Another one of David J. Skal's (author of "Hollywood Gothic") short video documentaries that are featured as extras on home video collections of Universal's monster movies, this one concerns the creature feature "Creature from the Black Lagoon" (1954) and, to a lesser extent, its two sequels "Revenge of the Creature" (1955) and "The Creature Walks Among Us" (1956). It had at least a couple informative parts for me and a few other interesting observations. The description of the design of the Gillman by a team of artists was interesting and a reprieve from having listened to the same stories about Jack P. Pierce's solitary makeup work on earlier Universal horror films. One of the talking heads, David Schecter provides a good overview of the musical score. It's also nice that, unlike the docs for earlier films, this one is able to include interviews with a few of the surviving cast and crew.
As for the film analysis, it's mostly generic story and character summaries, with the usual passing references to similarities with "Jaws" (1975), "King Kong" (1933), as well as "The Lost World" (1925). The analogy of the creature and the woman swimming scene as sex is apt, but the "burgeoning environmentalism" supposedly found in the woman's tossing a cigarette in the lagoon is a stretch.
As for the film analysis, it's mostly generic story and character summaries, with the usual passing references to similarities with "Jaws" (1975), "King Kong" (1933), as well as "The Lost World" (1925). The analogy of the creature and the woman swimming scene as sex is apt, but the "burgeoning environmentalism" supposedly found in the woman's tossing a cigarette in the lagoon is a stretch.