| The Gill-man | |
|---|---|
 The Gill-man, as portrayed by Ben Chapman in Creature from the Black Lagoon. |
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| Classification | Devonian amphibian |
| First appearance | Creature from the Black Lagoon |
| Last appearance | The Creature Walks Among Us |
| Created by | Harry Essex Arthur A. Ross Maurice Zimm |
| Portrayed by | Land Creature from the Black Lagoon Ben Chapman Revenge of the Creature Tom Hennesy The Creature Walks Among Us Don Megowan Water Ricou Browning |
The Gill-man is the titular character of the 1954 black-and-white science fiction film Creature from the Black Lagoon and its two sequels Revenge of the Creature (1955) and The Creature Walks Among Us (1956). Ricou Browning portrays the underwater Gill-man throughout the three films. Ben Chapman plays the Gill-Man on land in the first film, followed by Tom Hennesy in the second, and Don Megowan in the third. The Gill-man's popularity as an iconic monster of cinema has led to numerous cameo appearances, including in an episode of The Munsters, the motion picture The Monster Squad and a stage show.
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Concept and design
Original
According to producer William Alland, the idea behind the film was originally thought up by an unnamed Brazilian director whom he met at the home of Orson Welles. The unnamed man spoke of a friend of his who disappeared in the Amazon in an attempt at filming a documentary on a rumored population of fish people.[1] There were various designs for the creature. William Alland envisioned the creature as a "sad, beautiful monster" and the sculpture of it was much like that of an aquatic development of a human. Alland said, "It would still frighten you, but because how human it was, not the other way around". Originally, the creature's design was meant to incorporate a sleek, feminine eel-like figure, which did not have as many bumps and gills as the final version. The designer of the approved Gill-man was Disney animator Millicent Patrick, though her role was deliberately downplayed by makeup artist Bud Westmore, who for half a century would receive sole credit for the creature's conception.[1] The Gill-man suit was made from airtight molded sponge rubber and cost $15,000.[2] The underwater sequences were filmed at Wakulla Springs in North Florida (today a state park), as were many of the rear projection images. Part of the film was shot in Jacksonville, Florida on the south side of the river near the foot of the old Acosta Bridge. The underwater Gill-man suit was painted yellow for greater visibility in the dark waters.[1] Air was fed into the suit with a rubber hose.[2]
Remake
In October 2005, Breck Eisner signed on as director to a Creature from the Black Lagoon remake. "As a kid, I remember loving Jack Arnold's original version of this film," he explained. "What I really want to do is update an iconic image from the '50s and bring in more of the sci-fi sensibility of Alien or John Carpenter's The Thing."[3] Eisner spent six months designing the new incarnation of the Gill-man with Mark McCreery (Jurassic Park, and Davy Jones's designer). The director said the design was "very faithful to the original, but updated", and that the Gill-man will still be sympathetic.[4]
Biology
The Gill-man is fully amphibious, capable of breathing both in and out of the water. As shown in the first film, it is vulnerable to rotenone. It also possesses superhuman strength, which is flamboyantly displayed in the second and third films. It also possesses large, webbed hands with sharp claws on the tip of each finger. The Gill-man's scaly skin is extremely tough, which combined with a fast acting healing factor, allows it to survive wounds which would be fatal to humans, such as gunshots and full immolation. As shown in the third film, the creature has a dormant set of lungs, should its gills be irreparably damaged. The Gill-man is slightly photophobic, due to its murky water habitat.[5] 35% of the Gill-man's blood is composed of white corpuscles lacking a nucleus.[5]
Fictional character biography
Creature Trilogy
The last surviving member of a race of amphibious humanoids which lived during the Devonian age, the Gill-man (as christened by Dr. Thompson) dwelled in a lagoon located in a largely unexplored area of the Amazon Rainforest. The creature was apparently known to the natives, as the captain of the boat Rita mentioned local legends of a "man-fish".
After having found the fossilized remains of another Gill-man, a marine biology institute funds an expedition to the Amazon in order to find more remains. Though the Gill-man reacts violently to the intrusion, he develops a soft spot for the team's only female member, Kay and repeatedly tries to abduct her, going as far as building a makeshift dam to prevent their boat from escaping. After having killed numerous members of the expedition, the creature takes Kay to his underwater lair, where he is tracked down by the remaining survivors and riddled with bullets. The creature sinks into the depths of the lagoon.
The Gill-man survives and is captured and sent to the Ocean Harbor Oceanarium in Florida, where he is studied by an animal psychologist and his ichthyology student. The psychologist's attempts at communicating with the Gill-man are hampered by his attraction to his student. The Gill-man breaks free from his tank and escapes into the ocean. It is not long before he begins stalking the ichthyology student and kidnaps her. The Gill-man is soon tracked down and once again repeatedly shot, forcing him into the ocean.
After living for a short while in a Florida river, the creature is found again, and after a vicious struggle, is accidentally immolated. The Gill-man's injuries are so severe that his scales and gills fall off, forcing his captors to perform surgery on it to prevent it from suffocating. X-rays on the creature show he has begun developing a land animal's lung structure, so a tracheotomy is performed, opening an air passage to the lungs, transforming the Gill-man into an air-breathing, nearly human animal. Dressing him in a suit made of sail cloth, the creature is taken to a California estate where he is imprisoned within an electric fence. The creature escapes into the ocean, where he presumably drowns.
