Love and Death in the Black Lagoon

Celebrating cultural highlights of 1954...
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Creature from the Black Lagoon

Vulnerability in the Lagoon

The horror film goes abstract.  I love this image:

Kay Lawrence in Creature from the Black Lagoon
as seen from the depths.

This is the Creature’s point-of-view.  Kay has entered his habitat for the first time.  She’s something new in his world—beautiful and graceful, her movement defined by the play of light and shadow.

There’s poetry in many of the underwater scenes in Creature from the Black Lagoon, but this one shot stands out in the way it combines abstraction with sexuality and vulnerability.  Dabbed with color, this shot would fit nicely into a James Bond credit sequence—especially with its teasing implication of nudity.  But the black and white cinematography carries a different vibe.  It looks more ethereal than provocative.

The shot suggests extreme vulnerability.  And there’s a potent irony in Kay’s relaxed, confident swimming.  The viewer enjoys the voyeuristic Gill Man point-of-view while simultaneously realizing Kay’s danger.

Steven Spielberg was eight when Creature from the Black Lagoon was released.  He was twenty-nine when he made Jaws, very effectively borrowing that shot for the first scene.

Chrissie in Jaws (1975) as seen from the depths.

All the same visual elements are in play.  Color is kept to a monochrome.  There’s the same irony created by Chrissie’s self-confidence contrasted with our awareness of her vulnerability.  There’s the same teasing quality to the implied nudity—and this time we know that the swimmer really is naked even though we only see a nearly abstract silhouette.  But Jaws lacks the narrative justification for the shot.  In Creature from the Black Lagoon, the viewer shares in the Gill Man’s voyeurism—and this is exactly what makes it such an effective point-of-view shot.  You don’t feel that uneasy identification when the watcher is a sexless killing machine.  Spielberg’s shark point-of-view shot effectively captures the victim’s vulnerability but the sexual element is only present to titillate the viewer.

Later in the movie, Creature from the Black Lagoon employs a similar shot to somewhat different effect.  Mark and David go underwater to clear the logs that block the way out of the lagoon.  David shoots the Gill Man with his spear gun then rushes to the surface. Cut to a shot from deep below, looking up:

Dr. David Reed as seen from the depths.

This shot effectively captures David’s vulnerability, but it’s not a point-of-view shot—a fact that becomes very obvious when the Gill Man suddenly swims into the scene.

Enter screen left:  The Gill Man.

In a brutal battle under the surface, the Gill Man kills David then flees the scene, releasing the body to float to the surface.  The camera lingers on the oddly poetic image of David’s body languidly drifting upward.

The camera slowly tilts upward, following his final ascent.

A year later, Charles Laughton found a similar morbid poetry in death under the water in his classic The Night of the Hunter (1955).

Shelley Winters, dead in the seaweed, in
The Night of the Hunter (1955).

Sexuality in the Lagoon

Julie Adams swims on the surface.  The Gill Man follows her below, gliding belly up for long stretches, matching her strokes.  Many viewers and critics have remarked on the strong sexuality of the scene, particularly the underwater shots where their bodies seem to mirror each other, separated by only a few feet of water.

The classic aquatic pas de deux.

Forever out of reach.

It’s beauty and the beast, of course, but this time the beast appears to be fantasizing more than usual.  There’s almost a gallantry to it.  When the Gill Man reaches out to touch her foot, it’s so tentative.  He’s not acting the monster role.  It’s as if he knows deep down that she’s unattainable.

No wonder the Gill Man appealed to the monster kids of my generation!  He’s the outsider who’ll never get the beautiful girl.  Although we’ve seen there’s beauty in the way they can swim together, she’s still going to scream when she sees his face.

Julie Adams sees a monster.

Reference Sources

Creature from the Black Lagoon (Universal Studios Classic Monster Collection) DVD commentary by film historian Tom Weaver

Various discussions on The Classic Horror Film Board (in my opinion, the greatest and most civilized of all film discussion boards.)

Back to the Black Lagoon documentary with film historian David Skal

When processing Creature information, it all boils down to this:  If Tom Weaver says it, I believe it.

Watch Creature from the Black Lagoon...

Purchase a Creature from the Black Lagoon DVD or Blu-Ray set at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

Rent Creature from the Black Lagoon at Netflix or other rental service.

