The Creature from the Black Lagoon is filmed in a much more immersive filmic language than typical 50s movies. The environment is a character in a way we see all the time today, but almost never in b&w. I presume it's a happy side effect from the 3D production.
The Gill Man is one of my favorite Universal Monsters for the reasons you explained and more. Repeat viewing as a kid plus having a neighbor who went all in for Halloween and had a mail order gill man suit handing out full sized chocolate bars. Yeah, good memories! There was a gill man in the 80's kid cult film Monster Squad. Looked like a venus fly trap for a mouth mixed with the gill man and didn't do much. Not sure they had rights to the Universal monster designs. Agree the original is still the best. Sequels are different, which I like.
My mother once told me that "The Creature From The Black Lagoon" was the first movie I ever saw in a cinema. Seeing that I was born in 1952 and the film was released in 1954, I must have been barely two years old at the time, apparently the reason I have no memory of it (my first memories are a island vacation trip at age 3), but I wish I had. I'm surprised Terry didn't mention that the original film was released in 3D. My good friend, who is a stereo photographer and is obsessed with 3D films, has a 3D copy of the film which we've watched with the classic red and blue anaglyph glasses.
Excellent review of the Creature trilogy. I agree with your analysis and your critiques. I loved the first movie, liked the second one and kind of did a “huh?” on the third one. You did make me reflect on what if humanity’s collective inclination to conquer nature had been subordinated to a Roddenberry-esque non-interference ethos
In The Creature Walks Amongst Us they made the Creature look like an overweight Ted Cassidy. I've seen all three of these but only own the original - I'll be re-watching it this weekend. I liked Del Toro's The Shape of Water better than any of the old sequels, except (SPOILER WARNING) for the bit where the cat ends up as the creature's lunch. Have an awesome weekend Terry.
Julia Adams was a solid actress; she could do heroines, bad gals and comedy. Maybe, more of a TV actress, she played real bad gals (The Emperor of Rice on the Big Valley, The Courtship on Bonanza, Nora on the Rifleman), likably droll leads in comedies (Jimmy Stewart's wife on The Jimmy Stewart Show) and unlikely stand-up gals (a hardcore RN who cared about her patients on The Incredible Hulk). She was also generally good playing doctors, nurses and (unusually for someone of her generation, women who were (competent military officers, an ARNY Air Corps head nurse on 12 O'clock High, a Civil Affairs Officer on The ggllant Men).
Big CFTBL fan! 🙂 Best rubber suit (whole body designed by Millicent Patrick) of the '50s. Still holds up! You should get the 2018 Blu-ray Complete Legacy Collection Creature set All 3 are in 1.85:1 and you also get the 3D versions of the 1st two. Couple of FYIs. Herman Stein wrote most of the CFTBL score, including the famous 3 note theme. Mancini wrote a lot of the river, swimming, night on the boat scenes. His best cues were when Mark gets attacked by the GM. Hans Salter ("The Wolf Man", "House of Frankenstein" wrote a couple of cues, including the end title music. Ricou didn't use a breathing apparatus in the suit. A diver with an air hose was just out of frame. He and Ginger were very practiced at this from their days with the water shows.
The 'Gill Man' is no longer the Gill Man when he has no gills (3rd film)!!! I had all of the Universal Monster model kits (with the glow-in-the-dark pieces!) when I was a kid. The Creature (Gill Man) was the best of them! Hey -- I got the CCBB movie item for you -- can I ship it to your PO Box (it'll be a box around 6 inches by 8 inches by 10 inches -- funny that we (the US) still use the Imperial system of measurement!!!)? Cheers!
The Creature is such a great film. Yes they should have left him alone, but Hollywood loves to make a buck and Universal milked their monsters for all they could squeeze out of them. I have seen all three. Interesting point you made regarding the third film, that Barton is The Creature that walks among us. I will have to follow that theme as I watch the film again. I am all set for the week long lead into Halloween. I have all these Universal Monster Collections on DVD. Creature, Dracula, Frankenstein, Mummy. Wolfman. It will take the week to binge watch them all. Some are better then others, but all are in glorious black and white. There is just something magical about these films that makes them worthy of watching several times.
