• Directed by Jack Arnold
• Written by Harry Essex and Arthur Ross
• Starring
  • Richard Carlson
  • Julia Adams
  • Richard Denning
  • Antonio Moreno
  • Nestor Paiva

Know what the difference is between a cliche and a classic? A classic is a cliche done well. There are certain story elements which keep working in any narrative genre without getting old or worn out, because they derive their power directly from how the human brain works, and people haven’t changed appreciably for thousands of years. A well-told monster story works as well today as it did when grunted out around a campfire outside a cave, and is diminished not a whit by the thousands of monster stories told in the interim.

I’m given license to begin by hearkening back to the dawn of history, because this movie begins even further back: “In the beginning,” when explosions spawned the universe, and eventually the Earth coalesced. The fortunately-abbreviated history of life on land only stops to mention the fact that eventually something crawled from the ocean, and then fast-forwards to the present day, another fifteen million years. (Fifteen million? Don’t try learning evolutionary biology from this movie, okay? The science is definitely wacky, and figures like that are tossed around with wildly variable decimal points.)

The present, then, in the Amazon basin: Lone scientist Carl Maia (Antonio Moreno), with his native bearers, discovers a remarkable fossil sticking out of a Devonian-era deposit. It’s a handlike limb, and literally, it sticks right out, waving to the world to discover it. In fact, to any paleantologist watching, the sturdy preservation of the intact limb, strong enough to bear multiple careless handlings, is even more impressive than its form: A complex bony forearm, with clearly defined digits and even more clearly defined webbing between the fingers. As Maia exults and makes plans to head back to civilization with his find, we’re reassured that, yes, this will be more than a pseudo-documentary about a paleantological dig, for at the water’s edge, a clawed hand grasps momentarily to the grassy shore — a hand identical to the fossilized limb…

“The claw. Ooooooooh…“

Maia heads to the Instituto de Biologia Maritima (that’s Portuguese for “Institute of Maritime Biology,” you know), to show his find to his former protege, Dr. David Reed (Richard Carlson), who is, quite naturally, a marine biologist. With him is his assistant and significant other, Kay (Julia Adams). Running the institute is Mark Williams (Richard Denning), a hard-headed administrator with a voice like Kasey Casem, and there’s also the pipe-smoking Dr. Thompson (Whit Bissell), who looks like a young Harry Morgan. What’s conspicuously absent is any explanation as to why a Brazilian institution such as this is entirely staffed by Americans, but no matter. Everyone who sees the claw is hot to tackle an expedition to find more of the skeleton: David for its scientific value, and Mark for the prestige and grant money such a find will bring in. Note: I cannot in good conscience vouch for David’s scientific bona fides, as there are no beakers of colored liquids (a prerequisite for true science) around the Instituto. However, after David speechifies at length on the significance of research into amphibian evolution for the future of mankind in new and unknown environments, I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. At least if it will make him shut up.

The four scientists (I’m including Kay among them, though no degree or official standing is ever mentioned) soon find themselves working their way back up the Amazon on a rattle-trap barge captained by crusty old salt Lucas (Nestor Paiva). (An aside: Can I call him an “old salt” if he plies his trade in freshwater? Is there a specific sublimated mineral I should apply to his description?) Along the way, David accompanies the running parade of shoreline stock footage with further speechifying for Kay’s benefit, speaking of how the Amazon hasn’t changed since the Devonian era, which is now pegged as 150 million years ago. Look there, “Dr.” Reed, you really ought to stick to your own area of expertise so you don’t come off looking like an idiot: The Devonian ended more than 300 million years ago, when ferns and giant bugs and a few amphibians had made it to land; not only is the Amazon NOT “unchanged” since those days, there WASN’T an Amazon then, much less the “giant rats” you reference as proof. On the other hand, your area of expertise is lungfish, and not only are lungfish distinctly unsexy, but Kay is your research partner, so it’s not like you can tell her anything she doesn’t already know. You’re a likeable chap, so maybe you’d better just hush for a while.

“Gill man?” Looks like more of a leg man to me.

When the travelers arrive at Maia’s camp, though, they find both of of his native hirelings torn to shreds. Undaunted (save for, you know, keeping their lone female from viewing the carnage), they begin digging into the rock of the deposit… and digging… and digging… Eight days later (a period during which our men of science have scrupulously shaved and otherwise attended to their grooming), despairing of making their big find, David hits on an idea: Given that the deposit is near the water’s edge, a portion of it might have fallen into the river tributary, and stone fragments could have drifted downstream, toward a dead-end lagoon. A black lagoon, in fact. Dun-dun-dun-daaaah…

