801 - REVENGE OF THE CREATURE
(1955; NR; 82m)

a.k.a. RETURN OF THE CREATURE (working)
a.k.a. LA REVANCHE DU MONSTRE (Belgium)
a.k.a. LA VENDETTA DEL MOSTRO (Italy)

sequel to CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON (1954)
prequel to THE CREATURE WALKS AMONG US (1956)

Ad: "Weird MONSTER Escapes! Terror Seizes City! ...a woman's beauty the lure for his DANGEROUS DESIRES!"
Ad: "Terror Is Loose in the City!"

Plot: After catching a mysterious gill-breathing humanoid in the Amazon, scientists bring it back to Florida to study and display to the public, but he escapes, looking for his new gill-less girlfriend, who knows how to say "Stop!"

Prod: William Alland* (803-The Mole People; 804-The Deadly Mantis; 906-The Space Children; L02-This Island Earth; Tarantula)
Dir: Jack Arnold (906/L02; Creature from the Black Lagoon)
Asst Dir: Fred Frank (L02; The Bride of Frankenstein)
Scr: Martin Berkeley (804; Tarantula; Shock; War Paint)
Sto: William Alland (804; Flesh and the Fury)
Cin: Charles S. Welbourne (Creature from the Black Lagoon)
Ed: Paul Weatherwax (It Came From Outer Space)
Cos (Gill-Man): Jack Kevan; Chris Mueller; Millicent Patrick; Robert Beau Hickman; John Kraus (all/L02);
and Robert Dawn (mu/Psycho; Marnie; The Missouri Breaks)
Cos/Gowns: Jay A. Morley Jr. (803/804; The Tattered Dress)
M/U: Bud Westmore (803/804/L02; 802-The Leech Woman;
*614-San Francisco International; 805-The Thing That Couldn't Die)
Hair: Joan St. Oegger (803/L02; 309-The Amazing Colossal Man)
ADir: Alexander Golitzen (802/803/804/805/L02;
615-Kitten With A Whip; won Oscar/1943's Phantom of the Opera)
ADir: Alfred Sweeney (Tarantula; The War Wagon)
Set: Russell A. Gausman (802/803/804/805/L02;
702-The Brute Man; won Oscar/1943's Phantom of the Opera)
Set: Julia Heron (805/L02; won Oscar/Spartacus)
Sound: Leslie I. Carey (802/803/804/805/L02)
Sound: Jack A. Bolger Jr. (Terror by Night)
Music Dir: Joseph Gershenson (*615/803/804/805/L02; prod/802)
Score: Herman Stein (803/L02; It Came from Outer Space)
Score: Henry Mancini
(803/804/805/L02*; won Oscar/Breakfast at Tiffany's)

Dr. Clete Ferguson / John Agar
(803; *104-Women of the Prehistoric Planet; Fort Apache)
Helen Dobson / Lori Nelson*
Joe Hayes / John Bromfield (Curucu, Beast of the Amazon)
Lucas / Nestor Paiva*
Jackson Foster / Grandon Rhodes (Earth Vs. the Flying Saucers)
Lou Gibson / Dave Willock (Queen of Outer Space)
George Johnson / Robert B. Williams (L02; Rebel Without A Cause)
Police Captain / Charles R. Cane (Born Yesterday)
The Creature a.k.a. The Gill Man (underwater) / Ricou Browning*
The Gill Man (mostly on land) / Tom Hennesy (The Alamo)
lab tech Jennings / Clint Eastwood*
young man killed on beach / Brett Halsey (509-Girl in Lovers Lane)
newscaster / Ned LeFevre (804; The Joker Is Wild)
Miss Abbott / Diana DeLaire (Human Desire)
Max / Don C. Harvey (517-Beginning of the End; Dig That Uranium)
Skipper / Jack Gargan (Bedtime for Bonzo; Party Girl)
woman on boat / Loretta Agar (John Agar's then-wife?)
Joe searchlight guy / Bob Wehling (scr/506-Eegah; Wild Guitar)
Bit / Don House (Pardners; Kansas City Confidential)
Charlie / Robert Hoy (803; 324-Master Ninja II; Operation Petticoat)
announcer / Sidney Mason (522-Teenage Crime Wave)
Dr. McCuller / Robert Nelson (Ma and Pa Kettle at Home)
cop / Mike Doyle
cop / Charles Gibb (Invaders from Mars; It Grows on Trees)
cop / Charles Victor (Port Sinister; Calling Bulldog Drummond)
teen Pat / Patrick Curtis (Gone With The Wind; Spartacus)

Classic Line: "He's chained, and you have the bull prod."

