"For those of us who grew up in the 1950s, there was only one Universal monster:" "The creature from the Black Lagoon." "Dracula, Frankenstein and the others had not yet been released to TV, and the Creature was a film you could only see in a theatre." "It was originally released in 3-D, a great '50s gimmick Hollywood unleashed to stay competitive with television." "But even without 3-D, the film was a smash hit." "It has become an undisputed classic of its kind." "I recently talked to some of the original cast members and to some other people with special insights into the Creature's charisma." "So come with me now, as we take a nostalgic journey back to the Black Lagoon." "The Creature from the Black Lagoon ushered in a new age of monster making." "There would be no Alien without the creature from the Black Lagoon." "Every elaborate monster since then owes him a debt of some sort." "He was really a nice guy." "They were the interlopers." "They came to his home." "It'd be the same thing - if you went home tonight and you found people having a party in your living room, how would you feel?" "There is a poignancy to the creature, that you think" ""It's too bad he's such an ugly creature, because he has something in him that longs to be better, that longs to be human, that longs to love."" "And there's something that touches our heart." "Legends about underwater monsters are as old as recorded history." "Frightening tales of humanoid sea serpents, sirens, mermaids and mermen are staples of world folklore, perhaps because they remind us of our own ancient links to the deep." "Be they swamps, lagoons, or the open sea, watery locations have always been a perfect place for scary stories, from pulp magazines to Hollywood blockbusters." "But nearly a quarter-century before Jaws took its bite out of popular culture," "Universal Studios had already given the world another classic reason to stay out of the water." "The Creature from the Black Lagoon was built on a tradition that really began with a silent film called The Lost World, based on Arthur Conan Doyle's novel, in which a group of scientists venture to a lost plateau in Brazil" "where prehistoric animals roam free." "Universal producer William Alland combined The Lost World concept with a purportedly true story he had been told at a dinner party about an amorous half-man, half-fish that was said to live in the Amazon river." "Following some preliminary treatments, Arthur Ross and Harry Essex developed a script called Black Lagoon, which remained the film's working title through production." "For director, Alland chose Jack Arnold, who had directed Universal's previous science-fiction spectacular," "It Came From Outer Space, another Alland production." "Arnold would soon become Universal's top specialist in '50s sci-fi, his many films including Tarantula and The Incredible Shrinking Man, which would be remembered as his masterpiece." "It Came From Outer Space had been produced in 3-D, a process then at the height of its popularity." "Since no 3-D film had yet been shot underwater, it was a foregone conclusion that the Black Lagoon would literally leap off the screen." "It's almost impossible to explain to a young viewer what it was like to see a 3-D movie during the heyday of 3-D films." "And envision, if you will, that you're sitting in an audience, and suspended before you is a three-dimensional cube of water." "Remarkable how vivid that was." "Two interlocked cameras photographed each scene from different perspectives." "The underwater version of the 3-D rig was specially designed by cameraman Scotty Welbourne." "In theatres, precisely synchronised projectors overlapped the images, which were fused into three dimensions by the use of polarising filters." "This was a projection filter that would have been used for one of the two projectors." "The light would pass through this filter, be polarised and then reflect from the silver screen, and then the audience would be wearing these type of Polaroid glasses, so each eye would only see the image from either the right or the left projector." "And that's what was utilised to achieve the 3-D effect." "The screenplay insisted on an object for the creature's affection." "It was only appropriate that Universal ingénue Julia Adams, later known as Julie, was one of the first performers to be cast." "In those days the studio simply assigned us movies to do." "When I was assigned this picture, I thought "Oh, no!"" "I'd never had to do a horror picture." "But I was a pretty good little girl, so I usually did what they said." "And then, once I got into it, I had a lovely time." "Actor Richard Carlson, the star of It Came From Outer Space, became a fixture of science-fiction films through his portrayals of scientist heroes." "Quite a change for Hollywood, where most scientists were mad, or at least bent on world domination." "He had a wonderful sophistication that I thought worked well in these pictures, because when you put Richard Carlson there and he believes in what's going on, it gives it a great ring of truth because you think "It must be true."" "What would the creature look like, and, more important, who would play him?" "The first actor considered for the role was Glenn Strange, a former stunt man who had played the Frankenstein monster in three Universal films." "But Strange didn't consider himself much of a swimmer, and turned the part down." "Ricou Browning was a college student at the time Universal