"Creature From the Black Lagoon" Review

 

by Daniel White

I have a shameful confession to make: I have never seen Creature From The Black Lagoon. I don't know how I missed this1954 sci fi/horror classic when I was a young boy. I managed to catch all the others from that era: Them!, Tarantula, The Incredible Shrinking Man, Invasion Of The Body Snatchers. But somehow this Jack Arnold epic, beloved by so many, slipped through my fingers.

So the question I pose is: as an adult can I harbor the same affection for this movie that I do for all the other fright films that I cherished as a child? Sadly, no. Childhood memories are so precious, so special that they cannot be replicated when one is grown. If I encountered The Wizard of Oz today, I'm sure I'd appreciate it but it wouldn't hold the same magic that it generated for me as a youngster. To quote Thomas Wolfe, when it comes to adolescence, "You can't go home again."

That being said, I have to admit this movie has its own goofy charms, and an endearing quality that cannot be denied. There's one scene where our part time amphibious friend has been captured and is aboard the river boat waiting his fate. With his little fake head peering out from his watery cage, I actually felt a pang of pity for the poor guy! Never mind that he's pathetically cheesy and unreal with no reproductive organs and no butt hole to poop out of. Not since King Kong pined for Fay Wray has a movie monster been so enamored of a flesh and blood female. It's a shame he couldn't have worked something out with our leading lady, Miss Julia Adams. But then, the path of true love is never easy.

The movie opens with Dr. Carl Maia (actor Antonio Moreno, Clara Bow's love interest from the 1927 silent film, It!), discovering an unusual fossil embedded in rock, deep in the Amazon. Enlisting the help of fellow scientists, Adams, Richard Carlson, and pipe smoking Whit Bissell, they chug-a-lug down the South American river in search of answers.

Along for the ride is the movie's chief villain, money bags Richard Denning, and our boat's captain, the cheerful Nestor Paiva. There are also a handful of native men who help out the team but since they are quickly disposed of by the creature, they don't really count.

I could easily see how this film would appeal to adolescent boys, who would relate to the love sick monster and root for him, in his pursuit of the pretty, spunky, girl next door, Adams (she's the prototype of Dawn Wells' Mary Ann from Gilligan's Island). What I kept thinking: Where did she get all the fashionable beach wear? Swimsuit with matching robe, halter tops, chic khaki shorts? She looks like a debutante summering in the Hamptons, not a dedicated scientist hard at work on a filthy barge in the Amazon. There's one scene where Miss Adams goes swimming in the water, while our smitten fresh water fiend looks on longingly. Reaching out to to touch her well turned ankle, it's a bitter sweet moment. Talk about the love that dare not speak it's name!

Maybe if I had caught this movie as a lad, I would be more reverent, but I watched it for the first time as a cranky old man and whatever appeal it had is lost on me. But I understand those boys (and girls) who first met our slimy pal when they were at an impressionable age. Not only do I understand them but I applaud and encourage them to hold tight to that magical time in our lives when movie monsters had the power to move us.

Creature From The Black Lagoon is available on Peacock, along with several other Universal horror films from the Golden Age of Hollywood. Happy Halloween !