Thank you for this! I love the Creature. I've heard some of this lore before, but I always enjoy hearing it again. (Yes, the Invisible Man remake was chilling.) I find the Creature concept wild, as if Mother Nature was trying to create a form of humanity millions of years way too soon -- he keeps getting called Devonian Man. I take the later Creature movies as a repeat of the mistake made with King Kong, dragging him away from Skull Island. Thanks, Ter.
I fortunately got to see The Creature Of The Black Lagoon in 3D at our university's movie theatre. You are right those Legacy Monster DVD sets are badly designed and irritating to open. There is a Legacy Blu-Ray set which however is kinda pricey, but all the movies are in the original 1.85:1aspect ratio.
I loved watching these films growing up I remember Friday Saturday night if I managed to stay up late I would watch them with my parents & those memories have stuck with me. My dad pretending to get strangled in the door frame or sneaking outside to bang on the windows😅
Ihe Creature trilogy was my first childhood science fiction obsession. I watched all three several times syndicated fr TV and I once had memorabilia such as model kits, figurines, etc. The origins of the Gilman lusting after human vixens may lie in Lovecraft's 1931 "The Shadow Over Innsmouth.""
I absolutely loved this movie in the early 70s when I was a little kid. I found 1/2 of an very old mask of the creature in the back yard of the house we moved into and died dreaming the impossible dream of finding that mask/costume for Halloween but alas it was not to be.
@@terrytalksmoviesyes it would be a big hit for this 57 year old man to put on the creature costume, probably 3 sizes too small, and go out knocking on doors 😂😂😂
I saw the Creature Trilogy as part of a local drive-in dusk to dawn holiday weekend bill. That was 1960 and as a 9 year old, I thought the first one was great and the other two, enh, not so much. Fast forward to the last decade and newly remastered versions of the trio and I came to appreciate and understand the subtexts of the sequels considerably more. They became major favourite creature features and I loved Guillermo del Toro's take on the Gill Man mythos... I didn't know about William Alland's Citizen Kane connection until I watched this although I knew about Milient Patrick's work on the original "CRBL" and you're right Bud Westmore was a dick, taking credit for something he didn't create. Glad she's getting the recognition she deserved.
I've only seen the original Creature from the Black Lagoon, courtesy of the DVD version of the Universal Monster set you have. Always liked it since first seeing it, being very impressed with the underwater scenes. I do love del Toro's Shape of Water which is heavily influenced by the Creature and uses it well as a starting point for the story.
A great horror movie. My only gripe is the over use of the creature's music in the film score. Otherwise a great movie. Thank you Terry! I hope you have a great weekend!
Not unusual for fish to have lungs; two species of lungfish (the name is on the tin), mudskippers, etc. Many fish can gulp air to facilitate life in low-oxygen water. Many reptiles hat live in the ocean (sea turtles, sea snakes, not sure about Salties) can absorb oxygen from water through their intestines to supplement held breath)
I was thinking it's not a bad part for Clint Eastwood because it works well with his natural shyness-one of the reasons he developed such a monosyllabic speaking style and tightly-wound look was because it took him YEARS to get over looking like the guy who would just as soon stand at the back of the class photo. You see that part of him creep through as late the "Man With No Name Trilogy" sometimes....
Odd that the leading ladies from Anthony Mann's Bend of the River were the leading ladies of the first two Creature films: Julia Adams & Lori Nelson. Further, Orson Wells was probably already looking for ideas from Latin America for It's All True, a documentary.
Throw the Creature set into a lagoon. Seen some of Figueroa's work, he shot many of Luis Bunuel's films. One of my favorite music stings. The first film is a classic in my book. I like Clint for what he can do, a laconic tough guy. Grew up with and love the Dollars trilogy and the Dirty Harry films (even if they are kind of fascist). Play Misty for Me and The Beguiled had him in different roles where he's rakish. Guess they saved money on the third film with less underwater shooting. Haven't seen the sequels in a long time but I recall thinking they were diminishing returns.
Great trio of movies Terry. I've not seen the 3rd film. You are not wrong about Clint Eastwood he was a bit one note as an actor. However a world without his Dirty Harry, particularly the first movie would be a sadder place. This video made my day 👌
@@terrytalksmoviesI totally get where you are coming from and of course you are right. Like 95 % of my classic movie choices nostalgia looms large. So while i don't disagree with you in principle. I view this film as a modern day Western and in no way a reflection of how i view the world. In closing your love of Movies has inspired me to start a UA-cam channel. Purely as a retirement hobby. I totally get why you do this and more power to you mate👍
SONOFABITCH I've got the Legacy Collection DVDs for every Universal Monster series and never realized they're in TV aspect ratio. Or is it just the Creature films that are? Anyway, the Gill Man was my favorite when I was a little kid. The first movie scared the hell out of me, but I also found it riveting and could never look away.