Breck Eisner remake
Producer Gary Ross said in March 2007 that the Gill-man's origin would be reinvented, with him being the result of a pharmaceutical corporation polluting the Amazon. "It’s about the rainforest being exploited for profit," he said.[6]
In literature
Creature from the Black Lagoon novelization
The 1977 novelization of Creature from the Black Lagoon by Carl Dreadstone offers a completely different origin for the Gill-man, who in this version of the story is a hermaphroditic giant, almost as big as the Rita itself, weighing in at 30 tons. This Gill-man is both cold blooded and warm blooded and also has a long whiplike tail. The gigantic creature is dubbed "AA", for "Advanced Amphibian," by the expedition team members. After slaying most of the team members, destroying a Sikorsky helicopter, and kidnapping Kay more than once, the creature is killed by the crew of a United States Navy torpedo boat.
Time's Black Lagoon
In Paul Di Filippo's novel Time's Black Lagoon, the Gill-man is depicted as descending from a race of extraterrestrials who came to Earth during the Devonian period on a giant spaceship called The Mother. The Gill-people have the ability to communicate telepathically among themselves and among the human characters. Alphas such as "Fleshmolders", "Mudshapers", and "Fishcallers" are highly telepathic individuals in their tribal communities.
The Creature from the Black Lagoon itself is a degenerate member of this race, descended from an individual who explored deep in the ocean and became exposed to archaebacteria, becoming deformed and insane, driven to infect others with the disease. Eventually there were no healthy gill-people left, and the race's numbers dwindled over the epochs to one individual in the 1950s, which is the one that appears in the original film.
Theme park attraction
The gill-man will be the star of Creature from the Black Lagoon- The Musical, an upcoming Live performance show to be added to the Universal Studios Hollywood theme park in Los Angeles, California. It is scheduled to tentatively debut in the spring of 2009, when it will replace Fear Factor LIVE.
In popular culture
- In an Abbott and Costello sketch, Gill-man appears in a haunted house after Frankenstein's monster faints at the sight of Lou Costello.
- The creature made a cameo appearance on an episode of TV's The Munsters as visiting Uncle Gilbert.
- The Gill-man reappears in Fred Dekker’s The Monster Squad, where it shows little interest in human females as opposed to its classic counterpart. Instead, it allies itself with Count Dracula, Frankenstein's monster, the Mummy and the Wolfman in order to secure a magical amulet which will allow them to conquer the world. After snapping the necks of several police-men, the Gill-man is killed by Monster Squad member Horace, who shoots it with a shotgun.
For its appearance in The Monster Squad, the gill-man was redesigned by Stan Winston in order to merely suggest Milicent Patrick’s original design due to licensing issues. The Gill-man was the first costume portrayal of Tom Woodruff, Jr. who would later work prominently in the Alien film series.[7]
- A creature somewhat similar in appearance to the gill-man, though more massive and capable of emitting plasma blasts from its mouth, appears in the Teen Titans episode "Episode 257-494" as the Creature From Jones Lake.
- The Creature from the Black Lagoon appeared in the Robot Chicken episode "Shoe" voiced by Seth Green. He complains that he prefers to be called the "Creature from the African American Lagoon." In the episode "We Are a Humble Factory" the Creature (voiced by Breckin Meyer) tried to create his own cereal called "The Creature with the Black Macaroons".
- The character of Rikuo (a fishman creature also known as Aulbath) from Capcom's Darkstalkers series is a similar being, and also named in honor of Ricou Brownings's portrayal of the Gill-Man from Creature from the Black Lagoon.
- The Gill-man lived in Count Dracula's castle in the first draft of Van Helsing.[8]
- The Japanese action series Kamen Rider Kiva includes a race inspired by the Gill-man called the Basshaa.
- The 2009 film Monsters vs Aliens has a character quite similar to Gill-man called "The Missing Link."
The creature also appears in the novel "It" by Stephen King.
See also
References
- ^ a b c Ferrari, Andrea (2003). Il Cinema Dei Mostri. pp. 287. ISBN 88-435-9915-1.
- ^ a b Rouin, Jeff (1977). The Fabulous Fantasy Films.
- ^ Snyder, Gabriel (2005-10-19). "U's 'Creature' meets maker". Variety. http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117931280.html?categoryid=13&cs=1. Retrieved 2008-01-10.
- ^ Rotten, Ryan (2008-05-02). "Excl: Eisner on Creature from the Black Lagoon Remake!". Shock Till You Drop. http://www.shocktillyoudrop.com/news/topnews.php?id=5919. Retrieved 2008-05-03.
- ^ a b "The Gill-man's movie trivia". Ben Chapman Family. July 2008. http://www.the-reelgillman.com/trivia/gilltrivia.html. Retrieved 9.
- ^ Cieply, Michael (2007-03-12). "On Screens Soon, Abused Earth Gets Its Revenge". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/12/movies/12vill.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper&oref=slogin. Retrieved 2008-01-10.
- ^ Jody Duncan & James Cameron (2007). The Winston Effect: The Art and History of Stan Winston Studio. ISBN 1845761502.
- ^ Derek Thompson. "Projects". http://www.derekmonster.com/projects_film_vanhels.html. Retrieved 2008-12-11.
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