Today's Cinema Sunday is about a movie that was first released 70 years ago. From February 12, 1954, it's Creature from the Black Lagoon.
A geology expedition in the Amazon uncovers a skeletal hand with webbed fingers!
Egad! It's scientific proof that man evolved from ducks!!
OK, no. But it does suggest a link between land animals and creatures of the sea.
Expedition leader Dr. Carl Maia visits his friend and former student, ichthyologist Dr. David Reed who is in Brazil to study lungfish.
Ichthyologists do know how to party! "LUNGFISH in the HOUSE, y'all!!!!"
David persuades his boss, Dr. Mark Williams (always looking for a way to make a buck) to fund a return expedition to the Amazon to look for the remainder of the skeleton.
While Carl was away, an amphibious humanoid pokes around the camp. It's appearance frightens Carl's assistants who attack, this strange visitor which just pisses the Creature off and he kills them.
Meanwhile back up the river, the expedition takes off on a old rusty tramp steamer called Rita. On board is her captain, crusty old Lucas and his crew as well as Carl, Mark, David, David's girlfriend and colleague Kay Lawrence and another scientist, Dr. Edwin Thompson.
When they arrive at the camp, they discover Carl's assistants have been killed.
Lucas suggests they were killed by a jaguar.
Really? A jaguar? Yeah, let's go with that. These very white people want to go further down the river to a certain lagoon to look for more skeletal remains of the alleged fish-man.
Not realizing there's a real life fish-man lurking about but... Shhh! Let's not spoil the movie for them.
The Creature has... noticed Kay and follows the Rita to... the Black Lagoon.
(Oh the things we do for love.)
David and Mark dive to collect rock samples from the lagoon. After they return, Kay goes swimming and is stalked underwater by the Creature!
The Creature kills Lucas's crew and attempts to abduct Kay to his underwater love nest.
Well his plans for romance get stymied when he's captured and put in a cage.
No mere cage can hold... the Creature!
He busts loose and severely injures Edwin before escaping.
Edwin is all bandaged up from head to toe and in a fuck ton of pain. David thinks it's way past time to cut their losses and leave.
Mark thinks there's a shit load of money to be made if they capture the Creature.
Leaving is a moot point. The Creature has dragged a bunch of debris to obstruct the passage out of the lagoon. The Rita cannot leave.
The Creature kills Mark! (Yay! We did not like that greedy son of a bitch!)
The Creature abducts Kay to his underwater love nest.
C'mon! He's just a poor man-slash-fish hybrid who's in love with a beautiful woman. Is that so wrong?
Since she hasn't consented to any of this, then yeah, that is so wrong. (But maybe if she could look past the scaly skin and the webbed hands...)
David, Lucas, and Carl rescue Kay while David shoots the Creature.
Riddled with bullets, the poor love sick fish-man sinks into the watery depths of... the Black Lagoon.
And we reach... The End.
Disney animator Milicent Patrick designed the look of the creature but make-up artist Bud Westmore received sole credit for the creature's look.
Another story of a woman's work being subsumed by the ego of some man! God, men are such jerks!
Jack Kevan, who worked on The Wizard of Oz (1939) and made prosthetics for amputees during World War II, created the bodysuit and Chris Mueller Jr. sculpted the head.
Ricou Browning played the Creature in the underwater shots, which were filmed in Wakulla Springs, Florida.
These sequences required Browning to hold his breath for up to four minutes at a time. In a 2013 interview, Browning clarified: "If you're not doing anything at all, four minutes is possible, but not if you're moving in the water. If you're swimming fast or fighting, you use up a lot of oxygen, and it cuts it down to, at the most, two minutes".
Creature from the Black Lagoon was Universal Studios' last big attempt to create a horror movie franchise after their success with Dracula, the Wolf Man, Frankenstein and more. The film spawned two sequels: Revenge of the Creature (1955) and The Creature Walks Among Us (1956).
Creature from the Black Lagoon was developed to be a 3-D release but by 1954, the 3-D craze of the early 1950's had peaked and most releases of the film were in 2-D.
Creature from the Black Lagoon follows a classic template set forth by King Kong. Yeah, the Creature is a killer but only when provoked and threatened. It's the Creature's obsession with the beautiful Kay. It's this plot line that adds a level of depth and pathos to an otherwise rote exercise of men not leaving weird shit alone and gets killed for it.
On the subject of romance, next week's Weekend Movie posts will look at romantic comedies.
Cinema Saturday: from the 1990's, Four Weddings and a Funeral.
Cinema Sunday: from the 1940's, The Bride Came C.O.D.
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