@@terrytalksmovies I will... I've watched them all a dozen times over and never even noticed. Universal hasn't done the best job with some of their properties.
Great and informative review as ever. Actually - I can understand why that Gill man feels attracted to young women. Being from the Amazon, he's Brazilian and obviously full of that famous latin machismo. Plus ... Amazon aquatic does have a reputation for that sort of thing. Local legend about those famous pink Amazon river dolphins (botos) is that they transform on moonlit evenings into snappily dressed charming men who promptly go around seducing the young ladies. Then, some months later when said young lady is unexpectedly pregnant, their explanation is that the dolphin did it. Poor Gill man was clearly under the dolphins' influence but just hadn't sorted out his technique. ;-)
If I had a penny for every director of a Creature from the Black Lagoon film who shared a surname with an area of Nottinghamshire I'd have two pence, which isn't much, but odd when you think about it.
I've actually always felt that The Creature Walks Among Us is the better film, compared to Revenge of the Creature. Neither, of course, match the original. But in Revenge, the Gill Man seems to be less of a character than he was in the original, and to me it had the feeling of a rushed rehash. The third film, though, has stronger actors than Revenge, and the Gill Man returns to being an actual character. I always got a real sense of his suffering in that film. His righteous anger at the end was intense and terrifying, and you understood *why* he was so enraged, because you'd been brought to the point of feeling along with him in his plight. Of course it never made much sense why the creature had suddenly gotten beefier when he lost his scales and gills. Maybe he was swollen with inflammation and that's what made him more irritable. lol. Also... gotta love Jeff Morrow. He played crazy well.
Like you say, the films are sort of diminish in quality as they go along, the first of course being the best on all levels. Always thought the third one had a great premiss with the sympathetic treatment of the monster - was he the monster or his captors - but just bogged down with the romance element
'CLZ Movies' app on the phone. You scan the bar code and it adds them to my DB. I pay $AU20 a year and it also gives me a cloud backup for the data. Totally worth it.
The Creature from the Black Lagoon is filmed in a much more immersive filmic language than typical 50s movies. The environment is a character in a way we see all the time today, but almost never in b&w. I presume it's a happy side effect from the 3D production.
The costume and the swimming really make it work.
The Gill Man is one of my favorite Universal Monsters for the reasons you explained and more. Repeat viewing as a kid plus having a neighbor who went all in for Halloween and had a mail order gill man suit handing out full sized chocolate bars. Yeah, good memories! There was a gill man in the 80's kid cult film Monster Squad. Looked like a venus fly trap for a mouth mixed with the gill man and didn't do much. Not sure they had rights to the Universal monster designs. Agree the original is still the best. Sequels are different, which I like.
The Monster Squad is a great little film.
The creature swimming in sync with Julie Adams’ character is one of my all-time favorite movie scenes. It’s cinematic poetry.
It is beautiful which makes it unexpected in a Universal monster film.
Very true-it’s an exquisite sequence.
My mother once told me that "The Creature From The Black Lagoon" was the first movie I ever saw in a cinema. Seeing that I was born in 1952 and the film was released in 1954, I must have been barely two years old at the time, apparently the reason I have no memory of it (my first memories are a island vacation trip at age 3), but I wish I had. I'm surprised Terry didn't mention that the original film was released in 3D. My good friend, who is a stereo photographer and is obsessed with 3D films, has a 3D copy of the film which we've watched with the classic red and blue anaglyph glasses.
The blu-ray box set has the 3D version of the first two movies.
Excellent review of the Creature trilogy. I agree with your analysis and your critiques. I loved the first movie, liked the second one and kind of did a “huh?” on the third one. You did make me reflect on what if humanity’s collective inclination to conquer nature had been subordinated to a Roddenberry-esque non-interference ethos
Thanks! The lesson isn't 'there are thing humanity wasn't mean to know' as much as ; 'there are things we should leave the hell alone'.
