From The Archives: Revenge of the Creature: A Review and Overview of One Very Fishy Sequel

The Gill-Man returns for his second film outing and lucky for us so do William Alland and Jack Arnold! Alland wrote the story and hired veteran screenwriter Martin Berkeley to script it out.

Berkeley had written and would continue to write a number of screenplays for both film and television, but his real lasting fame (and mark of infamy) would be his reputation as the witness to name (and thus blackball) more Hollywood personalities than anyone else called before the House Un-American Activities Committee.

Actor Ben Chapman In His Later Years

Ricou Browning came back to play the Gill-Man’s swimming scenes, but Ben Chapman who had played the creature on land in the first film was no longer under contract to Universal when the sequel was put into production, so he was replaced by Tom Hennesey, a Hollywood stuntman turned actor.

                                                                          Ben Chapman in the Gill-Man Costume

Revenge of the Creature is not as good as the original, but it’s not bad as sequels go. Like any good sequel, it takes the elements worked for it previously and tries to find new things to do with them.
The story opens with Captain Lucas, (the Captain of the ship the Gill-Man attacked in the first movie whom I’ve foolishly forgotten to mention thus far) once again played by Nestor Paiva, taking a representative of the Ocean Harbor Aquarium and a professional game hunter into the Amazon to look for the Gill-Man.

They find him soon enough which is good and bad in certain respects. On one hand it’s foolish to hold off showing the creature. Everyone already knows what the Gil-Man looks like so there’s not much point in making them wait half the movie to see him again, but it’s also bad for the fact that his sudden appearance in the movie distills any kind of dread the audience might have felt while waiting for his big reveal.

Captain Lucas only has a small role at the beginning but his experience with the creature helps to bridge this film with the last.

The rest of the plot is more or less predictable. The Gill-Man is captured, taken to civilization where he’s made the object of scientific studies and an exhibit at Ocean Harbor. The story retreads even more familiar waters when the Gill-Man escapes and goes on a hunt for the lovely ichthyology student who had been observing him in his tank; Helen Dobson played by Lori Nelson.

 Lori Nelson alongside her 'Revenge' co-start John Agar

This plot is as old as the modern monster movie itself, and by that I mean as old as King Kong. In faThis plot is as old as the modern monster movie itself, and by that I mean as old as King Kong. In fact, it’s interesting how much the Gill-Man ends up echoing Kong in this second feature. Both were savage beasts that displayed the all too human emotions of love and sympathy and both of these creatures have managed to stir those same feelings in movie goers down through the years.ct, it’s interesting how much the Gill-Man ends up echoing Kong in this second feature. Both were savage beasts that displayed the all too human emotions of love and sympathy and both of these creatures have managed to stir those same feelings in movie goers down through the years.  Both monsters are captured by humans and put on display, both monsters escape and would probably stand a chance of getting away all together if not for their attraction to a beautiful young woman.

                                                                     

I’m not accusing the Gill-Man of ripping Kong off anymore than I would accuse Captain Marvel of ripping off Superman (though did you know there was a law suit in the 1940s wherein the owners of Superman sued the creators of Captain Marvel for copyright infringement). What I am pointing out is a very different take on an already established story that manages to do new things and go new places by shifting the setting a bit.

As for the climax of this delightful picture? Sorry, I’m not telling. You’ll have to watch it for yourself to see how Lori Nelson gets out of this scrape and if the Gil-Man ever decides to climb the Empire State Building.
There are a few fun facts to mention though. For instance, both The Creature From The Black Lagoon and Revenge Of The Creature were originally shot in 3-D. At the time this film was made and (so far as I know) to this day, it remains the only sequel to a 3-D movie that was also shot in 3-D.

Clint Eastwood on Set      

And there’s more! This film also boasts the very first on screen appearance of a talented young actor who would rise to become one of the most famous action stars and film directors of all time: Mr. Clint Eastwood! He has a minor uncredited role as an assistant in a science lab, but still. It's Clint freakin' Eastwood! The first movie introduced the creator of Flipper to film and the second installment gives us a nerdy version of Dirty Harry! How cool is that!

