White Man Fears The Unknown
- Dan
- Oct 31, 2019
- 7 min read
Updated: Nov 1, 2019
Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954), dir. Jack Arnold
So obviously to start this blog we must review the film that we robbed our name from: Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954), the classic horror story that everyone loves. This film truly is a treat for the viewers who enjoy the dramatic flair of the golden years of Hollywood and the huge boom of sci-fi horror films of the 50’s. I can say this era of B-movie sci-fi is my personal favourite. The titular character brought the genre an iconic new figure that lined up with the then already overused characters of Dracula, Frankenstein and others. This was a new kind of horrifying monster that preyed on unsuspecting victims. The film was directed by Jack Arnold who also directed other classics such as It Came from Outer Space (1953) and The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957).
The film opens with a sequence aching to mix the biblical creation of humans and evolution theory; take a big explosion for the sake of drama and you get the origin story of the Gill-Man (as he, the creature, is called). It is slightly odd that the film starts with the words of Genesis 1:1 (“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth”) but then it continues to tell how we evolved from the water, and it's assumed that the viewer makes the connection that this monster never crawled out of the sea. The creature is a hybrid between a human and a fish, he is fully amphibious. The whole opening sequence is accompanied with blaring horns that invade the mind - the composer clearly did not want to leave us guessing what kind of film will emerge, the horror is loud and clear.
The movie starts establishing a group of scientists exploring a spot in the Amazon where they have found a hand fossil, which, however, clearly isn't of human origin as it is webbed completely. This, of course, piques the interest of the scientists and they embark on an expedition down the Amazon river. Our main characters are Julia Adams as Kay Lawrence, a female scientist, Richard Carlson as David Reed, her fiancé, Richard Denning as Mark Williams, his boss, and Antonio Moreno as Dr. Carl Maia, the expedition leader.
It really is a wonder how there is a modern woman, a scientist, depicted in this film, and yet she just happens to seemingly know nothing about “how to science”, colloquially said. There are about ten men on this expedition along with her and for some reason they all have to protect her from the lagoon and it's creature - got to love the sexism. Still, the film tried, as it is one of the few films of its time to show us a mostly independent and well educated woman. She is offered help but she does not need it and can hold herself against men. Sadly, this whole premise for the modern woman is wiped away with the fact that Kay’s whole position in the picture is to scream at any moment she can. But on a more positive note: if you wish to see women in skimpy clothes or half naked, this is the wrong flick to pick. Instead, we are graced with the almost naked bodies of Mark and David throughout the film (which are way too hairy to be enjoyed but one might disagree on matters of taste).
Well, back to what is happening: so far they have only shown us the creature’s hand on a few occasions but not the “fishy” man himself. He has also murdered a couple of the locals already who were supposed to help our group of merry men and the scream-queen in distress. Every time we see the creature’s hand the Gill-Man Theme starts to play, and they just really went overboard with the horns, but hey DRAMA, amirite?! I am listening to this exchange between good guy David and Kay about how men cannot ever understand women because they are a different species and I am just thinking that, maybe, if they stopped trying to decipher women and concentrated more on trying to understand this particular type of merman, they would more likely stay alive….or better yet, leave nature alone and go home. Like the “species” of men apparently would, this particular creature also goes absolutely buck-wild when he sees the female form taking a swim in the lagoon waters but he daren’t touch the lady yet. Filmmaker Jack Arnold has confirmed later that this scene is supposed to be viewed as sexual intercourse. To me, as a viewer, this makes little sense regarding the fact that Kay has not once been a willing participant in dealing with the creature (are we dealing with a rape here?). The Production Code really saved us on this one...