In The Creature Walks Amongst Us they made the Creature look like an overweight Ted Cassidy. I've seen all three of these but only own the original - I'll be re-watching it this weekend. I liked Del Toro's The Shape of Water better than any of the old sequels, except (SPOILER WARNING) for the bit where the cat ends up as the creature's lunch. Have an awesome weekend Terry.
Thanks. I love The Shape of Water. Del Toro really nailed the movie.
Julia Adams was a solid actress; she could do heroines, bad gals and comedy. Maybe, more of a TV actress, she played real bad gals (The Emperor of Rice on the Big Valley, The Courtship on Bonanza, Nora on the Rifleman), likably droll leads in comedies (Jimmy Stewart's wife on The Jimmy Stewart Show) and unlikely stand-up gals (a hardcore RN who cared about her patients on The Incredible Hulk). She was also generally good playing doctors, nurses and (unusually for someone of her generation, women who were (competent military officers, an ARNY Air Corps head nurse on 12 O'clock High, a Civil Affairs Officer on The ggllant Men).
Fair enough. 😀
Wow,l didn’t realize she was such a multifaceted,versatile actress.
Big CFTBL fan! 🙂 Best rubber suit (whole body designed by Millicent Patrick) of the '50s. Still holds up!
You should get the 2018 Blu-ray Complete Legacy Collection Creature set All 3 are in 1.85:1 and you also get the 3D versions of the 1st two.
Couple of FYIs. Herman Stein wrote most of the CFTBL score, including the famous 3 note theme. Mancini wrote a lot of the river, swimming, night on the boat scenes. His best cues were when Mark gets attacked by the GM. Hans Salter ("The Wolf Man", "House of Frankenstein" wrote a couple of cues, including the end title music.
Ricou didn't use a breathing apparatus in the suit. A diver with an air hose was just out of frame. He and Ginger were very practiced at this from their days with the water shows.
I'll probably upgrade to the blu-ray at some stage. Added it to my wish list as a bookmark for now.
The 'Gill Man' is no longer the Gill Man when he has no gills (3rd film)!!! I had all of the Universal Monster model kits (with the glow-in-the-dark pieces!) when I was a kid. The Creature (Gill Man) was the best of them! Hey -- I got the CCBB movie item for you -- can I ship it to your PO Box (it'll be a box around 6 inches by 8 inches by 10 inches -- funny that we (the US) still use the Imperial system of measurement!!!)? Cheers!
Thanks so much Aengus. The box will take anything. The PO ladies put a card in the box for large parcels.
The Creature is such a great film. Yes they should have left him alone, but Hollywood loves to make a buck and Universal milked their monsters for all they could squeeze out of them.
I have seen all three. Interesting point you made regarding the third film, that Barton is The Creature that walks among us. I will have to follow that theme as I watch the film again. I am all set for the week long lead into Halloween. I have all these Universal Monster Collections on DVD. Creature, Dracula, Frankenstein, Mummy. Wolfman. It will take the week to binge watch them all. Some are better then others, but all are in glorious black and white. There is just something magical about these films that makes them worthy of watching several times.
They're really rewatchable.
Thank you for this! I love the Creature. I've heard some of this lore before, but I always enjoy hearing it again. (Yes, the Invisible Man remake was chilling.) I find the Creature concept wild, as if Mother Nature was trying to create a form of humanity millions of years way too soon -- he keeps getting called Devonian Man. I take the later Creature movies as a repeat of the mistake made with King Kong, dragging him away from Skull Island. Thanks, Ter.
CFTBL very much takes its story from "King Kong".
The Gill Man seems perfectly adapted to fresh and sea water environments.
@@terrytalksmovies Sort of like your neighbor, Esterine Crocodiles, one of Australian's favorite inhabitants. (Although, they get a bit "Salty.")
I fortunately got to see The Creature Of The Black Lagoon in 3D at our university's movie theatre. You are right those Legacy Monster DVD sets are badly designed and irritating to open. There is a Legacy Blu-Ray set which however is kinda pricey, but all the movies are in the original 1.85:1aspect ratio.
I'll get the blu-rays at some stage. 😀
I loved watching these films growing up I remember Friday Saturday night if I managed to stay up late I would watch them with my parents & those memories have stuck with me. My dad pretending to get strangled in the door frame or sneaking outside to bang on the windows😅
For me, that would've been traumatising.