© 2013 Lee Price

How to Destroy a Pristine Black Lagoon

Celebrating cultural highlights of 1954...
Creature-blogging, essay 4 on

Creature from the Black Lagoon

Outgunned

It’s night and the crew of the Rita is armed, each man prepared to destroy what may be the last surviving member of its species.  The camera tracks from bow to stern…

First, we see Dr. Edwin Thompson, armed.  Track to Dr. Carl Maia, armed.

Then to Dr. David Reed, armed.  And on to Captain Lucas, armed.

Finishing at the stern with
Dr. Mark Williams, armed for Creature.

Dr. David Reed (Richard Denning) is restrained from
killing the Creature by Dr. Mark Williams, who
argues they should imprison the Gill Man to
carry him back to civilization.

The 20^th Century Intrudes  

Dissolve from the poisoned lagoon surface to the
Creature watching below the surface.

Captain Lucas, captain of
the Rita, relaxing.

Looking like the African Queen (with Captain Lucas in the Bogart role), the Rita confidently sails into the Black Lagoon, loaded with guns and poisons.  Wait a minute…  Who’s the villain here?  Who’s the real monster?  The expedition invades the Gill Man’s ancestral home, poisons his lagoon, and then vacillates between whether to imprison or kill the lagoon’s host.  With every man on board carrying a rifle, a speargun, or both, the Creature is seriously outgunned.

Polluting the lagoon.

Among the most disturbing scenes is the one where Mark and David scatter Rotenone, a fish-killing pesticide, across the waters of the lagoon.  As it spreads out through the water, it looks surprisingly like the doomsday oxygen-destroyer device in Gojira (Godzilla), also released in 1954.  Soon the lagoon is littered with belly-up fish.  In real life, fish take Rotenone in through the gills, leaving them unable to breathe.  They come to the surface to gulp air, needing oxygen.  The Rita floats serenely on the formerly pristine lagoon, which now looks like it should be sealed off by the EPA.  Apparently, the scientists have concluded that it’s worth wiping out an ecosystem to capture a Gill Man.

In later years, director Jack Arnold claimed that he brought an environmental slant to certain scenes, cinematically siding with the Creature more than with civilization.  As proof of his intentions, many have cited a singularly intelligent scene, very creatively directed by Arnold.  I call this scene:

No Littering in the Lagoon

While the men are out in the rowboat poisoning the lagoon with the Rotenone, beautiful smoker Kay Lawrence lights up a cigarette on deck.  When she’s finished enjoying her smoke, she casually flicks 

the butt into the water.

Cut to an underwater shot of the cigarette
striking the surface of the water, then floating there.

The camera tilts downward…

The Creature is watching—his eyes fixed on the cigarette that’s polluting his environment.  But is that really it?  Is that what’s really on the Creature’s mind?

We probably view this scene differently now than audiences would have in 1954.  Watching it now, the flick of the cigarette into the water makes me wince.  It’s easy to interpret the scene as an ecological comment.  But this was eight years before Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring ushered in the environmental movement and twelve years before cigarette packages carried health warnings in the US.  It was a different world then.

Today, we assume the Creature sees the cigarette and thinks, “What are they doing to my pond?”  But in 1954, the same Creature may have simply been thinking, “Ooooh… a romantic token from the pretty lady!”

Budding ecologist or eternal romantic?

Reference Sources

Creature from the Black Lagoon (Universal Studios Classic Monster Collection) DVD commentary by film historian Tom Weaver

Various discussions on The Classic Horror Film Board (in my opinion, the greatest and most civilized of all film discussion boards.)

Back to the Black Lagoon documentary with film historian David Skal

When processing Creature information, it all boils down to this:  If Tom Weaver says it, I believe it.

Watch Creature from the Black Lagoon...

Purchase a Creature from the Black Lagoon DVD or Blu-Ray set at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

Rent Creature from the Black Lagoon at Netflix or other rental service.

© 2013 Lee Price

Doing Science in the Black Lagoon

Celebrating cultural highlights of 1954...
Creature-blogging, essay 3 on

Creature from the Black Lagoon

Quatermass 5:  The Black Lagoon

A fossil Creature claw.

There always seem to be rumors of an impending Creature from the Black Lagoon remake.  John Landis had one in development in 1982, John Carpenter in 1992, Ivan Reitman in 1996, and Guillermo del Toro in 2002.  The John Landis production sounded particularly appealing, largely because Landis brought in the great Nigel Kneale to write the screenplay.

