Tag Archives: John Agar

The Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954) Trilogy

The most maligned of the Universal Classic Monsters is probably The Creature from the Black Lagoon. He was last to the scene, directed by the same director that made giant spider movies like Tarantula, and was an original property. He wasn’t involved in any of the monster mash-ups and never scared Lou Costello. On top of all that, the Gill Man had only three, that’s right, only three movies made.

  • The Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954)
    The Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954)
  • Revenge of the Creature (1955)
    Revenge of the Creature (1955)
  • The Creature Walks Among Us (1956)
    The Creature Walks Among Us (1956)

I came at the Creature in a kind of roundabout way. In the 80’s, a local UHF station was promoting that they were going to show the sequel to The Creature from the Black Lagoon in FULL 3-D. The movie was called Revenge of the Creature with John Agar (also from Tarantula), Lori Nelson and Ricou Browning as the swimming Gill Man. I put on my red and green glasses and got prepared for full anaglyph 3-D mayhem.

The Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954)
Come on in. The water’s fine.

Now, this may not have been the first time I saw the movie or the Gill Man, but to me, it seemed like it was. The 3-D was surprisingly good on our 19 inch Panasonic color TV as I recorded it with our Sharp (front loader…not a top loader!) VHS for me to watch, approximately 300 times. I just fell in love with the movie. I loved the cameo by Clint Eastwood. I loved the stilted line readings. (Agar sounds like he is reading ad copy for a radio spot with every line and Nelson is even more extreme.) Most of all, though, I loved those great underwater sequences with fish swimming every which way and cattle prods coming right out of the screen. 

So later, I visited the original The Creature from the Black Lagoon (flat) and realized that it was a much better movie…even without the 3D. So then the hunt was on. I had to find it in 3D! Eventually, I did, and it was everything I hoped. Gorgeous Julie Adams was cute enough on the flat version, but she was MADE for 3D! The scene where she swims above the Gill Man immediately showed me where Steven Spielberg got the inspiration for the similar shots in Jaws. I loved the movie and realized something else…

The Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954)
Do you see my sandwich down there?

This might be the only “classic” Universal Monster movie that actually still has some scares in it. Yes, it is completely dated. But due to its familiarity and lack of any real rules, it seemed more dangerous. More untamed and wild. More chilling.

Frankenstein was some green dude with radio control knobs on his neck. Dracula was an Eurotrash aristocrat that went around giving girls hickies. The Wolf Man was not in control of his situation at all and went through a male menstrual cycle from hell. The Mummy…that dude was a lame medical experiment with bandages.

Naw. The Gill Man. That was the guy. He was scary. He was unbelievably fast (underwater). He had strength on par with Superman. He had razor sharp, blade like claws. 

And he liked the ladies. And Julie Adams…she was a lady and then some!

The Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954)
What’s all the fuss about?

But all these years, I never saw the third, and final, canon Black Lagoon creature feature: The Creature Walks Among Us. The first act of the film is actually pretty darn good, and Leigh Snowden was a fetching addition to the Gill Man Girls (wasn’t that a CW television series?) but it goes horribly awry when then take the fish out of water. This change to what made our damp demon so creepy in the first place…it just kind of took all the joy out of watching this eco-warrior go to town on unscrupulous types wanting to cash in on the fishman.

The first two films are still classics and if you watch them back to back, you basically have King Kong as done by the Little Mermaid. And what can be wrong with that?

The Creature from the Black Lagoon

Grade: A

Revenge of the Creature

Grade: B+

The Creature Walks Among Us

Grade: C

The Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954) Trilogy

Tarantula (1955)

It was inevitable that one of my first Universal reviews in this new column would be a classic Universal horror picture.

One of the things people forget when revisiting a film like this, be on Amazon Prime, or Svengoolie on Me-TV, or at a revival film series at a local cineplex is these movies were made for kids. At matinees.

So it shouldn’t be a shock that the movie moves along at a breakneck pace. It should be no shock that the love story is subdued in lieu of action (though the leading lady is a knockout for the boys in the audience a little bit older and able to appreciate such details). The characters are stock. The device by which the spider grows and gets out is a little creaky…

But the effects were state of the art for its time. Universal knew this was a B picture…heck, the lead is John Agar, a Chicago born actor that came from a family that sold ham. Think about that. An actor. Coming from a family of ham. His most notable role, frankly, was as the husband of Shirley Temple and from what I read, he wasn’t too invested in that role.

The effects, though, despite some of the goofy looking giant robot spider stuff, mostly was mattes of a real ugly, scary tarantula on small sets and overlayed on the action. Frankly, they almost hold up. They certainly look better than some of the CGI junk we see on the SyFy channel these days.

Leo G. Carroll (TV’s Topper and Chief from The Man from U.N.C.L.E.) is a mad scientist type that develops a super nutrient that causes little tiny animals to become big, scary monsters. The titular spider escapes after a mishap in the lab and the customary chaos ensues.

Until I had revisited this, I forgot how much this film shares with one of my favorites, Tremors. The small town setting in a desert, the mysterious loss of cattle and endless debating of the creature by the characters would have fit right into Perfection. I would not be surprised that this film highly influenced that incredible film.

Probably most people know, this is one of two Jack Arnold directed Universal thrillers to feature an unbilled cameo by Clint Eastwood. The longer part was in Revenge of the Creature, the sequel to one of the finest Universal horror films, The Creature from the Black Lagoon. In a turn of fate, Clint Eastwood has used the lead of Tarantula, Mara Corday, in cameos in a number of his films recently in his career. Funny how things turn over the years!

You should check this flick out. It really is the template for a giant monster run amok film and it really holds up nicely over the weight of over 65 years.

Grade: B+

Tarantula (1955)