:36:00
and look down 50ft or 60ft or whatever,
and try to figure out what was going on.
:36:05
He sketched out the way
he wanted each shot to be shot,
:36:08
but Welbourne said
he couldn't work that way.
:36:10
Havens, floating on the surface,
couldn't see what was at the bottom,
:36:14
and sketched things
that weren't even there,
:36:16
and Welbourne said all he could do was
take advantage of what was down there.
:36:21
So Bill Alland's idea was,
he'd put on scuba gear and he'd go down,
:36:24
and maybe that would kind of
shame Havens into doing it.
:36:27
So Alland dove down 50 feet, where
they had underwater light platforms
:36:31
and all kinds of stuff set up, and watched
Scotty Welbourne doing his thing.
:36:35
Then Alland came up and told Havens
"Either you go down there,
:36:38
see what he's doing and work with him,
or just get out of the way."
:36:41
And Havens said OK, fine,
he'd just get out of the way.
:36:44
So, according to Alland,
even though the credits say
:36:47
"Underwater sequences
directed by James C Havens",
:36:50
Alland says "He didn't have a damn thing
to do with what went on underwater."
:36:54
"Scotty Welbourne directed
the underwater stuff."
:36:57
Ricou Browning also remembers
the situation with Havens,
:37:00
but doesn't tell the story the same way.
He said it wasn't that Havens was afraid,
:37:05
it's just that he wasn't capable -
he wasn't trained to go underwater.
:37:08
According to Ricou, "Havens got in an
inner tube and put on a face mask
:37:12
and watched, as much as he could,
what was going on."
:37:15
"He depended a great deal on Scotty,
and Scotty was a sharp character."
:37:19
"And Havens just kind of left it
to him and us to do our thing."
:37:22
"He would watch,
and comment now and then."
:37:26
I asked Ricou, I said "In a perfect world,
:37:28
should the credits say 'Underwater
scenes directed by James Havens'
:37:32
or 'Underwater scenes directed
by Scotty Welbourne'?"
:37:34
And he answered "I would just say
a combination of people."
:37:37
"I would give Havens credit."
:37:40
The guy who filmed the out-of-water
scenes was no slouch -
:37:43
a guy named William Snyder,
who'd been around for years,
:37:46
photographed a lot of pictures and had
three Oscar nominations in the 1940s:
:37:50
Aloma of the South Seas, The Loves
of Carmen and Jolson Sings Again.
:37:54
After Creature he worked a lot
at Walt Disney Studios.
:37:57
He also shot The Conqueror, the
John Wayne Genghis Khan movie,