I first became obsessed with Nigel Kneale through the 1989 TV-movie The Woman in Black.  Tremendously impressed with the movie, I rushed to read the Susan Hill novel only to find it a bit of a disappointment (note: I am aware this is a minority opinion).  But it wasn’t entirely a loss because the experience tremendously increased my appreciation for the art of screen adaptation—how Nigel Kneale unerringly selected the very best parts of the book and developed them brilliantly.  If I were ever to teach a course on screenwriting, I’d center the course on this novel and Kneale’s adaptation.

The Woman in Black (1979).

Much of Nigel Kneale’s screenwriting work was done for British television and is currently fairly inaccessible.  The three Quatermass movies are full of good material, but the legendary TV mini-series that they were based upon are either lost or elusive.  I love Kneale’s wrap-around story for the Ray Harryhausen First Men in the Moon (1964), which opens and closes with the first lunar landing.  For a low-budget genre exercise, Kneale’s The Abominable Snowman (1957) is startlingly intelligent.

I’m confident that a Nigel Kneale-penned Creature from the Black Lagoon would have been smart… very smart.  Someday maybe I’ll learn how smart.  He did write and submit his screenplay, so it must be on file somewhere.  In the meantime, I can always conjecture.

Here’s what I’d love to see in a Nigel Kneale Creature script:

Professor Quatermass in
Quatermass and the Pit (1967).

• It’s written for TV in 30-minute episodes (the classic Nigel Kneale format)
• Professor Quatermass is on the boat
• Surprisingly plausible scientific explanations are offered for the Gill Man’s existence
• Kay shares a telepathic connection with the Gill Man
• Kay is overwhelmed by a vision where she explores a prehistoric past filled with Creatures
• Instead of the tandem swim, the Gill Man suddenly appears hovering over Kay’s bed

And then the Gill Man swooped toward her...

Hollywood Science

I don’t mean to be overly critical of my beloved Creature from the Black Lagoon.  For the most part, I find its cockeyed science completely charming.  Like many 1950s science fiction thrillers, it somehow manages to be respectfully in awe of science while remaining completely ignorant of the most basic scientific principles.  The Creature makes a hash of geology, paleontology, and biology, but it means well.

The missing link between fish
and human.

In the movie’s evolutionary theory, the Gill Man is presented as a missing link between fish and man.  The scientists intimate that he evolved in the Devonian period (400 million years before the appearance of Homo sapiens).  It appears that the Black Lagoon’s Creature is the last of its kind.  An alternative explanation is suggested two sequels down the road in The Creature Walks Among Us.  In that movie, a medical reconstruction of the Gill Man reveals human skin and lungs, implying that the Creature evolved from humans.  Like whales evolving from an early hoofed mammal, the Creature’s human-like ancestors returned to the waters and re-adapted.

Note:  Let’s be honest:  In reality, the Gill Man is the swamp child of the dinosaurian Rhedosaurus in The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (a big Hollywood hit of 1953) and the Frankenstein-ian alien of The Thing from Another World (a big Hollywood hit of 1951).  Mix and match their DNA, stir thoroughly and simmer on low, and you might spontaneously generate something vaguely Creature-ish in size and shape.

Whit Bissell, scientist.

Scientists are well represented on the expedition to the Black Lagoon, with either four or five scientists aboard the Rita.  Dr. Carl Maia (Antonio Moreno) is introduced popping a fossilized Creature hand from the rock beds.  He appears to be a paleontologist and serves as one of the movie’s two benevolent father figures.  Dueling alpha male scientists Dr. David Reed (Richard Denning) and Dr. Mark Williams (Richard Carlson) vie for top dog status throughout the movie, bickering about scientific strategies on the surface while subliminally competing for the lone woman on board.  And last there’s gentle pipe-smoking Dr. Edwin Thompson, the film’s second father figure, played by 1950s stalwart Whit Bissell.

Does the beautiful Kay Lawrence count as a fifth doctor on the Rita?  She appears to have some scientific training and Dr. Thompson implies that much of Dr. Reed’s success is owed to her.  But you never hear anyone refer to Kay as Dr. Lawrence.  She’s allowed an active part in their impromptu scientific conferences, and she contributes ideas that are no stupider than the statements of the identified scientists.  But even if she really is Dr. Kay Lawrence, sharing a Ph.D. in Hollywood Science with her peers, I still have a sneaking suspicion that she’s the lowest-paid American on the boat.

Dr. Kay Lawrence, scientist.

Hollywood Does Evolution

Traditionally, Hollywood’s missing links tended to be extra-hairy humans rather than quasi-amphibians.

An animated ape man from The Dinosaur and the
Missing Link (1915) by Willis O'Brien.