Ihe Creature trilogy was my first childhood science fiction obsession. I watched all three several times syndicated fr TV and I once had memorabilia such as model kits, figurines, etc. The origins of the Gilman lusting after human vixens may lie in Lovecraft's 1931 "The Shadow Over Innsmouth.""
You can also see it in Stuart Gordon's Dagon.
And people complain about Marvel movies. Everything goes in cycles with Monster/Sci Fi movies being popular from the 1930s to the 1950s
Drive In Theatres really boosted monster SF movies, too.
I absolutely loved this movie in the early 70s when I was a little kid. I found 1/2 of an very old mask of the creature in the back yard of the house we moved into and died dreaming the impossible dream of finding that mask/costume for Halloween but alas it was not to be.
Try eBay, Etsy and Amazon. You might find it. 😀
@@terrytalksmoviesyes it would be a big hit for this 57 year old man to put on the creature costume, probably 3 sizes too small, and go out knocking on doors 😂😂😂
Some of the greatest! CWAU is underrated, I like the big swings it takes
It needed about five minutes more to totally tie up the plot threads but yes.
There was also a short-lived live musical at Universal Studios in California.
Is "I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles" on the soundtrack?
I saw the Creature Trilogy as part of a local drive-in dusk to dawn holiday weekend bill. That was 1960 and as a 9 year old, I thought the first one was great and the other two, enh, not so much. Fast forward to the last decade and newly remastered versions of the trio and I came to appreciate and understand the subtexts of the sequels considerably more. They became major favourite creature features and I loved Guillermo del Toro's take on the Gill Man mythos... I didn't know about William Alland's Citizen Kane connection until I watched this although I knew about Milient Patrick's work on the original "CRBL" and you're right Bud Westmore was a dick, taking credit for something he didn't create. Glad she's getting the recognition she deserved.
I love those publicity photos of Bud holding a sculpting tool (or paint brush), pretending he's working. 😁
Drive-Ins are the perfect venues for these kind of movies.
What a total bastard he was.
I've only seen the original Creature from the Black Lagoon, courtesy of the DVD version of the Universal Monster set you have. Always liked it since first seeing it, being very impressed with the underwater scenes. I do love del Toro's Shape of Water which is heavily influenced by the Creature and uses it well as a starting point for the story.
The Shape of Water is a beautiful, lyrical movie. I love it.
Sort ofJohn Campbell's editorial challenge: right me an alien that thinks as well as a man but thinks differently."
"Write"
Yep. The Gill Man is definitely an alien intelligence.
A great horror movie. My only gripe is the over use of the creature's music in the film score. Otherwise a great movie. Thank you Terry! I hope you have a great weekend!
You too, @Barot8 The weather here is cold and rainy but I have a lot of good films to watch.
Not unusual for fish to have lungs; two species of lungfish (the name is on the tin), mudskippers, etc. Many fish can gulp air to facilitate life in low-oxygen water.
Many reptiles hat live in the ocean (sea turtles, sea snakes, not sure about Salties) can absorb oxygen from water through their intestines to supplement held breath)
Salties live in estuaries. I know because I once swam in a tank with an 800 kilo saltie called Denzel.
I was thinking it's not a bad part for Clint Eastwood because it works well with his natural shyness-one of the reasons he developed such a monosyllabic speaking style and tightly-wound look was because it took him YEARS to get over looking like the guy who would just as soon stand at the back of the class photo. You see that part of him creep through as late the "Man With No Name Trilogy" sometimes....
Yeah but the gig is to project a persona and a character. That's the whole job.
Odd that the leading ladies from Anthony Mann's Bend of the River were the leading ladies of the first two Creature films: Julia Adams & Lori Nelson. Further, Orson Wells was probably already looking for ideas from Latin America for It's All True, a documentary.
That documentary also meant that the studio could do a ruinous edit on The Magnificent Ambersons while Welles was in South America.
@@terrytalksmovies Aside from all of the lost movies, probably the biggest tragedy in the history of movies! 😮💨
@@terrytalksmovies my dad complained about this for 30 years, he thought that movie had great potential if Welles cut it.
