:34:02
I'm sure Universal felt fortunate to have
gotten him and had confidence in him.
:34:06
He'd been in movies most of his life, and
been around boats and water all his life.
:34:11
I tried to track him down years ago
and finally found his phone number,
:34:14
but when I called, his wife told me
he had died several years before.
:34:18
But I had a nice conversation with her,
because she had married him in 1924.
:34:21
They were married 65½ years, so I figured
she might know something about him.
:34:26
She made him sound real interesting. He
started as an art director at MGM in 1924,
:34:31
the same year he got married, and
gradually he got into marine directing,
:34:35
which means he directed
the seagoing scenes for movies:
:34:38
Mutiny on the Bounty with Clark Gable,
:34:39
Captains Courageous with
Spencer Tracy, pictures like that.
:34:42
And Havens always owned a boat.
He had a sailboat first, with no engine,
:34:46
then he and his wife had ketches
and motorboats and all kinds of boats.
:34:50
He was a captain in the marines during
World War II, a demolition expert.
:34:54
When John Ford made the movie
Mogambo in East Africa,
:34:57
Havens shot the animal scenes
for Mogambo in Tanganyika.
:35:00
He went around scouting locations in a
Land Rover during the Mau Mau rebellion.
:35:04
She made him sound like a real man's
man, a guy who could handle anything,
:35:08
which I'm sure he was.
:35:09
So it was so funny, to me anyway, to hear
what happened to him during Creature.
:35:13
Havens goes to Florida for the underwater
scenes and Welbourne's there to film 'em.
:35:18
Days pass, and Alland gets a phone call
from the Florida production manager,
:35:22
who says "You'd better come here,
all hell's breaking loose."
:35:25
"Havens and Welbourne,
they're not getting along."
:35:28
Anyway, Alland hears that all hell
is breaking loose, so he goes to Florida.
:35:31
What's happening is
Havens is afraid to go underwater.
:35:35
Hang on a second. This is sort of an odd
shot here, this blurry shot of the hand,
:35:39
followed by the gill-man swimming away
in another hard-to-see shot.
:35:43
I think these shots should have preceded
our first good look at the gill-man.
:35:47
They'd have made great teaser shots.
:35:49
I asked Mrs Havens if her husband
liked to dive, and she said "No, no."
:35:52
"He didn't like going under the water at
all." So during the making of Creature,
:35:56
the best Havens could do was float on the
surface with a face mask and a snorkel,