began scouting underwater locations in Florida." "And someone suggested to Universal, or to the producer " "William Alland I believe his name was - that Wakulla Springs would be a good location for the creature to be filmed." "It was a very eerie-looking place, mainly because Ed Ball, who owned it, had protected it over the years and it was just totally undeveloped as far as civilisation was concerned." "So Jack Arnold and Scotty Welbourne, who was the cameraman," "I picked them up at the airport, took them to the springs and showed them around, and they liked what they saw." "Scotty got his underwater camera out and he asked me if I would swim in front of it, so they could get some perspective as to the size of logs and people and fish." "I said "Sure." So I did." "I'd say a couple of weeks later, maybe three weeks," "I got a call from Jack Arnold, and he said "We like the way you swim."" ""Would you be the creature of the Black Lagoon?"" "I said "I don't know what it is, but fine."" "We shot everything of the first unit on the back lot at Universal." "And the underwater scenes were shot in Florida, for the clarity of the water and so on." "So we were really shooting those two parts at the same time." "But the illusion, somehow, is that we are truly in a very mysterious and faraway place." "Two units, of course, required two creatures, as well as swimming doubles for the principal actors." "Ben Chapman, a 24-year-old Universal contract player, portrayed the gill-man above water." "The part called for a tall person - 6' 5"." "Actually, Universal Studios had him as 6' 5", 300lb, and I didn't weigh 300lb." "But once I got into the suit, with the helmet we called the head, and the bottom of it, it put me at about 6' 7"." "So it gave him a more imposing stature." "Today the creature's appearance is so familiar that it's almost a shock to learn that the original concept was very different." "The head of the studio, Ed Mull, had a different vision of the creature." "He wanted something that was a little like the Oscar figure, eel-like, almost." "It didn't have as many gills or bumps on the face or the head." "And it was slicker, I would say." "Not quite as busy as the final creature." "He's more streamlined, which is cool, but he does look quite a bit different." "He does have the fins in the back." "They retained that, kept that pretty much." "So they made it all up and we tested it." "They tested it in the tank at Universal." "And then the decision was made that no, it did not work." "There's nothing to back this up, but the sculptor, Chris Mueller, who did this, said he had heard later on this might become the female creature, if they did that in a sequel." "They never did it." "This probably would have worked." "It would have been a nice little female creature, I think." "Universal's head of make-up was Bud Westmore, who had replaced the legendary Jack Pierce." "Unlike Pierce, Westmore supervised a large creative staff." "The look was created by Milicent Patrick." "She worked over at Universal and did a lot of designs for different films." "She came up with this little fella here." "I think it was her dream child." "She loved him." "It looked exactly like her sketches." "I have a special interest in Milicent Patrick mostly because she has been rendered so invisible by time." "She clearly had a lot to do with sketching the concepts for the creature, all versions." "She went on tour to promote the movie, when it first came out, because she was so photogenic, and she was such a good interview subject and she was so talented." "I get the impression that her contribution was buried by Bud Westmore." "Westmore's construction team, headed by Jack Kevan and Chris Mueller, made full-body moulds of both actors on which they built a flexible exterior shell." "And then they had different sculptors." "They had a crew of about nine guys." "One guy would work on the chest part, one on the arms." "One sculptor just couldn't do all of this." "As far as the head goes, it was sculpted by Chris Mueller, a very fine sculptor." "But I've always given credit to the person that put me together, from the inception to the back lot:" "Jack Kevan." "And I just feel that Jack Kevan never got the recognition that he should have, because he was overshadowed by Bud Westmore." "This particular head is one of the last castings out of the Ben Chapman mould, the land-creature mould." "And then my friend, Bill Malone, actually reconstructed this whole suit, and almost every scale is where the actual suit was." "Ben Chapman thought this was one of his suits." "It fooled him totally." "The creature from the Black Lagoon's suit is a big one-piece body stocking, where they sculpted everything and put it onto the suit." "And I had to watch my weight, because I couldn't gain weight or lose weight." "It took me two to three hours to get in and out, because it had to be put in exactly right." "They put me in a leotard, full-bodied, and then they would paint glue on the leotard and put pieces of foam rubber that was moulded, to see the texture of skin this creature would have on it." "Sometimes when they would put the glue on, it would go through the leotard, and it would start setting up and get very hot and would burn me in several places." "I still have a scar from one of them." "The underwater suit was different from this one mainly because Ricou Browning was a lot smaller." "So the whole suit was built in smaller scale." "They