Creature from the Black Lagoon is a 1954 American black-and-white 3D monster horror film produced by William Alland and directed by Jack Arnold, from a screenplay by Harry Essex and Arthur Ross and a story by Maurice Zimm.

The film's plot follows a group of scientists who encounter a piscine amphibious humanoid in the waters of the Amazon; the Creature, also known as the Gill-man, was played by Ben Chapman on land and by Ricou Browning underwater.

Produced and distributed by Universal-International, Creature from the Black Lagoon premiered in Detroit on February 12, 1954, and was released on a regional basis, opening on various dates.

[1] A geology expedition in the Amazon uncovers fossilized evidence (a skeletal hand with webbed fingers) from the Devonian period that provides a direct link between land and sea animals.

David persuades his boss, the financially minded Dr. Mark Williams, to fund a return expedition to the Amazon to look for the remainder of the skeleton.

Mark is ready to give up the search, but David suggests that perhaps thousands of years ago, the part of the embankment containing the rest of the skeleton fell into the water and was washed downriver, broken up by the current.

After subsequent encounters with the Creature claim the lives of Lucas's crew members, it attacks Kay and attempts to abduct her, but it is captured and locked in a cage aboard the Rita.

Producer William Alland was attending a 1941 dinner party during the filming of Citizen Kane (in which he played the reporter Thompson) when Mexican cinematographer Gabriel Figueroa told him about the myth of a race of half-fish, half-human creatures in the Amazon River.

[3] The designer of the approved Gill-man was Disney animator Milicent Patrick, though her role was deliberately downplayed by make-up artist Bud Westmore, who for half a century received sole credit for the creature's conception.

[4] Jack Kevan, who worked on The Wizard of Oz (1939) and made prosthetics for amputees during World War II, created the bodysuit, while Chris Mueller Jr. sculpted the head.

[6] Leonard Maltin awarded the film three out of four stars, writing: "Archetypal '50s monster movie has been copied so often that some of the edge is gone, but ... is still entertaining, with juicy atmosphere and luminous underwater photography sequences".

[9] The film is recognized by American Film Institute in these lists: Psychoanalyst Barbara Creed provided a feminist reading of classical movie monsters like the Creature or the Phantom of the Opera, arguing that despite their superficially masculine characterizations, their antagonization of a powerful male hero instead positions them as opponents of the patriarchal social order, thus imbuing them with feminine traits and creating a sympathetic connection between them and the women they victimize.

In 1982, John Landis wanted Jack Arnold to direct a remake of the film, and Nigel Kneale was commissioned to write the screenplay.

Kneale completed the script, which involved a pair of creatures, one destructive and the other calm and sensitive, being persecuted by the United States Navy.

Herschel Weingrod and Timothy Harris wrote a new script,[16] and Universal offered Peter Jackson the director's chair in 1995, but he chose to work instead on King Kong.

[21] Because of these creative clashes and his commitments to many other projects, Universal dropped del Toro and hired Tedi Sarafian (credited on Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines) to write a script in March 2003.

[24] However, the production was delayed by the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike; as a result, Eisner instead made The Crazies (2010), the number-one project on his priority list.

His new goal was to finish The Crazies and then begin filming Creature from the Black Lagoon in Manaus, Brazil, and on the Amazon River in Peru.

[25] In 2009, it was reported that Carl Erik Rinsch might direct a remake that would be produced by Marc Abraham, Eric Newman, and Gary Ross;[26][27] however, a project featuring the ensemble had been abandoned by 2011.