The Creature from the Black Lagoon

As movie fans everywhere consider their Oscar betting pools, a lot of people are counting on Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water (2017, Fox Searchlight), one of my favorite movies of last year. But this post isn’t about that worthy film; it’s about the other worthy movie where a humanoid sea monster falls in love with a beautiful woman: The Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954, Universal).

Del Toro has been open about Black Lagoon inspiring in part his own movie, and told The Hollywood Reporter that he’s been imagining certain scenes since he was 7-years-old and first saw the horror classic. When the Belcourt Theatre – Nashville’s independent movie house – announced a showing of Black Lagoon, and in old-school 3D no less, I jumped at the chance to see it. 

Even with registration issues affecting the clarity of certain scenes, the movie is beautiful. The undersea moments are especially stunning and can compete with any underwater scenes (notoriously hard to film) I’ve seen today. I agree with del Toro that the sequence where the creature first sees his love interest, played by Julie Adams, and swims under her are some of the best in the film. You can feel his yearning for her while also holding your breath for her safety. 

There are many and obvious differences between the two films, but the tension between scientists wanting to study a new discovery and brute leadership wanting to destroy that discovery is a common thread. However I was more interested in the contrast of how the lead women in both movies are portrayed. While Black Lagoon’s lead (and only) female character was likely considered a strong role for an actress of that era – she’s some sort of a scientist after all – the character herself is really only a plot vehicle for the males around her, including the creature. We never see her interior life. The Shape of Water’s Elisa (played by a mesmerizing Sally Hawkins), on the other hand, may be deemed inconsequential by many of the other characters at her work, but the movie shows her full life as a strong person of decisive action and autonomy. That she doesn’t have a literal voice doesn’t matter. 

See The Shape of Water first, but The Creature from the Black Lagoon is well worth a viewing, even if you’re not a horror fan. If you’re not lucky enough to have a theater in your area playing this classic, you can stream Black Lagoon on Amazon, and it’s also available on demand through Starz. 

p.s. If you don’t have time for the entire movie, at least watch the original trailer for The Creature from the Black Lagoon, which includes the iconic scene of the monster swimming beneath his unrequited love.

There may or may not be a sea monster lurking in Nashville.

(Toy images from Poe Ghostal's Points of Articulation)