:26:00
and they'd build an outfit for him to wear.
And the rest, as they say, is history.
:26:04
Come on, David.
You can play house later.
:26:06
The script has Denning
be obnoxious in every scene,
:26:09
so that we never forget that
he's gonna be the heavy.
:26:12
Browning went to Universal, where outfits
for the gill-man were being devised.
:26:17
I should mention that
William Alland's concept of the gill-man
:26:20
was more human than
the gill-man in the movie.
:26:22
Alland had a sculptor sculpt the
head of a very sad, beautiful monster.
:26:26
He told me "It wasn't a monster.
It was far more attractive,
:26:29
more romantic than
the beast they ended up with."
:26:32
"It had fish lips and gills
and a vaguely fishlike face,
:26:35
sort of an aquatic development of a man."
:26:37
Alland told me "It would still frighten you,
:26:39
but because of how human it was,
not the other way around."
:26:42
"And the studio said 'Get outta here,
that's not scary enough."'
:26:46
That's when the Universal
make-up department took over.
:26:49
Kay doesn't know about the creature, but
she does know there are 9ft killer catfish.
:26:54
You couldn't get me
in that lagoon with dynamite.
:26:57
Here comes the best, most famous scene
in the movie, as Julie Adams takes a dip
:27:00
and is ogled from below by
yet another male admirer, the gill-man.
:27:04
Julie Adams is doubled here
by Ginger Stanley,
:27:07
a "mermaid" swimmer
at Weeki Wachee Spring.
:27:10
When the camera is underwater, it's
cinematographer Welbourne's camera,
:27:14
and you see Ginger Stanley.
:27:16
When the camera is above water,
it's cinematographer William Snyder
:27:19
photographing Julie Adams
in Park Lake at Universal.
:27:22
Browning's performance in this scene is
the poetic/dramatic highlight of the movie.
:27:27
The thing that makes the creature
as image and myth
:27:29
are the wonderful, dynamic, swimming-
Ricou shots you're about to see.
:27:33
There's no dialogue for a few minutes,
so now is a good time
:27:36
to talk about the music
of Creature from the Black Lagoon.
:27:39
Sci-fi movie music expert David Schecter,
who releases classic sf film scores on CD
:27:44
under the umbrella title Monstrous
Movie Music, calls the Creature score
:27:48
"one of the most varied and memorable
in all of '50s sci-fi horrordom".
:27:52
"Part of the experience of the film is the
considerable musical accompaniment."
:27:57
And he's right. A hefty 63 per cent
of Creature has background music.