Trivia: The first two Creature movies were filmed in 3-D. REVENGE OF THE CREATURE supposedly was also the first 3-D movie ever to be shown on television (1982), but this Drive-In Dirt author remembers seeing a 3-D version of Gorilla At Large (with Raymond Burr and Anne Bancroft) on TV before that.

Although all three Creature movies were filmed in black-and-white, the actual color of the Gill Man costume varied to show up properly on film: the underwater suit was yellow to enable clearer shots against dark backgrounds, but the land suit was green with red lips! The rubber costume was buoyant under water, so lead weights were added. The underwater rubber suit functioned similarly to a normal diving wetsuit, and was relatively comfortable for the actor. However, on land the suit was unbearably hot, so the actor would have to be hosed down or sit in water. By the way, the fictional Ocean Harbor setting was actually the Marineland Aquarium in Florida.

Born Dixie Kay Nelson in 1933, LORI NELSON started in movies in 1952 (Ma and Pa Kettle at the Fair; Francis Goes to West Point). MSTies have seen her in another film, 112-UNTAMED YOUTH starring Mamie Van Doren. Some of her other films include: Hot Rod Girl; Mohawk; Pardners (with Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin); and the sci-fi turkey, H01-THE DAY THE WORLD ENDED. Lori Nelson was briefly engaged to Burt Reynolds in 1960, was married to composer Johnny Mann from 1961-1971, and is now happily remarried.

It is said that character actor NESTOR PAIVA (1905-1966) appeared in over 300 films plus numerous TV appearances, usually playing a villain or an ethnic character, where he could use a variety of accents. (He spoke seven languages). Born to a family of 12 children and of modest means, he nevertheless made a good living in acting, and was never out of work because of his versatility. His two children still receive small royalty checks when his movies are shown. Some of Paiva's other films: Beau Geste (with Gary Cooper); Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (with Cary Grant); several Road pictures with Bing Crosby and Bob Hope (one of his best friends); Girls, Girls, Girls (with Elvis Presley); Mighty Joe Young; Hold That Ghost (with Abbott and Costello); Tarantula; Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter; and They Saved Hitler's Brain.

Born in 1934, RICOU BROWNING was the Creature/Gill-Man for most of the underwater scenes in all three pictures. Director Jack Arnold spotted the Olympic swimmer/FSU student while scouting location sites for the first Creature film. Browning had success in television too: he was the underwater director for the series Sea Hunt and Flipper (plus the 1963 and 1996 movie versions). Browning still resides in Florida.

It's hard to believe that that skinny awkward young man with the scratchy, inaudible voice playing the the lab tech with the mouse in his pocket (solely for comic relief) was CLINT EASTWOOD, but it is indeed him...in his first movie role. He was under contract with Universal, but was stuck in very small roles. He appeared as a napalm-dropping pilot in another Arnold flick, Tarantula, before leaving the studio and finding some success as cowboy trailblazer Rowdy Yates on the series Rawhide (1959-1966). Another early TV performance which showed his charm and blossoming comedic ability...believe it or not...was on an episode of the old TV series about a talking horse, Mr. Ed.

Eastwood achieved international stardom after doing a series of hugely successful spaghetti Westerns like A Fistful of Dollars (1964); For A Few Dollars More (1965); and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966). After playing "Dirty Harry" in some more box office hits, Eastwood's clout let him experiment with comedy (Every Which Way But Loose); suspense (Play Misty for Me); and a singing cowboy film (Honky Tonk Man), before delving into direction (1988's jazz-filled Bird). Now Eastwood frequently directs himself in films like: 1990-The Rookie; 1992-Unforgiven (winning the Best Director Oscar); 1993-A Perfect World; and 1995-The Bridges of Madison County (with Meryl Streep).

Actor/producer WILLIAM ALLAND (1916-1997) participated in some of the most important events in film and radio history. Like fellow actors Agnes Moorehead and Joseph Cotten, Alland first started performing in Orson Welles' Mercury Theater troupe in New York, also serving as assistant to the prodigious director, who was then only is his early twenties. Alland played one of the parts in the infamous 1938 Halloween radio broadcast of H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds, directed and portrayed by Orson Welles so realistically that most listeners became panic-stricken, believing that there actually was a Martian invasion. That production landed Welles a film contract with RKO Studios. The Mercury actors went to Hollywood with him, co-starring in Welles' first and most famous film (and probably the best film ever made), 1941's Citizen Kane, in which Alland played an inquiring reporter.

At Universal-International studios, Alland later mainly produced mostly B-films (Westerns and Sci-Fi), such as: 1952-The Black Castle; 1953-It Came from Outer Space; 1955-Chief Crazy Horse; Tarantula; 1957-The Land Unknown; 1964-The Lively Set; and 1966-The Rare Breed.

Last Updated: 3/28/1999