At this point we have gone about half an hour without getting any action sequences until the creature breaks the boat with his superhuman strength thus offering us a good bridge from suspense to action. The two brave men David and Mark embark on their hunt into the murky lagoon to find the Gill-Man. At this point the Danger Theme is really doing a number on my ears, but maybe it is my own fault for watching this film with headphones. What is amusing to me is that humans act as humans do, the expedition group in their failed attempts to catch the creature have decide to be rampant and poison the whole lagoon in the hopes of catching the creature the radical way. The captain of the ship says that he sometimes uses this technique to catch fish, I would advise him to learn how to fish properly so he doesn’t have to pick poisoned catch out of water.
This film is clearly about the fear of the unknown, it mainly can be viewed as racism or xenophobia. The dangerous Other must be hunted down or even killed. His outsider position is not enough, the human-but-not-human monster not only murders the good guys but it prays on “helpless” women, too. I would also like to think that the Gill-Man is some kind of allegory about sexual dangers - because if we go to psychoanalysis, I would be inclined to see the primitive as some repressed passion that is not supposed to be sought after and only a creature that is not civilized would show openly. To be honest, the 40’s and 50’ films were laced with the repressed (destructive) sexuality (see film noir) and (not so) hidden racism. During this time horror films were often preoccupied with a fear of a primitive world erupting into ordered social space as film professor Nick Browne[1] says. In short words, the white Americans were scared that the “darker races” would come and take over their world and bring their primitive ways with them.
Nearing the end of the film, the creature has killed many of the crew, Mark included, and has kidnaped Kay to an underwater grotto where the men follow to save Kay from the clutches of the monster. The others want to kill it, but good guy David tries to prevent them from doing so. It is suggested that the Gill-Man dies, BUT THERE IS TWO MORE OF THESE FILMS SO I GUESS NOT. The remaining men of the crew get Kay and leave the lagoon.
I know it is an old film and has a lot of flaws but one thing I must applaud the makers for are the amazing underwater scenes. The Gill-Man was brought to life by two actors: Ricou Browning for underwater scenes and Ben Chapman for the remaining appearances. Browning would sometimes hold his breath for as long as 4 minutes while diving in costume. The long shots of Mark and David in their swimming gear searching for the Gill-Man are superb. To me, the best underwater scene is when the creature is swimming under our leading lady, though. It is shot beautifully (even though we are essentially witnessing a woman being harrassed).
Another thing I have to say that the costume looks way better underwater than it does on land. That creature is UGLY! Kudos here to Guillermo del Toro for making his interpretation of the Gill-Man look way more fuckable in The Shape of Water (2017). But who knows what look we would have gotten if it weren't for the many restrictions this production had to face. Maybe they would have dared to make the creature more appealing and maybe the implied romance between the leading lady and the monster would have been clearer - just like they did in pre-Code King Kong (1933).
As mentioned before, the 2017 film The Shape of Water was inspired by the Creature from the Black Lagoon. Writer, producer and director Guillermo del Toro said to LA Times[2] that he had wished to see the Gill-Man and the film's co-star Julie Adams succeed in their “romance”. It is not wise for me to disregard the allegories in either of these films but sometimes seeing a romance between a fishman and a woman is a bit much, even though I am a renowned monster lover and I can perfectly understand Guillermo’s words on how the reason he is alive and articulate and semi-sane today is monsters. The film inspired many others, too. Abe Sabien from the Hellboy comics, for example, is based on the creature. The comicsʼ first two screen adaptations were also the work of Guillermo himself (man really loves the creature doesn’t he).
Honestly, I have to say taking apart old films is always a journey to disappointment. It is a great B-movie from the 50’s but breaking it down brings up a lot of flaws and not all of those flaws can be pinned down to its time period. Still, I cannot lie, I quite enjoyed my time watching the film!
[1] Browne, N. (1998) Refiguring American film genres: theory and history. Berkeley, University of California Press, p. 284
[2] Rottenberg, J. (2019). Q&A: Guillermo del Toro’s highly personal monster film ‘The Shape of Water’ speaks to ‘what I feel as an immigrant’. Los Angeles Times. [online] Available at: https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-mn-guillermo-del-toro-telluride-20170905-htmlstory.html
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