Revenge of the Creature

USA • 1955 • 82m •

• Directed by: Jack Arnold. • Starring: John Agar, Lori Nelson, John Bromfield, Nestor Paiva, Grandon Rhodes, Dave Willock, Robert B. Williams, Charles Cane, Loretta Agar, Bill Baldwin, Jere Beery Sr., Ricou Browning, Diane DeLaire. • Music by: William Lava, Herman Stein.

The Creature from the Black Lagoon is captured by scientists and transported to an aquarium in south Florida. Naturally, he's attracted to the lovely female scientist and manages to escape and kidnap her, heading to Jacksonville, presumably to catch a Jaguars game.

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Trailer

2:31

Review:

Image from: Revenge of the Creature (1955)

If you've seen the original, this one is a little tough to sit through. The acting is up to its abyssal par and Lori Nelson is attractive but the thing takes place in Marineland, Florida. Far from being exotic, as "The Creature From the Black Lagoon" was, we have a tourist trap within a state that is itself one big tourist trap. The harmless dialog sometimes sound aimed at a demographic exemplified more by the Gill Man than by his human captors. Reporter to Lori Nelson: "Can you tell us why you're here?" Nelson: "I'm an ichthyologist." Reporter: "An ichthyologist! Wow! That's a ten-dollar word. Can you tell us what it means?" Nelson: "I study fish." There's little mystery to it. It opens with the same boat and the same skipper taking a trip up the same "tributary of the Amazon River" but that sequence is over with in a jiffy when the gill man is comatized by some dynamite and transported forthwith to his tank in the states. This is rather like the second half of "King Kong". The creature gets loose, offs a few people, and returns to the sea, only to be drawn back to land by his fascination with Lori Nelson. Well, we can't blame the creature. I saw this as a kid and was astonished when Lori Nelson dropped her bathrobe and slithered around in her skivvies preparatory to taking a shower. It didn't matter than her underwear looked like G.I. issue.

This is some Gill Man, by the way. He's escaped and is now in the ocean, right? But he swims up the St. Johns River and knows that Lori Nelson has gotten on a boat with John Agar. As the boat travels upriver, the Gill Man follows it. When Agar and Nelson stop at a motel, the Gill Man even knows which room to go to. And later, he even knows that Nelson is DANCING with Agar at a nightclub called The Lobster Pot, from which he kidnaps her. You ought to see the atmosphere people at that Lobster Pot dance. They were locals, hired from an establishment next to the restaurant, and not one of them is smiling or having a good time, just stiffly shuffling about to Henry Mancini's music. I did a far better job as an extra, dancing at an embassy party in "Windmills of the Gods," a cheap miniseries that puts this so-called "feature film" to shame. "Windmills of the Gods" is a splendid example of what a film SHOULD look like. The acting of the extras, in particular, is eyeball-coagulatingly good. And if you want to see truly exuberant dancing extras, watch my bro and his wife on the dance floor in "Timepiece."

I got lost for a moment. Where was I? Did I get through Lori Nelson's skivvies? Yes, I see I did. Okay -- I also wanted to mention that the scenes of the creature being subject to Pavolovian conditioning underwater is impossible. Electricity is nothing more than a bunch of loose electrons jumping from atom to atom and they're especially attracted to water, so you can not shock a monster under water.

I should mention the film's good points too, I suppose, in pursuit of a balanced assessment so the reader can make an independent judgment. Let's see. I pointed out Lori Nelson's undies, didn't I. Well then there is the scene of two teen-aged boys driving in a convertible and arguing about whether college is worth the effort or not. The driver argues that high school is good enough for him. The other points out that nowadays a college education is getting to be what a high school education used to be. He may think he's being wise but I happen to have more degrees than a thermometer and I'm sorry I didn't quit high school and go into the cement business. I'd be living like a Pasha today instead of in this hovel.

In sum: Not really a bad movie, and entertaining in its own unchallenging way. It also includes a few shots of Lori Nelson in her underwear. I may have pointed that out elsewhere. What it lacks, it lacks mostly in comparison to its predecessor which was a neatly tied-up story suggestive of the bizarre as well as the exotic.

Review by Robert J. Maxwell from the Internet Movie Database.