty funny, starting with a voiceover, "In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth" and an effects sequence of the beginning of the Earth. It then describes how the Earth cooled from 6000 degrees to a few hundred in less than 5 billion years, followed up with an explanation of evolution. There's all kinds of things wrong with the narration, especially that it's a really weird mix of religion and science.
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| Bonus points for identifying the science fiction TV connection to the guy on the far left. |
The expedition members are reasonably interesting and I especially liked the friendly, no-nonsense Captain. There's a bit between the top two scientists that looks like it's going to boil over into a fight over Kay, but the movie wisely doesn't go there. And there's some interesting discussion between the scientists about how to defeat the Creature. As my friend Steve Honeywell points out in his review, the script treats these characters as smart and resourceful. They make some mistakes, but they approach the challenge using their heads. Alas, for most of them, it's not enough.
Some of the Universal Monsters have similar stories, most notably Dracula and the Mummy. After I watched this, I was thinking about which of the other Universal Monsters the Creature is like. Turns out, I think this movie is most like a remake of King Kong. In both, a group of men take a boat to a forbidden, forgotten wilderness and discover a monster who falls in love with the lone female in their group, kidnapping her and forcing them to rescue her. He's certainly a lot smaller, but the Creature really is akin to King Kong.
And finally, the Creature suit itself, designed by Millicent Patrick, is fantastic, just a wonderful bit of costuming.
Great movie and an entertaining ending to the Universal Monsters.
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