Creature from the Black Lagoon guy dies

[BillTre]

Ricou Browning who played the Creature in underwater scenes died at the age of 93.

He was an underwater performer at several Florida attractions and was also involved in the flipper movies and TV shows.

I really like the first creature feature which I saw in its original 3D (via polarized glasses) at a college film festival as an undergrad.

Famous underwater stalking scene:

The film was made in 1953, the year I was born.

 

[berkeman]

Inspiration for...?

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/static/sys...at&fit=max&s=fea334af9214d35c1051b660171ea49f

 

[phinds]

R.I.P.

I remember seeing that movie when it came out. It was at a Saturday matinee where we got to see a movie (think Roy Rogers, usually), a serial episode (think Flash Gordon) and 5 or 6 cartoons, all for 25 cents.

When the creature first appeared, it scared the ever lovin' crap out of me and my friends. We spent a lot of the rest of the movie hiding down behind the seats in front of us.

I look at it now and see how cheesy it looks by today's standards, but boy howdy it was really something back then.

 

[hutchphd]

I really like the first creature feature which I saw in its original 3D (via polarized glasses) at a college film festival as an undergrad.

The truly original 3D feature did not use polarized light (I think)
It used the wonderful cyan/magenta glasses (it was a black and white film). I know I saw it in a 3D double feature with "It Came from Outer Space" also cyan/magenta. It took days before my eyeballs recovered!!

 

[dlgoff]

It used the wonderful cyan/magenta glasses

Yep. I remember using those. I probably still have a pair with my lenses and optical things collection.

edit: I just looked and I was mistaken. The glasses I have were for the viewing of a solar eclipse. But I do remember using a pair for the 3D movies.

 

[BillTre]

Inspiration for...?

I read somewhere that it was like the Hunchback of Notre Dame or King Kong in that the "monster" wanted the girl for non-eating purposes.

The truly original 3D feature did not use polarized light (I think)
It used the wonderful cyan/magenta glasses (it was a black and white film). I know I saw it in a 3D double feature with "It Came from Outer Space" also cyan/magenta. It took days before my eyeballs recovered!!

Wikipedia says it was both:

Creature from the Black Lagoon was filmed in three dimensions (3D) and originally projected by the polarized light method. The audience wore viewers with gray polarizing filters, similar to the viewers most commonly used today. Because the brief 1950s 3D film fad had peaked in mid-1953 and was fading fast in early 1954, many audiences actually saw the film "flat", in two dimensions (2D). Typically, the film was shown in 3D in large downtown theaters and flat in smaller neighborhood theaters. In 1975, Creature from the Black Lagoon was released to theaters in the red-and-blue-glasses anaglyph 3D format, which was also used for a 1980 home video release on Beta and VHS videocassettes.[1]

I really like the 3D effect when he was swimming through a maze on underwater plants. Quite effective.

 

[hutchphd]

Very interesting. As memory serves I saw the anaglyph (cyan-blue) version in downtownn Charlottesville in the late 1970's. I had just assumed it was the original method (the polarized versions require special equipment).
For my money the best 3D uses right and left circularly polarized light for the orthogonal polarizations. They require only passive glasses but don't suffer from the annoying flare when one rotates (roll) one's head that say IMAX 3D produces. None of them seem to be that popular......

 

[Klystron]

Twenty years after release of the "Creature from the Black Lagoon" the dive crew provided SCUBA and certification classes for State Department and certain affiliated military members stationed in SEA.

The diving courses included hours of conditioning in swimming pools including group circle swim wearing fins, mask and snorkel without touching bottom or sides. Fifty years later I still swim this way for hours. Fantastic exercise, although by the end of the outdoor season my calf muscles grow too large to wear 'boot cut' jeans. ;-)

The dive master conducted classroom lectures including safety, buoyancy, gas mixture, compression and decompression, mixed with humorous recounting of creating and filming the underwater sequences in the movie. I still own his SCUBA diving textbook packed away somewhere with my NAUI and PADI cards, plus an exquisite SeamCo double-bladed dive knife reputed to be able to sever towing cables that could ensnare an underwater swimmer.

The sheath was missing from the knife I bought from his dive shop. So, he unstrapped the Nemrod sheath from his leg and gave it to me to wear on my certification dive around Ko Larn Island in the Gulf of Siam. He was a funny raconteur, strict dive master, and good instructor. "Rest in the Silence, the Deep."