Ok, it's not "Citizen Kane" but it is
iconic with a pedigree going back to "Beauty and the Beast". "King Kong"
told the same story but with a bigger creature and recently "The Shape
of Water" paid it sufficient homage to pick up the Best Picture Oscar.
We're talking about "Creature from the Black Lagoon" of course, just one
of a handful of 'creature features' that Jack Arnold made in the
fifties and which became classics of their kind.
This is the one
in which a man in a scaly wet-suit defends his little corner of the
Amazon from marauding scientists before falling head over heels for the
most glamorous one, (Julie Adams, cast as someone with a brain). The problem is the Creature wants her brain and every other inch of her too, not to chew up but to make Mrs Creature.
The film was a huge success, particularly at drive-ins, and spawned two sequels, neither of which are remembered today. This is the genuine article with superb underwater photography and one of the most sympathetic monsters in the movies. It's a sub-genre that has captured the imagination since the earliest days of cinema and before and it still holds up today.
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