Lon Chaney as a scientifically created
ape man in the lost silent film
A Blind Bargain (1922)

The missing link from The Lost World (1925).

Bela Lugosi lectures on evolution in
Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932).

An ape/woman experiment gone awry:  Acquanetta in
Captive Wild Woman (1943).

Evolution run amok in
Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954).

Reference Sources

Creature from the Black Lagoon (Universal Studios Classic Monster Collection) DVD commentary by film historian Tom Weaver

Various discussions on The Classic Horror Film Board (in my opinion, the greatest and most civilized of all film discussion boards.)

Back to the Black Lagoon documentary with film historian David Skal

When processing Creature information, it all boils down to this:  If Tom Weaver says it, I believe it.

Watch Creature from the Black Lagoon...

Purchase a Creature from the Black Lagoon DVD or Blu-Ray set at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

Rent Creature from the Black Lagoon at Netflix or other rental service.

© 2013 Lee Price

The Discreet Charm of the Black Lagoon

Celebrating cultural highlights of 1954...
Creature-blogging, essay 2 on

Creature from the Black Lagoon

The Discreet Charm of the Creature

In an interview with film historian Tom Weaver, producer William Alland revealed that the idea for the Creature from the Black Lagoon came from a wild Amazonian man-fish story told by cinematographer Gabriel Figueroa to an incredulous Orson Welles during a small house party.  Naturally, this makes me wonder:  What if Figueroa told the story to the director he’s most associated with: the iconoclastic Spanish filmmaker Luis Buñuel?  Might Buñuel have treated audiences to a surrealist Creature?

So what would a Buñuelian Creature from the Black Lagoon look like?  In my dream Buñuel version…

The end of the bishop.

• The Creature’s first victim would be a bishop.
• Kay would be played by two actresses in alternating scenes (plus their doubles for the swimming scenes).
• Kay would have a dream scene where she carries off the Creature and places him on the altar.  Then she would whip him.
• Each evening, the Rita would leave the Black Lagoon.  In the morning, the crew would awake to find the ship back in the lagoon.
• When the crew dumps the chemical Rotenone into the lagoon in order to paralyze the fish, a donkey would float to the surface.
• In the scene where the Creature places Kay on the altar rock, he would be wearing a cassock.
• At the end, the characters would walk off the boat and go to a jazz club.  The Creature would go with them.

Gag shot of Ben Chapman as the Creature.

Church of the Creature

It’s a classic M. C. Escher setup.  You dive into the water, swim deep down, disappear into the murky depths, and find a cave filled with air at the bottom of the lagoon.  The cave has a level floor and a rear entrance that opens onto land, sea level.  Apparently, Escher-style, down is up in Creature land and the laws of physics don’t apply.

Baptism at the church of the Creature.

This underground lair is where the infatuated Creature chooses to bring our beautiful heroine Kay for their date night.  He ceremoniously drapes her over a large stone that admirably functions as a crude altar.  The Creature’s den is a place of mystery, bathed in mist.

King Kong (1933) is the obvious reference point.  Creature producer William Alland and others have admitted they had Kong in mind when developing the plot.  The Creature himself neatly reverses Kong’s natural instincts.  When stressed, Kong ascends toward the highest point—Skull Mountain on the island or the Empire State Building in the city.  When stressed, the Creature dives for the lowest point:  his Escher cave lair.

But what does a monster do with its woman?  It’s not a simple question of motion picture codes and what the morals of the time allow.  Aside from the distasteful physical problems, Kong and the Creature are way too sympathetic to even contemplate rape.  Instead, we get adoration—a tender response which increases our sympathies for the monsters.  The rock that Kay is attractively draped across isn’t a sacrificial altar but a place for Creaturely worship.

King Kong opts for a double worship situation, with the natives worshipping Kong as a god and Kong worshipping the beautiful Ann Darrow as his unattainable object of desire.  While the Creature from the Black Lagoon keeps the Amazonian natives off-screen, the ship captain mentions that the local people talk of a man-fish.  This sounds like a reference to the original tale that producer William Alland heard from cinematographer Gabriel Figueroa back in the early 1940s—that there’s a man-fish in the Amazon and the natives must send it a virgin each year to keep it placated (which, by the way, is the same arrangement negotiated by Kong and the Skull Island natives prior to Miss Darrow’s arrival).

All this worshipping leads us naturally to the churches of monsters—Kong’s Skull Island lair, the Beast’s castle, the Creature’s cave.  These are the places where monsters come to worship and where beautiful women are posed as religious icons on the altars.

