Creature from the Black Lagoon

   (Spoilers)

When I sat down to watch this movie, I was expecting the most ridiculous, stupid and shlock-y movie I had ever seen. My expectation was coloured by the way classic sci-fi is remembered by satirists and film-nerds today. Big rubber suits, anti-scientific rhetoric and the one dashingly handsome scientist who saw it all coming but wasn't listened to. But when it ended and the credits faded into view I was left pleasantly surprised. It was by no means a piece of high-art, but was it also wasn't low-art. The suit was big and rubber to be sure, but there was a great deal more to it than just that.

Creature from the Black Lagoon was released in 1954 by Universal International and directed by one of the masters of classic sci-fi Jack Arnold (a year after It came from outer space and a year before Tarantula. Jack was a busy man). The film starts with an oddly grandiose display of Douglas Trumbull-esqe effects as the planet earth is formed, whilst a suitably noble sounding man quotes the book of Genesis and gives a quite detailed account of evolution in the same speech. And that sets the tone for the movie almost immediately. This movie, unsurprisingly, loves science. It loves science more than even the most dedicated of science teachers and it loves firing out facts whenever it gets a chance. Want to the name of the process by which geologist use to date rocks? Well it tells you. You know what a Lungfish is? Well you're told within the first 15 minutes.

After the witnessing the birth of humanity, we come to scene of an archeological dig along the banks of the Amazon river, where the digging team suddenly come across a big hand sticking out of a rock. Whilst they ponder over why there is a giant webbed hand sticking out of a rock, a giant webbed hand appears out of the river behind them whilst they aren't looking. The film wastes no time in giving a glance of the creature and I love it for that. After that necessary introduction to giant hands, we get our first glimpse of the films other unique selling point of underwater photography. While not a completely new field at the time, it was still difficult. And it plays such an important role in the film that the main character first scene starts with him underwater.

At this point, we are introduced to our principal cast. In an interesting change for most films of its ilk, where it's always one scientist in a group of borderline Luddites who treat science like superstitious ramblings, the group are all scientists. They go back to where the arm was found in the hopes of finding the rest of it for both the advancement of science and funding for their institute. A noble enough endeavour. It's just a shame that when they get back to the dig site, the arm that is attached to a monster has killed the rest of the dig team left at the site. Whoops. So they keep digging, seemingly ignoring the two men who died under what could only be called “Incredibly suspicious circumstances”. Eventually, they decide to go down the river to the “Black Lagoon”. And then, we get our first full body shot of the creature.

“Gil-man” as he refereed to in production notes, is a great monster for this movie. He is not a true aggressor in story, he is more of an animal whose territory is being invaded. He does, however, develop a fixation on Kay Lawrence, the only woman in the movie, and spends the final 30-40 minutes of the film trying to kidnap her and take her back to his grotto. This brings him into conflict with the scientists, including Mark (who desperately wants to harpoon the creature and parade the corpse around, for science). The way he moves, both on land and underwater, is unnerving. And when his gills rise and fall on land is brilliantly creepy. The fact he can only stare unblinkingly only adds to his image. Though I must be honest, the fact that he feels compelled to to kidnap a woman who isn't even the same species as him is just plain weird. But the film isn't a sci-fi disaster film like Tarantula or The Monolith Monsters. It's a small story with an antagonist who isn't much more than an animal. Gil-man attacking Kay is necessary to make the audience want to see the protagonists hunt him down.

And thats what makes it so compelling, and what makes it more than “man in suit menacingly walks at the camera”. The scientists aren't all infallible, Gil-man is an animal who is trying to live and defend his territory. If he wasn't trying to kidnap a woman, the scientists would come across as cold-blooded villains who either want to capture him or kill him. And, when he is finally shot “dead” and sinks into the water, there is no great sense of victory. Nor loss. It just ends, in an oddly poignant way. And you're left with the thought “What if they left him alone? Is he the last of his kind?” And then you find out that Gil-man appeared in two sequels and it's all a little bit ruined. But, as it stands, Creature from the Black Lagoon is an excellent piece of classic sci-fi from one of the original greats of the genre.