The Creature Walks Among Us (1956)

Jack Arnold, the director of the two previous films, graduated to Universal's A-list and John Sherwood, a long-time assistant director, took over. It's the only film of the three not to be shot in 3-D.Despite how we saw the Gill-man get shot to death, he somehow survived and is somewhere in the Everglades. Dr. William Barton (Jeff Morrow, This Island Earth, Octaman) is pretty much insane, a man driven to capture the merman and abuse his wife Marcia (Leigh Snowden, who was in the same Universal acting classes as Clint Eastwood, James Garner and John Saxon). The dude loses his mind any time she is near their guide, Jed Grant (Gregg Palmer, who appeared in many of John Wayne's films).For some reason, Marcia joins Jed and Dr. Tom Morgan (Rex Reason, who has a name like a pro wrestler or a Stan Lee character, but he was an actor who appeared in films like This Island Earth and TV's The Roaring 20's) on a dive, but she somehow goes crazy and overcome with the "raptures of the deep." Also known as nitrogen narcosis, this creates a mental state similar to doing nitrous oxide. It causes Marcia to take off all her scuba gear and the guys have to rescue her.Of course, the Gill-man follows her and he gets shot with a spear gun, to which he looks right at the crew and seems to want to say, "Come on, dude." Then, they set him on fire!This all leads to our underwater pal being in need of surgery from Dr. Borg and Dr. Johnson. And why do they do all this? They want to see if the Creature can help people survive in space! Well, all their work costs the monster his gills and now, he has lungs that can breathe our air. He also has more human skin, so he has to wear clothes.The doctors try and get the Gill-Man to live among humans, but he gradually becomes depressed, staring at the ocean. He even tries to dive into it and swim back home, but he can no longer breathe as he once did. It's horrible. Seriously, this movie makes me so upset, as they take everything from him and he gets nothing back in return. Even when he saves some animals from a lion or tries to attack Barton when he kills Jed in a jealous rage, everyone thinks the worst of our undersea friend.At the end, he finally makes it back to the beach and just stares at the water, unsure what world he finally belongs in. It's the most unsettling and upsetting of endings, on par with Son of Kong. There are no easy answers - man has put the Creature in this place and nothing can return him back to the home he misses so much.

(Flash Review)Once again the creature is captured by a scientist with intentions of trying some groundbreaking experiments on it. Part of the plot addresses the morality of doing genetic experiments on creatures and animals. During the capture, the creature gets 3rd degree burns in a spectacular scene even though the question remains as to why the creature dumps gasoline on itself but who cares; funny! While trying to save its life from the burns, it gills fall off and it is now able to breath air and begins to mutate. One can only imagine where the story goes from there but it remains 50's monster movie funny in a good way. One of the most amusing parts was how they introduce the female lead by cutting to her wildly shooting a shot gun off a boat in preparation to capturing the creature. Odd and bold for the 50's and better than most of today's sequel attempts.

Despite some slow passages of philosophical humbug and pseudo scientific ear-wash, plus some none too absorbing passages of romantic dalliance with the lovely Leigh Snowden, this is an engrossing little thriller from director John Sherwood, an extremely busy (63 credits) assistant director from 1936 though 1959, who made only three movies (the others Raw Edge and Monolith Monsters). It's quite a worthy successor to The Creature from the Black Lagoon and Revenge of the Creature. Sherwood's direction is especially deft in the action sequences. The long sequences under water are kept interesting by using a large variety of camera set-ups with imaginative cross-cutting. The following sequence in which the Creature is stalked at night is also quite absorbing, with its long tracking shots following the launch through the turns of a shallow, branch-overhanging waterway. This sequence is capped by some solid thrills and there is yet more exciting footage to come, capped by a destructive climax that will have cinema audiences on the edges of their seats. Production values including atmospheric photography, lavish sets and some outstanding location footage, are first-class.

While it gets off to an incredibly slow start (nothing happens for a good 45 minutes), THE CREATURE WALKS AMONG US is actually one of the better monster movies of the 1950s. Rex Reason, one of the half-dozen scientists looking to capture and surgically ALTER The Gill Man (making him an air-breather, for no better reason than that they CAN), muses: "... we all stand between the jungle and the stars at a crossroads. We better discover what brings out the best in humankind and what brings out the worst, because it's the stars or the jungle." Considering what happens to the docile Creature (he almost drowns when the surgical change has been effected, and is blamed for a murder he didn't commit), Dr. Johnson, another of the scientists, concludes (rightly), "We're not so far from the jungle, after all." The Creature makeup in this entry is interesting and the second half of the film can hold its own against ANY of its contemporaries (and, indeed, many movies in this genre). Even the ambiguous ending, with the Creature walking toward the ocean (where we know he will drown, because he can no longer breathe water) is outstanding (and reminds me of the end of I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE). If not for the first 45 minutes or so, I'd rate this one a ten.