Julie Adams on the rock.

Reference Sources

Creature from the Black Lagoon (Universal Studios Classic Monster Collection) DVD commentary by film historian Tom Weaver

Various discussions on The Classic Horror Film Board (in my opinion, the greatest and most civilized of all film discussion boards.)

Back to the Black Lagoon documentary with film historian David Skal

When processing Creature information, it all boils down to this:  If Tom Weaver says it, I believe it.

Watch Creature from the Black Lagoon...

Purchase a Creature from the Black Lagoon DVD or Blu-Ray set at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

Rent Creature from the Black Lagoon at Netflix or other rental service.

© 2013 Lee Price

The Genius of the Creature

Celebrating cultural highlights of 1954...
Creature-blogging, essay 1 on

Creature from the Black Lagoon

Citizen Creature

In an interview with film historian Tom Weaver, producer William Alland revealed that the idea for the Creature from the Black Lagoon came from a wild Amazonian man-fish story told by cinematographer Gabriel Figueroa to an incredulous Orson Welles during a small house party.  Naturally, this makes me wonder:  What if Welles responded by crying out, “Hey, Mankiewicz! Write me a man-fish picture!”

So just what would an Orson Welles’ Creature from the Black Lagoon look like? My dream Welles’ Creature would have:

• Rita Hayworth as Kay in a one-piece bathing suit
• Orson Welles as Lucas, the captain of the Rita (“Even I, Lucas, have heard the legend of a man-fish…”)
• A new role written for Agnes Moorehead, confined below deck and slowly going crazy
• William Alland as Dr. Edwin Thompson (in the Welles’ version, the attack on the doctor is moved to the beginning, leaving Alland’s face covered in bandages for the duration of the movie)
• Exteriors filmed in the Amazon during Welles’ legendary film-shooting binge in Brazil
• Cinematographer Gregg Toland scuba diving with the 3D camera
• A Bernard Herrmann score built to heighten the shock scenes (no flutter horn themes for Herrmann—I want shrieking violins when the Creature appears!) 
• A magnificent ten-minute opening shot takes us from an overhead view of the Amazon jungle through a leisurely descent all the way to a close-up of a rock on the lagoon shoreline where the Creature’s hand emerges, after which the camera tracks behind him as he stalks toward a tent where two native assistants are preparing for bed
• Cameos by Marlene Dietrich and Zsa Zsa Gabor as missionaries working the Amazon circuit

The Genius of the Creature

I first saw the Creature from the Black Lagoon over forty years ago, doubtless with all the poor image quality that you naturally settled for when watching late 1960s TV.  It wasn’t wide screen, it wasn’t 3-D, and the screen was probably fuzzy with static.  Nevertheless, I don’t remember being bothered by the image quality one bit.  Perhaps poor reception made the murky Amazon and its primeval wildlife all the more mysterious.

I’m not embarrassed to still love the Creature.  It’s a very good 1950s science fiction movie that succeeds because of several contributions that I’m tempted to label as genius, backed by a production that’s solidly professional.

Here’s where I see genius in the Creature from the Black Lagoon:

Milicent Patrick with Creature sketch and head.

The design of the creature:  The full-body suit of the Creature has become so iconic that it’s difficult to grasp just how creative and original it is.  I see genius in both the design and the sculptural execution.  So who gets the credit for this inspired work?  For the design, evidence suggests that a fascinating (and strikingly attractive) woman named Milicent Patrick deserves bragging rights.  Briefly promoted as “the beauty who created the beast” (until makeup head Bud Westmore sulked about it to the head office), Patrick established the look that satisfied everyone—seamlessly combining elements of fish, frog, reptile, and man.  In addition, the costume works effectively as both a plausible aquatic creature and a lumbering land monster.  More genius needed?  Ace craftsmen Chris Mueller and Jack Kevan sculpted the sleek reptilian body and marvelously detailed heads worn by the two Creature actors (Ricou Browning in the water and Ben Chapman on land).

The Creature in motion:  The Creature doesn’t thrill me on land.  He employs standard monster moves, overly familiar from the Frankenstein monster movies and their descendents.  But once he’s in the water, the Creature is completely original, the most graceful of monsters.  In Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences, there’s a special intelligence for bodily-kinesthetic—the art of body movement control.  I’d credit Ricou Browning, the man playing the underwater Creature, for bodily-kinesthetic genius.  And a bonus point to director Jack Arnold for realizing that Browning had to play the Creature after seeing him swim on film.

