Universal-International released Creature From the Black Lagoon regionally on 5 March 1954.
When I was a little boy in the late 1960s and early 1970s, local TV stations played this film all the time! I didn’t understand this. I didn’t hate it. But I also wasn’t especially fond of it. Then I watched it as an adult and it blew me away!
Black Lagoon seems like a low-budget film. But it isn’t. For example, the Gill-Man suit was not cheap! Milicent Patrick, Bud Westmore, Jack Kevan, and Chris Mueller Jr designed and built it for $15,000, according to Jeff Rouin in The Fabulous Fantasy Films. Overall, the film cost somewhat more than half a million dollars. That’s about $6 million today.
This doesn’t mean they are swimming in cash. It just means this was a professional production. All the principal actors had notable careers outside this film. That’s even more true of the people working behind the camera.
Creature From the Black Lagoon tells a pretty standard psychotronic story. An ancient creature thought extinct is actually alive. And it wants our women!
Universal-International next produced the weak follow-up, Revenge of the Creature. It’s pretty much the same film. Then came the arguably best film of the set, The Creature Walks Among Us. The first two films were shot in 3D. Revenge became the first 3D film broadcast on TV.
Films like this make me despair for film viewers. If people just sat down and watched Black Lagoon, they would enjoy it. But in this modern world, people seem only willing to watch films that have been sold to them. The selling seems to be more important than the writing, acting, and filming.
But Creature From the Black Lagoon is a classic for a reason. And all psychotronic fans should see it!
Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954) poster via Wikimedia. It is in the public domain.