used pieces of this suit and scaled it down." "In fact, you'll see this parting here." "On Ricou's suit, that part isn't there." "It's put together cos he was smaller." "You never see them together, so you never see that." "There are slight differences in the head, too." "Like Chris said, when he was sculpting it, their heads were different configurations." "Ben's head was more round, I think, and Ricou's might have been more oval, and so he had trouble getting the same end result." "But as long as you didn't see them together, you never saw it." "It's all foam rubber, so they could get movement if they needed." "They had a special head that they made up that made the gills flex." "You see this..." "That kind of thing." "They ran tubes up and had compressed air." "They had bladders that would come out, but that was just a head for that one shot." "They were originally going to build it so that I could wear a face mask." "But when we attempted to do that, we found out the face mask stuck out much too far and you couldn't do it." "And then we talked about using swimming goggles, like this." "I stopped that mainly because when you have the goggles on inside the head, and water gets in, you have no way of getting the water out of the goggles." "So I chose not to have anything on, and just shoot it with bare eyes." "Although some publicity photos featured a brightly coloured creature, the actual suit was much less flamboyant." "The original creature was this soft moss-green." "A very subtle colour so that it picked up shadows, and it had the feeling of reality, of flesh really being there." "And most of the re-creations are too bright." "They're much too vivid a green and sometimes the lips are red." "They're garish compared to the original." "In addition to the creature's elaborate costume, the film featured another eye-catching piece of specially constructed apparel:" "The heroine's bathing suit." "They wanted it to be a unique bathing suit." "They didn't wanna go to the store and buy one." "And it was rather racy for its day, because it was pulled up a bit at the thigh." "Now it's so tame, of course." "So that it had its own look." "And it was always very difficult to get it on every day with the body make-up, so the body make-up didn't get on the white." "Naturally, they made three or four." "The underwater scenes were supervised on location by James C Havens, while the Hollywood unit was personally directed by Jack Arnold." "I had a lot of respect for Jack." "We wound up the best of friends." "But he was a tough director, a no-nonsense director." "When I first got the part, I went up to Jack and I said "How do you want me to play him?"" "He said "The only thing I don't want you to do is make a cartoon out of him."" "And he said "I don't want you to walk." "I want you to glide."" ""Because, remember, he's a fish." "He comes out of the water."" ""So we want you to glide."" "So one day I came into the studio and he says "Ben, I solved your problems."" "I said "How's that?" Underneath of my boots that I used to put on, they attached 10lb weights, flattened out." "Although production went smoothly for both units, there were minor mishaps caused by the creature costume's restricted field of vision." "I was carrying Julie in my arms through this cave." "And she was slung over my arms with her head down, and I couldn't see where I was going, and I went right into an artificial rock." "I had no idea what happened." "She started kicking and they were yelling "Cut!"" "I can't say I was truly injured, but it gave me a bit of a start." "First of all I'm freezing cold, trying not to have goose bumps, and then the bump." "There's a famous picture that appeared in a newspaper of Dick Carlson, Dick Denning, myself," "Jack Arnold and a nurse patching her up." "We took a couple of hours off and Julie was ready to go again." "Put a little make-up on it." "But she was very professional." "When Creature from the Black Lagoon was released in 1954, even the most die-hard classic-monster fans were impressed." "I didn't know what the creature was." "I saw pictures." "It looked like a neat monster." "But I had no idea what I was gonna see, and when I went to see the creature..." "You could stay in the theatre all day." "I think I stayed there and saw it four times in a row." "Creature's dramatic musical score contributed materially to the film's success." "In addition to library themes, original music was provided by three composers:" "Henry Mancini, Hans J Salter and Herman Stein." "Science-fiction films have a requirement that romances and crime melodramas don't have, and that is that you have to get suckered into believing that these ridiculous events can actually be taking place." "There is no link between man and fish, but with Creature from the Black Lagoon you're convinced that somehow this happened." "You don't think about these things because the stories are well-written, but also because you get emotionally involved in the pictures, and emotional involvement comes in a large part in these films due to the music." "One thing it has which sets it apart from most of the other pictures is it has a theme that is just beaten to death." "You can hardly get a single view of him without the theme sounding." "I think it sounds about 130 times in the picture." "The other reason why there's a lot of music in Creature from the Black Lagoon is because there's a lot of scenes without dialogue and sound effects because a