Not since the beginning of time has the world beheld terror like this!

After reading with abject dismay the news that The Creature From The Black Lagoon is going to be remade, I dug out my well worn copy of the original and gave it a spin.

And you know, it still works. Jack Arnold is an auteur.Really.
It has become almost de rigeur to state that The Incredible Shrinking Man is his masterpiece. Clearly, this is not the case. This movie is without a doubt not just Arnolds best flick, but is one of the best movies this genre has to offer.
After scientists Dr Reed (Richard Carlson) Kay Lawrence (Julie Adams) and Dr Mark Williams (Richard Denning) set off on the good ship Rita to find the rest of the fossilised Gill Man, they moor in the Black Lagoon.They already have a previously recovered webbed claw. Reed wants to capture and study the creature. Williams wants to shoot it, and presumably mount it on his wall next to a tigers head and a moose. Kay is quite content to parade around in a skimpy white one piece bathing suit, enjoying the sexual tension it provokes between the two men, and eventually the creature as well.

There is a justly famous shot, of Kay swimming on the surface of the water, while the Creature swims underneath her, sometimes mirroring her (some obvious symbolism there of the creature in all of us hiding just below the surface) sometimes reaching out to gently touch her foot. I first saw this movie maybe thirty years ago as a kid, and that scene has been with me ever since. From now on, we are all firmly on the Creatures side. Especially when the scientists, smoking 50s style, throw there cigarette buts into the water. And the Creature just startes at them. Enviromental subplots people.

As tradition demands, the Creature is captured, escapes and lives to return in two excellent sequels, Revenge Of The Creature (which has a brilliant scene of the Creature smashing up a Tiki bar, throwing cocktails around), and the desperately sad The Creature Walks Among Us. In this final film, he has his beautiful scaly skin burned off, is forced to wear deeply unfashionable clothes, and the film closes with him staring out at the water he can never return to. God, I'm filling up here.