Revenge in The Sunshine State

REVENGE OF THE CREATURE-1955-In the this first sequel to THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON, Captain Lucas (Nestor Paiva) once again takes an expedition to the Amazon to try and find "The Gill Man". Two guys are looking to bring him/it back to the States. After one of the guys Joe Hayes (John Bromfield) is almost killed underwater, they use dynamite to stun the creature and take him back to an aquarium in Florida. Dr. Clete Ferguson (John Agar) goes to study it. At first The Gill Man is in a coma but when he comes out of it the trouble starts. He/It nearly takes Joe out again but he's held in check by a chain fastened to the bottom of  his tank-prison and put on display with barracudas and sharks. Ferguson meets Helen Dobson (Lori Nelson, in THE DAY THE WORLD ENDED the same year) who's doing her thesis on fish. While their romance booms, the two do reflex experiments on the the creature and he/it seems to take a shine to Helen who feels sorry for the monster. "I pity him sometimes. He's so alone". Eventually the scaly one, in a hormonal rage breaks out of the tank, kills Joe and terrorizes customers. He takes to the country looking for Helen. Locating her briefly he watches her undress and kills her dog. He stalks Helen and Ferguson while they're out dancing and invades the club kidnapping his beloved. He finds having a relationship with an oxygen breathing female a little difficult and when they both need air he falls prey to the Florida police. It looks like he's killed in a hail of bullets and drifts lifelessly away (but we know better). The two air breathing lovers are reunited.

REVENGE's plot of  "The Gill Man in civilization" isn't bad for a sequel especially since the original took place entirely in the jungle. There are some lapses in logic. The aquarium seems to handle the situation all wrong just asking for mayhem. And since the creature was plucked from his natural habitat and placed in a tank to be probed and prodded by "men of science" couldn't they have had a little more sympathy for the green guy? Ok, it was the Fifties....

It was nice to see original director Jack Arnold back for part 2 and this really help avoid some of the pitfalls sequels sometime have. His scenes of the creature prowling around at night are excellent.

Two men portray the creature in this film. Ricou Browning plays him underwater and Tom Hennesy played him on land. Both have cameo roles in the production. Of course Clint Eastwood has one small scene with Agar as a lab tech who can't find a mouse.

Jack Arnold directed both Agar and Paiva in TARANTULA the same year.

THE CREATURE WALKS AMONG US would follow...

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Beast of The Amazon

CURUCU: BEAST OF THE AMAZON-1956-Rock Dean (John Bromfield), an American plantation owner in Brazil has all his native workers quit because they are afraid of a monster they say lives along the Amazon River. Dean reluctantly teams up with a female doctor Romar (Beverly Garland) who's looking for a potion the natives use to shrink heads to find out what's going on. The beast looks like a mutated version of Toucan Sam but with fangs. Later it turns out their guide (Tom Payne) is impersonating the monster because he's the leader of a group who want to stop “the white man” from invading. 

Filmed in parts of Brazil and Argentina this color production has lots of stock footage and bad SFX. It was written and directed by Curt Siodmak who'd seen better days when writing Universal horror movies (THE WOLFMAN, FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLFMAN). 

Lead actor Bromfield had been in THE REVENGE OF THE CREATURE the year before and was later in the TV series SHERIFF OF COCHISE). Garland was in SWAMP WOMEN and IT CONQUERED THE WORLD, both for Roger Corman, the same year.

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