lot of the scenes take place underwater." "Nobody wants to listen to bubbles for 20 minutes, so instead we get wonderful music there." "While dramatically effective, the use of a composite score was not the preferred method of working for most composers." "The composers were against this form of scoring." "This is very primitive scoring, going back to the beginning of film music in the '30s." "But they were obviously told from on high" ""We wanna hear the creature theme every time."" "So they no doubt grumbled a little and they did their job, and their job was to incorporate this very intrusive theme." "It's not very musical, it's a very strident theme played on flutter-tongue trumpets, which really gets to your gut there." "But they had to incorporate that into their music every time they saw the creature." "The composers were rather typecast, even at this early stage of their careers." "Henry Mancini, even at this early stage, was known to be the person who wrote light music." "Not light in the standpoint of not good and not complex." "He was a fabulous writer from the start." "But he wrote romantic melodies." "He wrote playful melodies." "Herman Stein was a jack-of-all-trades." "Herman got main titles and end titles." "He also got a lot of scenes that were devoid of dialogue and sound effects." "He did the great swimming sequence with Julie Adams and the creature." "Then you give Hans Salter the horror sequences." "So Hans scored a lot of the end of the picture when the creature is attacking." "What I like about Creature's score is it's a marvellous patch job of a score." "It takes music from horror films of the '40s, like The Wolf Man and Ghost of Frankenstein." "It takes westerns like Bend of the River." "It takes all these disparate elements, combines them with original music, and somehow shuffles them together, rerecords them, and makes this score unlike any of the other Universal horror sci-fi pictures." "And I like the way everything somehow hangs together." "Everyone thinks they hear their favourite Creature music, and they're shocked when they find out this music was originally written to accompany a scene where a doctor is curing a sick horse." "One of the film's most memorable sequences is the provocative pas de deux between Julie Adams and her underwater admirer." "It is one of those concepts, one of those images, that is, on the surface, rather straightforward." "He's curious, he's observing, he's in his natural element." ""There's a different shape up there that I haven't seen before."" "Perfectly simple and straightforward, but at the same time it carries with it overtones, connotations, implications." "And a number of authors have talked about how sexual this exchange is." "I was eight years old in 1954 when this movie played in theatres." "I must have thought about its sexual content." "I remember thinking to myself when Julia Adams first jumps into the water and we see the view of her from below, and she's backlit by the light that's filtering through the water, she could be completely nude." "A fella named John Baxter correctly pointed out years ago in Science Fiction in the Cinema, he said it was "a stylised representation of sexual intercourse"." "And he's absolutely correct." "Jack Arnold told me this was correct." "But it's done at a very subliminal level." "It's not as overt as many film historians would like us to believe." "It is like a love dance, and you feel his heart, that he's falling in love with this creature who's swimming on top of the water." "And he looks and so on." "So it's really a love scene." "What's important for the viewer is not so much that this is some sort of sexual interplay between the creature and this woman of a completely different species." "It's the idea that for the viewer this subtext connects and makes the creature's affection for her seem palpable." "And as long as one doesn't stop to think about the logic of it, and is propelled by the action of the film from that point on, we're left breathless and logic doesn't enter into it at all." "But because we linger, the longer we linger, the more overtones it seems capable of holding for us." "And because he is swimming in a kind of matched action with hers, it's like a mirror reflection." "You can't help but think that the creature is some embodiment of instinct, of force, and it's under the surface of the civilised, modern humans." "It's lurking there, while the calm, placid movement continues on the surface." "Jack Arnold often inserted subtle social commentary into his films, and Creature displays intriguing clues of a burgeoning environmentalism." "There's a very surprising - to me, it was very surprising - shot in the film where we see the heroine simply standing on the deck of the boat, waiting for something and finishing a cigarette." "Then she takes her cigarette and tosses it into the water." "In 1954 I probably would have taken it for granted." "This is what everybody does." "Just toss your cigarettes wherever you want." "But I look at that now and I think "Go pick that up."" "And then the camera moves over and shows the creature looking up." "He's probably looking up at her, because he's had his eye on her for a while now." "But the way the cigarette links them, we have it appear as if he is noticing what she's doing to his world." "There's a transition at that point." "The very next scene shows the results of the scientist's attempt to use this native poison to render unconscious