Creature from the Black Lagoon (3D)
Images courtesy of Park Circus/Universal
US scientists venture deep into the Amazon jungle, seeking a half-human, half-fish creature reminiscent of the fabled sea monk. Eventually, they find this gill man, who proceeds to defend his habitat with all due brutality. But then there’s the all-round enchanting Kay, with whom the creature from another time falls hopelessly in love. Beauty and the Beast find each other in the heart of darkness—only in the big-screen fabulations of the great genre philosopher Jack Arnold! Arguably the most famous 3D movie of the early 1950s, it introduced a classic horror icon that inspired countless successors, chief among them Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water (2017). Even though the film flickers across television screens in two dimensions every now and again, the gill man can now finally be enjoyed in his full glory as he stretches his webbed hands out to the audience. (Olaf Möller)
Jack Arnold (1916–1992) is cherished to this day as the director of several genre classics. His star rose in the 1950s, when he joined Universal Studios and made the iconic It Came from Outer Space, Creature from the Black Lagoon, Tarantula, and The Incredible Shrinking Man in quick succession. Abandoning sci-fi, he made the comedic classic The Mouse That Roared in 1959 and increasingly turned toward TV. Later on, the 1970s saw him making the occasional blaxploitation (Boss Nigger) or sexploitation film.
Screenings
