Creature from the Black Lagoon
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1:04:03
He says a lot of folks used to visit
the sets and watch them shoot,

1:04:06
including guests of people
who worked at Universal.

1:04:08
When he knew people were coming,
he'd swim to the middle of Park Lake

1:04:12
and float there, with just the top of
a helmet and the eyes showing.

1:04:16
He'd stay like that until
he saw the people arrive,

1:04:18
and then he'd swim under the water
and come bursting up like a porpoise,

1:04:22
and then go under again. He'd make
it hard for them to really see him.

1:04:26
"Then I would swim in towards them
with just the eyes showing."

1:04:29
"I'd swim in this way, getting
as close to shore as I could."

1:04:32
"Of course, it's becoming shallower."
1:04:34
"I'd swim in to where it was a foot and
a half deep, and then I'd stand up and..."

1:04:38
Ben let out a roar. Ben said some of the
guests would just about wet their pants.

1:04:46
Audiences loved the underwater scenes.
Bob Burns saw Creature when it was new,

1:04:50
and says that in the underwater scenes
the water seemed to disappear,

1:04:53
and it looked like the gill-man
was floating in midair in the theatre.

1:04:56
He said it was just amazing.
There was a preview of Creature

1:04:59
at the United Artists' Theatre
in Los Angeles on January 7, 1954,

1:05:03
and on the cards people were asked
to fill out, one of the questions was

1:05:07
"Which scene did you like most?"
The underwater scenes won hands down.

1:05:11
Funnily enough -
talk about a sign of changing times -

1:05:13
in answer to the question
"Which scenes, if any, did you dislike?"

1:05:17
More than one person
complained about Kay's line

1:05:19
"David and I are together
all the time anyway."

1:05:21
To them, that meant that they were living
together, and they squawked about that.

1:05:25
One person said
he disliked all of it, especially

1:05:28
"when Kay made like Esther Williams -
not the time or place for it."

1:05:32
Some other comments: "Most exciting
picture I have ever witnessed."

1:05:35
"Give us more pictures like this,
only in colour."

1:05:38
"I'm a bundle of nerves.
I'll never swim in a lagoon."

1:05:41
"The spookiest picture I have ever seen,
and screamed throughout."

1:05:44
One person complained the plot was
too much like The Thing, which is true,

1:05:49
but nobody mentioned King Kong,
which was the inspiration.

1:05:52
As I said, watch Creature and Revenge
back-to-back and you can't miss it.

1:05:56
In fact, one early script
of Revenge of the Creature

1:05:58
ended with the gill-man being shot,
not by the sheriff's posse,


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