:12:00
Ross wanted to make the scientist
:12:02
"a humanist who enquires of nature
rather than dictating to it or exploiting it".
:12:06
"He's the one who holds out
for not harming the creature."
:12:09
Alland understood right away
what Ross was trying to do.
:12:12
According to Ross, Alland knew
the first approach had failed,
:12:15
the old-fashioned script they were
trying to work with. Ross told me
:12:19
"Whether I'm writing something
just to make a living
:12:22
or something I really believe is important,
I never write down to an audience."
:12:26
"Audiences are not stupid. They may
not be geniuses or specialists in fields,
:12:30
but they are reasonably intelligent people,
in the main, and for that reason
:12:34
I felt I would present what I thought
was not only a melodramatic device
:12:37
but also a study of characters in conflict."
:12:40
"The conflict in this case
was these people versus the creature."
:12:43
"The more they attack him,
the more he attacks them."
:12:45
"I wrote intelligent people
doing intelligent things -
:12:48
everyone except Richard Denning who
wanted the creature dead and mounted,
:12:53
considering that just as good
as live and left alone."
:12:55
"He was unintelligent and arrogant,
and he caused the difficulties."
:12:59
"Those difficulties finally had to be
rectified in violence because by then
:13:02
the creature was a violent and beset thing
that had no choice but to fight them."
:13:08
After Ross finished, one last writer,
Harry Essex, was brought in. Earlier,
:13:12
Essex had had the simple job of turning
a 111-page Ray Bradbury treatment
:13:17
into the screenplay of It Came
from Outer Space, which he did,
:13:20
and undeservedly got
a solo screenplay credit for it.
:13:23
In later years, Essex was happy to take all
the credit for It Came from Outer Space,
:13:27
and he liked to try to take
all the credit for Black Lagoon, too.
:13:30
Writers had worked on Black Lagoon for
months, many drafts had been written,
:13:34
and Arthur Ross had it
all whipped into shape.
:13:37
But to hear Essex tell it,
when he was hired
:13:39
all Universal gave him to work with was
"a very, very poorly-written short story".
:13:44
"Just the basic idea of a fish
that had been discovered in the jungle."
:13:47
"Universal bought the story
for very little, and assigned me to it."
:13:51
"I was angry. I didn't want to do anything
called Creature from the Black Lagoon."
:13:54
"It was an embarrassment to me."
:13:57
I should add that the title was just
Black Lagoon when Essex worked on it,