This movie is definitely worth a watch. It’s only been released to dvd as part of Universal Studios Legacy collection. The movie comes packaged with the original Creature From The Black Lagoon as well as it’s second sequel (the follow up to Revenge) The Creature Walks Among us, which we’ll talk more about in the coming days.

If you’re interesting in buying the dvd, it can be had at amazon.com for a very reasonable price.
Creature Week continues tomorrow, so stay tuned!

From The Archives: Getting To Know The Creature From The Black Lagoon

(originally published on September 20, 2010)

Unquestionably one of the best science fiction films of all time and the introduction of one of the most memorable movie monsters to boot. The Gill-Man (the Creature’s actual name) came into this world in a rather bizarre fashion.

While attending a dinner at Orson Welles’ Hollywood home in the early 1940’s, William Alland had a conversation with a Mexican cinematographer named Gabriel Figueroa. Gabriel recounted a tale that he swore was true, of a village along the Amazon river that offered virgin maidens to a half-fish/ half-man that rose from the river once a year. The story stuck with Alland, who decided to build a feature around it. He eventually developed a script called The Sea Monster which would lay dormant for nearly a decade.

Time passed and Alland (then a producer for Universal Pictures) became paired with director Jack Arnold who was having a good deal of success with movies like It Came From Outer Space.

The two decided to tackle The Sea Monster and what came out of the collaboration was one of the best movies of its kind, and the start of a whole genre of fish-man films.

Jack Arnold In His Later Years

One of the most memorable marks the movie left behind wasn’t just the Gill-Man, but the man inside the Gill-Man suit. Ricou Browning was a college student living in Florida. A friend of his managed a wetland area known as Wakulla Springs. As a favor, Ricou agreed to show a group of Hollywood scouts around the springs while they searched out locations for a movie. One of them asked Ricou if he would swim in the spring to give them an idea of how the plant and animal life looked in comparison to a human body. Ricou was happy to do it. He continued to show them around after than and bid them farewell soon after.

A few weeks later, he received a call from Jack Arnold. They were looking for a local diver to wear the Gill-Man suit for the swimming scenes they intended to shoot at Wakulla Springs and he wanted to know if Ricou would like the job. Ricou accepted and the rest is history. He became interested in film, and began working behind the lens, specializing in shooting and later directing under water sequences.
He was involved in films and numerous television shows, and he even created Flipper!

That’s right, they call him Flipper but they’d probably be more accurate in calling him Son of the Creature because without the Gill-Man, it’s unlikely that he would ever have been born.

(I think I should note) that Ricou wasn't the only actor to play the creature. He preformed the swimming scene out in Florida while a second actor played the Gill-Man's land scene in Los Angeles. (But who is this other creature actor? We'll get into that as time goes on.)

The plot of the film is as follows, a group of scientists traveling the Amazon river in a search for fossils come across the Gill-Man, an evolutionary missing link between land mammals and marine life. They attempt to capture the creature, but the Gill-Man has other things on his mind, namely Kay Lawrence played by the lovely Ms. Julie Addams (more on her in the coming days).

 

The Creature attempts to abduct her, but when she is taken beyond his reach aboard the scientists boat, the Gill-Man blocks the only waterway leading in or out of the lagoon, trapping the researchers in his home waters. The movie is tightly written, tense to a fault, and well acted. The human characters do border a hair bit on the cliché, but that’s not entirely out of the ordinary for the time it was made and everything else works so well you’d barely notice, if at all.

In fact, the scenario of the movie itself seems to recall elements of Howard Hawk’s science fiction masterpiece The Thing From Another World.

Both films depict small groups of people with conflicting motives forced to rely on each other while trapped in an isolated area by a monster. The primary difference between the The Thing and The Creature is that Howard Hawk’s alien really is a vicious killer while the Gill-Man is a misunderstood beast with no true malice. He’s acting on his natural impulses and survival instincts. There’s a certain human quality to him that makes him an object of pity rather than fear … though honestly he is good at instilling it when he wants to.
The film would be followed by two direct sequels that we’ll talk more about in the coming days.