Revenge of the Creature (1955)

Director:

Jack Arnold

Writers:

William Alland (story)
Martin Berkeley (screenplay)

Release Date:

22 July 1955 (Finland)

Genre:

Horror | Sci-Fi

Tagline:

Weird Monster Escapes! Terror Seizes City! ...a woman's beauty the lure for his dangerous desires!

Plot:

The Creature from the Black Lagoon is back! This time he's captured by scientists and transported to an aquarium in south Florida...

Plot Keywords:

MST3K | Second Part | Gill Man | Lab Technician | Beautiful Woman

Cast

John Agar	...	Prof. Clete Ferguson
Lori Nelson	...	Helen Dobson
John Bromfield	...	Joe Hayes
Nestor Paiva	...	Captain Lucas
Grandon Rhodes	...	Jackson Foster
Dave Willock	...	Lou Gibson
Robert Williams	...	George Johnson (as Robert B. Williams)
Charles Cane	...	Police Captain (as Charles R. Cane)

Runtime:

82 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

2.00 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Recording)

Certification:

USA:Approved (PCA #17220) | USA:Unrated (video rating) | West Germany:16 | Australia:PG | Finland:K-12 | Sweden:15

Filming Locations:

Jacksonville, Florida, USA

Company:

Universal International Pictures (UI)

Trivia:

Stuntman Tom Hennesy almost drowned during filming. Playing the creature, he grabs Helen Dobson (actually stuntwoman Ginger Stanley) on a pier and jumps with her into the water. The scene was shot at night, and when Hennesy and Stanley hit the water, they discovered it was full of jellyfish; in addition, a freak current started to pull them both down. Hennesy let go of Stanley, who swam to the surface, because his Gill-Man costume had become waterlogged and was too heavy for him to fight the current that was pulling them down. He was rescued by two local boys who happened to be watching the filming from a nearby boat, and quickly raced over and pulled him in.

Goofs:

Continuity: While Joe is walking the Creature through the pool, shots change and the Creature is suddenly a foot deeper than before.

Quotes:

Lab Technician: I've lost my white mouse.

Movie Connections:

Featured in Back to the Black Lagoon: A Creature Chronicle (2000) (V)

Not Up To The Standard Of The Original

"Revenge Of The Creature" is at best a sequel that pales in comparison to the original, and pretty well done, "Creature From The Black Lagoon." A lot of what made the original movie work is missing here. The performances aren't as good, Lori Nelson (while attractive) isn't as head turning beautiful as Julie Adams was in the original, and, being set mostly (except for the first few minutes) in Florida rather than the Amazon, the sequel lacks some of the mystery of the original.

In "Revenge," the gill-man is captured by scientists and brought to some sort of public aquarium to be studied and to serve as a big attraction for the tourists. Admittedly, one thing this movie had that I didn't find in the original was a bit of sympathy for the creature. You can't help but feel a bit sorry for him chained in the tank and jolted with cattle prods on a regular basis as the tourists gawk at him. The creature is much more the focus of this movie, and the violence he commits is shown much more graphically (although all within the acceptable tastes of 1955, of course.) Where the creature isn't the focus, the movie weakens dramatically. The romance between Clete and Helen was a sort of "ho-hum, who really cares" experience, and why in the world we needed to be introduced to so many cutesy animals doing tricks (the porpoise, the chimpanzee) was beyond me. One thing I couldn't figure out was - even given his obsession with her - how the creature kept managing to find Helen in a variety of places.

Admittedly, the creature is a fun monster to watch; the movie unfortunately is less so. 5/10