That’s right. Somehow, I’ve managed to spend more than 70 years on this planet, and I’ve never seen CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON—until now.
This is another movie where there’s no need at all for me to talk about the
plot. You’ve all seen it. So here are some things that struck me about this
one.
This is a really well-made movie. The photography, the music, the Gillman suit,
even the acting (which is sometimes not stellar in movies like this) are all
top-notch. Those underwater scenes with Ricou Browning as the Gillman are just
beautiful.
Speaking of beautiful, Julie Adams in a seemingly endless assortment of skimpy
outfits, including that iconic white one-piece swimsuit, is just breathtaking.
What a lovely woman. And she turns in a decent performance, too.
Richard Denning is a good villain, although he’s not terribly villainous, just
opposed to the other characters’ ideas. I like Denning. He played Mike Shayne
in a one-season TV show based on Davis Dresser’s novels, and from what little I’ve
seen of it, he was pretty good in the role.
One of the natives who’s killed early on by the Creature is played by Perry
Lopez, who, many years later, was one of the two cops who harassed Jack
Nicholson’s character in CHINATOWN. He was the less sympathetic of those two,
not the one who says, “Forget it, Jake, it’s . . . Chinatown.”
Is this considered a horror movie? I always thought it was, but to me it seems
to have more in common with Fifties science fiction movies like THEM! and
TARANTULA.
Those are some of the things that occurred to me while I was watching this one.
Mostly, though, I just enjoyed the heck out of it and wondered how in the world
I managed not to see it all these years. I’m glad I finally did, because
CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON is just a terrific movie.
5 comments:
The 2 sequels are enjoyable also.
Top notch photography such as when the creature swims in tandem with Julie Adams. Denning was always solid, he was in quite a few 50s SF movies but usually as the hero.
Jack Arnold, the director, made quite a few good SF movies. Tarantula, It Came from Outer Space, Incredible Shrinking Man and Space Children included.
Incredible that you'd never seen this till now. Mind you I think I've only ever seen it once or twice on TV back in the day
Perry Lopez trivia, he was also the son of Yul Brynner and the brother of Tony Curtis in TARAS BULBA.
Denning did a nice job as Mike Shayne. Of course, the TV series is softer than the novels, where Shayne gets shot, beaten up, and concussed so often that I never understood how he survived from book to book (or even chapter to chapter).
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