Wonkette Movie Night: Creature From The Black Lagoon

'The boys around here call it The Black Lagoon - a paradise. Only they say nobody has ever come back to prove it.'

John Landis, John Carpenter, Peter Jackson, Ivan Reitman, Guillermo del Toro, Breck Eisner, David Kajganich, Alex Kurtzman, and James Wan. What do all these filmmakers have in common besides being dudes? They all wanted to do a remake of Creature From The Black Lagoon. None of those movies ever materialized, with the last attempt reported as being “in development” back in August 2024.

The story of the Gill-man rising from dark waters to follow a woman is a variation on the tale of Beauty and the Beast. It also touches on the destructiveness of humans in the quest for discovery and the desire for knowledge that destroys what they seek to understand. It is not surprising that so many would hope to put their own stamp on this classic film.

Guillermo del Toro was fascinated with the story and wanted to deepen the love angle between the creature and the character originated by Julie Adams, but Universal wouldn’t go for it. Instead del Toro made The Shape Of Water.

Much of the work in making this film was in designing and filming the creature. If done poorly you would have a cheesy B-movie and a goofy monster. Considering the film was made in 1954 special effects were limited. The creature needed to be designed to function underwater and seem threatening. To do that Disney animator Milicent Patrick was brought in to give the creature life.

Milicent Patrick and a good friend.

The talented artist had worked on Disney’s Fantasia and Universal wanted to use her to help promote Creature From The Black Lagoon, to be billed as “The Beauty Who Created the Beast.” But there was a man who claimed the credit due to Milicent for 50 years, make-up artist Bud Westmore, who stated at the time:

“No, I don’t want it to be The Beauty Who [Created] the Beast — we’re going to rebrand it, and it’ll be the beauty who lives with the beast… OK, we’ll do this tour, we’ll send you all around the country, but you have to tell people I designed it. You cannot take credit for it.”

It took a long time but being the first female designer of a Universal movie monster is now attributed to Milicent Patrick. Which is important as many women artists that followed in her footsteps (or webbed claw marks) were inspired by her talent and success at a time when men dominated the profession.

Creature From The Black Lagoon is available for free on the Internet Archive. Free on Prime with subscription. $3.99 in the usual places.

Creature From The Black Lagoon stars Julie Adams, Richard Carlson, Richard Denning, Antonio Moreno, Nestor Paiva, Ricou Browning, Ben Chapman, and Ginger Stanley. Directed by Jack Arnold.

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The animated short is Au Rythme De L’eau (The Rhythm of Water) by ESMA - Ecole Supérieure des Métiers Artistiques.

Next week we are watching the 1978 version of Invasion Of The Body Snatchers. It is available for free on the Internet Archive. Available with subscription on HBO Max.