Creature from the Black Lagoon 1954
I had never seen this movie and it was not included in my Universal monsters set of six movies, so I borrowed it with a Screen Pass. Made in 1954, it came much later than Universal’s early monster classics, but has some interesting stories about its production. Certainly the creature is one of the all-time great movie monsters. The movie itself feels a lot more like a 1950’s sci-fi movie than a true monster movie. There is a lot of fake science blabber and some philosophical arguments about whether the creature should be kept alive or killed as proof of discovery. There are a lot of underwater scenes which couldn’t have been easy to film, so production values are generally pretty decent. Despite that, the plot and writing aren’t great and I was disappointed the movie was black and white (originally filmed in 3D). The movie is only 90 minutes long, so it doesn’t drag too much, but the ending seems kind of perfunctory, despite some underwater chases and fights towards the end. There is never any real understanding of the creature, though he does seem to like the girl. So I can’t give it a great score, but it was still enjoyable, and not at all bad, therefore it gets a B.
Written: 09 Dec 2021