the creature." "They have scattered this in the lagoon, and so juxtaposing that to the business with the cigarette," "I can't help but think "What are you doing to the natural world of this lagoon?"" "Putting those pieces together in that fashion certainly suggests to me somebody, in making that film, wanted to make an implication, and succeeded." "Since the gill-man made a considerable splash with his first film, a sequel wasn't far behind." "They bring the creature back to civilisation." "It literally could have begun on the next day after the end of the final events in the first movie." "Having brought him back to civilisation, it is only fair that he get loose and raise havoc, and, like King Kong, kidnap the girl of his dreams, who has transmogrified from Julie Adams into Lori Nelson, but never mind." "It's another pale creature in white that he has a hankering for." "In those days most people didn't want to do science fiction, or creature pictures, or whatever you wanted to call them." "It was kind of like it was taboo, or you were considered down on your luck, so to speak, if you had to do one." "Of course, now they've got a tremendous cult following." "The science-fiction genre is very popular, very collectable." "And the films at Universal, the science-fiction films, were very well-done, and as it turned out, it's probably one of the films that I'm most remembered for." "Hey." "Take it easy." "John Agar and I were scientists." "Ichthyologists, if you will." " I'm studying ichthyology." " Ichthyology?" "That's a ten-dollar word." " How about explaining it to us?" " Ichthyology is the study of fish." "I see." "Wait for me." "Like the heroine of the first film, the female scientist in Revenge created romantic vibrations among certain land creatures as well." " Aren't you gonna wait for him?" " And let Mr America cut into my cake?" "What's the matter, old-timer?" "You shouldn't walk these boys too fast, Helen." "They can't take it." "Strong upstairs, but no stamina." "Once more, Ricou Browning played the swimming creature in a production shot almost entirely at Florida's Marineland Studios." "When we did the second creature film," "I said "How about let's get credit for being the creature?"" "And they gave me a big argument and said" ""No, we'll give you a lot of publicity, help you get other jobs."" "And I said "No, I want credit." But they wouldn't credit anybody as the creature." "Although Ricou didn't receive an on-screen credit, he did turn in an out-of-costume cameo appearance as a laboratory assistant." "We all got along great." "It was like a family." "And John was such a super guy to work with." "One night we had a big water fight at the motel and just about wrecked the place." "Another unbilled cameo turn was made by a young performer who, later in his career, would never worry about the marquee value of his name:" "Clint Eastwood." "Like many science-fiction films of the Cold War period," "Revenge featured obligatory scenes of invasion and social turmoil." "Reynold Brown did a marvellous series of paintings for the ad campaign for that film in which the creature is carrying a woman." "But in the background there's consternation - people running and zigzagging across the street in utter panic." "As a young boy beginning to develop a hostile, antisocial nature," "I couldn't wait to see this movie." "Revenge of the Creature should be called Revenge of the Scientists, because there's so much about what goes on in this film where the scientists are in a sense tormenting this creature in captivity, in the name of science," "as they go through a process of negative conditioning." "The purpose of this is:" "Let him reach for the thing he wants, say "Stop", and when he doesn't stop, shock him with the cattle prod." "This seems awfully unfair, offering something he likes, he wants, lure him that way, and then hurt him." "Revenge of the Creature was again directed by Jack Arnold, who once more displayed his trademark skills of planning and organisation, including shot-by-shot storyboards." "Jack Arnold storyboarded most of his films, as far as I'm aware." "I've seen storyboard drawings for several of them." "The drawing exactly matches the shot." "He didn't tend to deviate from that preplanning." "Jack Arnold was very efficient and very well-organised." "A very good director in terms of technical ability." "As far as direction to the actors, in terms of acting or emotional support," "I guess he was the kind of a director that said "Stand here", "Stand there", "Walk here", "Walk there", but, creative-wise, you just were on your own." "No, he just said "Do your thing."" "He liked the way I swam and just left it up to me." "I found Jack to be extremely easy to work with." "Tom Hennesy, who was the topside creature in that film, he and I roomed together." "And at that time you could have an alligator." "He bought a baby..." "I think it was a cayman - a South American alligator." "He bought it and kept it in the bathtub." "So whenever I had to take a shower, we had to get the alligator out of the bathtub." "Engrossed in their underwater encounters with the creature, the cast almost forgot about the full-time inhabitants of the Marineland tank, including sharks, barracudas and moray eels, which swam freely with the performers and crew." "They assured us that the fish were fed every hour." "And we watched them feed the fish, so we felt pretty secure." "At least in those days, I guess, we