Throw the Creature set into a lagoon. Seen some of Figueroa's work, he shot many of Luis Bunuel's films. One of my favorite music stings. The first film is a classic in my book. I like Clint for what he can do, a laconic tough guy. Grew up with and love the Dollars trilogy and the Dirty Harry films (even if they are kind of fascist). Play Misty for Me and The Beguiled had him in different roles where he's rakish. Guess they saved money on the third film with less underwater shooting. Haven't seen the sequels in a long time but I recall thinking they were diminishing returns.
The sequels aren't entirely bad but they do suffer compared to the OG version.
Great trio of movies Terry. I've not seen the 3rd film. You are not wrong about Clint Eastwood he was a bit one note as an actor. However a world without his Dirty Harry, particularly the first movie would be a sadder place. This video made my day 👌
Dirty Harry is a fascist movie. I dislike it. But we can agree to disagree. 😀
@@terrytalksmoviesI totally get where you are coming from and of course you are right. Like 95 % of my classic movie choices nostalgia looms large. So while i don't disagree with you in principle. I view this film as a modern day Western and in no way a reflection of how i view the world. In closing your love of Movies has inspired me to start a UA-cam channel. Purely as a retirement hobby. I totally get why you do this and more power to you mate👍
Anaconda was a fair redo of the creature from the black lagoon
The humanoid lustiness of the Gill Man makes it a very different experience. 😀
SONOFABITCH I've got the Legacy Collection DVDs for every Universal Monster series and never realized they're in TV aspect ratio. Or is it just the Creature films that are?
Anyway, the Gill Man was my favorite when I was a little kid. The first movie scared the hell out of me, but I also found it riveting and could never look away.
You might want to check them out Randall. I was quite disappointed.
@@terrytalksmovies I will... I've watched them all a dozen times over and never even noticed.
Universal hasn't done the best job with some of their properties.
I think we can all agree that Jack Arnold was no Orson Welles as a director.
Nope but he was a good journeyman director.
Great and informative review as ever. Actually - I can understand why that Gill man feels attracted to young women. Being from the Amazon, he's Brazilian and obviously full of that famous latin machismo. Plus ... Amazon aquatic does have a reputation for that sort of thing. Local legend about those famous pink Amazon river dolphins (botos) is that they transform on moonlit evenings into snappily dressed charming men who promptly go around seducing the young ladies. Then, some months later when said young lady is unexpectedly pregnant, their explanation is that the dolphin did it. Poor Gill man was clearly under the dolphins' influence but just hadn't sorted out his technique. ;-)
So why didn't he just schtup river dolphins? Less hassle.
If I had a penny for every director of a Creature from the Black Lagoon film who shared a surname with an area of Nottinghamshire I'd have two pence, which isn't much, but odd when you think about it.
LOL!
The movie is a sad mismatched love story that would never work out.
Love or lust?
I've actually always felt that The Creature Walks Among Us is the better film, compared to Revenge of the Creature. Neither, of course, match the original. But in Revenge, the Gill Man seems to be less of a character than he was in the original, and to me it had the feeling of a rushed rehash. The third film, though, has stronger actors than Revenge, and the Gill Man returns to being an actual character. I always got a real sense of his suffering in that film. His righteous anger at the end was intense and terrifying, and you understood *why* he was so enraged, because you'd been brought to the point of feeling along with him in his plight.
Of course it never made much sense why the creature had suddenly gotten beefier when he lost his scales and gills. Maybe he was swollen with inflammation and that's what made him more irritable. lol.
Also... gotta love Jeff Morrow. He played crazy well.
I reckon the mad scientist roided the Gill Man up when he was treating him for the burns.
@@terrytalksmovies LOL.
Like you say, the films are sort of diminish in quality as they go along, the first of course being the best on all levels.
Always thought the third one had a great premiss with the sympathetic treatment of the monster - was he the monster or his captors - but just bogged down with the romance element
The third one also needed to be slightly longer to bed down the subplots.
What did you call thrift stores? In the UK, we call them charity shops as they are usually run by registered charities here.
Op Shops. Opportunity shops.
@@terrytalksmovies Thanks
How do you organise your movies? Do you have a database? Store them in alphabetical order? Enquiring minds need to know!
'CLZ Movies' app on the phone. You scan the bar code and it adds them to my DB. I pay $AU20 a year and it also gives me a cloud backup for the data. Totally worth it.