Up until this point, the movie has been a fairly competent but unremarkable creature feature. What sets it apart finally comes into evidence once the lagoon is reached, and David and Mark dive to check out rock samples: The underwater sequences. Beautifully and even lyrically shot, they hinge not only on great cinematography, but on the performance of the man inside the gill-man suit underwater, assumed to be Ricou Browning in most scenes (though debates continue about individual shots). Browning was an accomplished swimmer, and makes his flippered character seem a part of his environment; Browning’s lung capacity contributed greatly to the realism, as he would hold his breath for two and three minutes at a time to allow the gill-man to operate for long shots without trying to hide an air tank within the suit. The gill-man lingers around the periphery of David’s and Mark’s dive, then comes more out into open water in the scene that made the movie famous, as Kay dives in for a lazy turn around the lagoon and demonstrates that a well-formed human female in a white one-piece is alluring to males of any species. The sequences of Julia Adams swimming expertly, oblivious to the strange creature accompanying her and mirroring her movements beneath the water, have been rightly compared to a strange kind of ballet.

“This time, you lead!”

Alas, the lyricism is not to last; the gill-man accidentally catches himself in the boat’s net and leaves behind a claw tip in his escape, which the scientists immediately identify as being identical to the one in the fossil. Everyone is naturally animated by scientific curiosity, but Mark burns with an even stronger fire: The publicity and fame that such a find, a previously unknown aquatic creature of humanoid appearance, would bring. David is content to do his hunting with an underwater camera; Mark instead goes under with a spear gun, looking for a specimen to take home.

(I say “a specimen.” Frankly, I’ve always been mystified that not a one of the scientists, upon encountering this single example of a previously unknown species, even speculates that there might be a sustainable community of them, or even more than this one individual. No, from the beginning, the unchallenged assumption is that the gill-man is utterly unique.)

“All right, the next one’s a bunny. ‘Hop! Hop! Hop!’”

And what happens from there? Escalation, mostly. Mark wounds the gill-man with a spear; the gill-man responds by clambering aboard ship (with out-of-water performances usually attributed to Ben Chapman) and killing one of Lucas’s two crewmembers. The scientists drug the water and cage the creature; the gill-man escapes and mauls Dr. Thompson. There has been much speculation over the years as to whether the gill-man is in fact male, as is the common assumption; I think his behavior here pretty much justifies that assumption. And when the gill-man blocks the egress from the lagoon with underwater debris, you can almost see him wishing his wide fish eyes could effect a testosterone-y Clint Eastwood-style squint: “We’s gonna finish this.”

The success of a monster movie is of course greatly determined by the human protagonist characters, and this movie does a more-than-adequate job. And not just because Julia Adams spends some much-appreciated time in a swimsuit. The personality clash between David and Mark, the idealist and the materialist, adds an extra level to the simple conflict provided by the presence of the creature; in fact, you could draw a pedigree chart which traces a lineage from Dr. Mark Williams here to both Ian Holm’s character “Ash” in Alien (1979) and Paul Reiser’s “Burke” in Aliens (1986). But no matter the dynamics of the human crew, a monster movie lives or dies on the strength, the charisma if you will, of the monster. And the gill-man comes through with flying colors. The terrific suit design by Bud Westmore allows the creature to be fluid and dynamic in the water (in a suit painted yellow during filming to allow for greater visibility in underwater sequences); because of that, the creature’s plodding and uncertain gait on land is very easily interpreted as the gill-man being less comfortable in the environment — literally a “fish out of water” — than as the common curse of the creature feature, an ungainly monster suit. And there are features to compensate for the gill-man’s terrestrial lack of grace, to wit, the gasping mouth, and the pulsing gills and neck bladder. All of these features combine to give the gill-man the best on-screen persona of any of the cast. (Though Julia Adams does come a close second. Have I mentioned the white one-piece yet?)

“All done. Now you shave me!”

There has been talk for the past several years of Universal remaking this movie to reignite the franchise. And there are enough clunky facets and unexplored subtexts to the original (for instance, the fact that this fishman constitutes a lifeform that was intelligent since before our ancestors lost their tails) that almost, almost I am persuaded that this is a good thing. But then I remember that this precedent to Alien, “re-imagined” in the wake of all the post-Alien ripoffs, would likely lose instead all of those features worth keeping and replace them with utterly forgettable “new” ideas. Sometimes, like the gill-man’s species itself, ancient things should be preserved unchanged.

Some Notable Totables:

• body count: 5
• breasts: 0
• explosions: 7 (all from the opening “Big Bang” sequence)
• ominous thunderstorms: 0
• actors who’ve appeared on Star Trek: 2
  • Whit Bissell (Dr. Thompson) played “Station K12 Manager Lurry” in the classic episode “The Trouble With Tribbles”
  • Perry Lopez (“Tomas,” one of Lucas’s uncredited crew) played “Esteban Rodriguez” in the classic episode “Shore Leave”