were very naive." "I suppose today I wouldn't wanna do it." "I was sitting on the anchor and waiting, in between scenes, just breathing on the air hose, and I felt something tugging at my foot." "And I looked down and it was a turtle, a big sea turtle." "He took a bite out of the heel of the creature's foot and just took a bite and took off with it." "Everybody jumped in the water, chasing the turtle to get the heel back." "They had to dry it with blowers and glue the heel back on the foot cos it was the last pair." "So we had to watch out for the turtles." "They thought I was food, I guess." "Although the first make-up for the gill-man had been a masterpiece, significant changes were made for the sequel." "This head is from Revenge of the Creature, and it's a completely different sculpt than the original creature head." "You can see this head is quite a bit rounder and thicker throughout." "The other creature's more of an oval shape, and it's just wider throughout here." "They changed the eyes, which I don't think was a good idea." "They should have kept the more fish eyes." "These are like Ping-Pong balls." "The configuration of the mouth is different." "It has a different look." "Like the first film, Revenge of the Creature was shot in 3-D, but didn't receive wide distribution in the stereoscopic format." "Revenge of the Creature was a bit of, I think, an experiment on Universal's part to see if there would be a revival in 3-D." "It doesn't work quite as well in 3-D, though." "There appear to have been a lot of problems, technically, with one of their underwater cameras." "It was time-consuming in reloading and getting it ready." "It flooded, I think once, maybe twice." "They had panic time fixing the cameras and getting ready to go back in the water." "3-D is hard to project." "You've gotta have a projectionist on the ball." "In many theatres, the projectionist just didn't care." "If either print would run just a frame out of sync with the other, it would destroy the effect." "Two or three frames out of sync and it would give you a major headache, and would be very, very hard on your eyes." "And so a lot of people I don't think realised." "They thought the 3-D was bad." "It was bad projection." "When you start to realise what was happening in the exhibition end, you could understand why the system died out so quickly." "In Universal's final film, The Creature Walks Among Us, civilisation once more attempted to tame the gill-man, this time through radical surgery." "They go to the Florida Everglades with the purpose of capturing the creature, and he's inadvertently burned." "In order to save his life, they perform emergency surgery." "The fire burned away the outer scale." "There's a structure of human skin underneath it." "Two separate coverings." "He had lungs and gills." "The creature is transformed into a much more human-looking character." "And that's such intriguing irony." "Now that he's human, he's not graceful any more." "He's awkward and clumsy." "And he stands there looking out toward the ocean, feeling drawn to something that he can never have any more." "Through a trilogy of films, the creature becomes something human." "We begin to understand him as being alone and isolated in a world in which he doesn't fit." "And it's that pattern, it's that pattern of evolution within those three films." "He gives the creature a durability that doesn't exist in most horror films." "Apart from the creature's primal appeal," "I think the other thing that sums him up the best is what Billy Wilder had Marilyn Monroe say in The Seven Year Itch, about the creature, which was:" ""He was kind of scary-looking, but he wasn't really all bad."" ""I think he just craved a little affection, a sense of being loved and needed and wanted."" "But the creature has been loved, thanks to a half-century of aggressive marketing." "He's been loved and cherished and, most of all, collected by generations of film fans." "The creature may have made more off-camera appearances than any other Universal monster." "Creature collectables have included magazines and model kits, figurines, wind-up toys, candy dispensers, wristwatches, even a pinball machine." "In fact, there's hardly a product you can name that hasn't made some use of the creature from the Black Lagoon, America's favourite amphibian." "I wanna thank you fans for keeping the gill-man alive for all these years, because, without you, he'd have been dead and forgotten a long time ago." "I get, I'd say, five or six letters a month." "At least that many." "Sometimes more." "And people send me pictures to sign." "And they all have great things to say about the movie." "They love it, and they were scared to death, and it's not as bad as some of the horror films today, and it leaves something to your imagination." "Basically we're all storytellers, or weavers of dreams." "We have monsters in dreams and so on." "Maybe it's a way of making friends with those monsters, these horror pictures." "I'm delighted that people still enjoy this picture." "Using the tried and true formula of beauty and the beast," "Universal created its last classic monster character, proving once and for all that seaweed could be just as creepy as cobwebs." "For more stories about the making of this film and information on the cast and crew, check out our special production notes and feature audio commentary, accessible from the main menu." "For Universal Studios Home Video, I'm David Skal."