Director: Jack Arnold
Cast: Richard Carlso, Julia Adams, Richard Denning, Antonio Moreno
Have I Seen It Before: Yes… I absolutely had to, having marched through all the discs on my Universal Monsters box set. But I will admit I have stronger memories of Revenge of the Creature from the Black Lagoon (1955), owing to its frequent runs on TV, up to and including it being featured in the first episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 I ever watched…
That doesn’t even cover the Clint of it all.
Did I Like It: There’s a part of me that wants to be a little bit down on the film. This is so far removed from the submlime, high era of Universal Monster pictures, and even seems removed from the occasionally schlocky monster mashups* of the late 1940s. There’s a certain degree of retrograde Spielbergian restraint—waiting until the last possible moment to show as the Gill-man in all of his splendor**—on display here working in its favor, but after everything is said and done, this isn’t all that much more than a typical monster movie…
But then I remember that it is the progenitor of what some (me, just now) might call typical monster movies. I can’t fully deny the charms of a film which is disinterested in imitating other films, and proceeds to be imitated by other films.
*I’m excluding you from that blanket statement, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948). You’re perfect, you’re better than we deserve, and I love you.
**What I am enjoying this week, as this is a Beyond the Cabin in the Woods episode, is reading Mallory O’Meara’s The Lady From the Black Lagoon about the long-erased credit for Milicent Patrick in designing the Creature. In all honesty, the Gill-man in this film looks fine when he is within the water, but strains belief a bit whenever he elects to emerge and embrace his rubbery reality. Perhaps if she had been given her due, and even the ability to continue working, he may have improved.