Ricou Browning, swimming Creature-style.

Julie Adams in a white
one-piece bathing suit.

Kay in a one-piece white bathing suit:  When something looks this awesome, someone deserves credit for genius.  Maybe Rosemary Odell for realizing that a white suit, cut high at the hips, looks beautiful in murky waters.  Maybe Julie Adams for the genius involved in being sexy beyond words…

The genius of location:  The underwater scenes were filmed in Wakulla Springs, Florida, located 14 miles south of Tallahassee.  Okay, it’s not authentic Amazon rain forest, but in many ways, it’s just as cool.  From underwater, it sure looks like the dawn of time.  And there really ARE underwater caves there (although none discovered yet with mysterious air pockets and altar stones).

Finally, two fast notes on more technical matters —

Note on 3D and the cinematography:  I have friends who say that I haven’t really seen the Creature from the Black Lagoon until I see it in 3D.  If that’s the case, it’s my loss.  Since I only use one eye, 3D is lost on me.

Note on the aspect ratio:  For this series, I’ve chosen to display most of the accompanying movie images in standard format (1.33:1), which is how I originally saw the Creature and how it was presented in many movie theaters.  I’m doing this even though I’m aware it was presented widescreen (1.85:1) in first-run theaters at the time of its release.  Perhaps it’s simple nostalgia on my part, but I genuinely prefer the look of most of the film’s frame compositions in standard format to wide screen.

Reference Sources

Creature from the Black Lagoon (Universal Studios Classic Monster Collection) DVD commentary by film historian Tom Weaver

Various discussions on The Classic Horror Film Board (in my opinion, the greatest and most civilized of all film discussion boards.)

Back to the Black Lagoon documentary with film historian David Skal

When processing Creature information, it all boils down to this:  If Tom Weaver says it, I believe it.

Watch Creature from the Black Lagoon...

Purchase a Creature from the Black Lagoon DVD or Blu-Ray set at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

Rent Creature from the Black Lagoon at Netflix or other rental service.

© 2013 Lee Price

21 Essays on 1954

The Pajama Game playbill from
its first run on Broadway at the
St. James Theatre.

I grew up to the Broadway soundtrack of The Pajama Game—“Steam Heat,” “Hernando’s Hideaway,” and “There Once Was a Man” were my mother’s favorites. Going through my parents’ collections of ephemera, I recently found a playbill for The Pajama Game when it was playing at the St. James Theatre on Broadway. Did my parents see it in 1954, the year it opened?  Since the musical was enormously popular, running for 1,063 performances, the playbill could conceivably be from 1955 or even 1956. But I like to think they saw it fresh, soon after it opened, when it was the hottest ticket on Broadway and people were hearing the name of choreographer Bob Fosse for the first time.

For the next few months, the focus of 21 Essays will be on the year 1954. Dwight D. Eisenhower was President, Queen Elizabeth II was a young adult monarch, Joe DiMaggio married Marilyn Monroe, and Bill Haley and His Comets recorded “Rock Around the Clock.” Thinking about the year (still six years before my birth), I realize with a shock that I’m now approximately the same age as my grandparents would have been in 1954. As for my parents, they were settled in to a comfortable life on Cooper Street in Southampton, New York, enjoying their childless freedom and the occasional jaunt into New York City to catch a Broadway show.

As always, the focus of 21 Essays is very personal—I only write about subjects that particularly appeal to me. In reviewing the highlights of 1954, the following leap out at me:

--   The release of The Creature from the Black Lagoon

--   The release of Sansho the Bailiff

--   The release of Gojira (Godzilla)

--   The release of French Cancan

--   The release of The Seven Samurai

--   The release of Rear Window

--   The release of A Star Is Born

--   The publication of I Am Legend by Richard Matheson

--   The publication of Horton Hears a Who! by Dr. Seuss

--   The publication of The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien

Most of these would have passed unnoticed by my parents. The Southampton Theater showed Hollywood movies, not the new international cinema that would have required a visit to the art houses of Manhattan to follow. Of the foreign movies, only Godzilla received a major US release, and that was in a Hollywood recut that was still two years away. In the book publishing world, Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings took even longer to find its audience.

As for The Pajama Game, yes, I love it…  but I think I’ll hold off discussion until we reach the movie version of 1957, happily filmed with most of the original Broadway talent intact. Even without The Pajama Game, there’s plenty from 1954 to keep me occupied with my mini-essays for many, many weeks.

© 2013 Lee Price