Ben Chapman died at the age of 79. He wore the extraordinary gill-man suit in the Creature from the Black Lagoon. From the Economist:
THE monsters created by Universal Studios in the first half of the 20th century evolved in a backwards fashion. In the 1920s Homo erectus distorted himself a bit, and took to swinging round church towers or chandeliers as the Phantom of the Opera and the Hunchback of Notre Dame. A decade later his teeth and hair grew longer and his skin more chalky, preparatory to wallowing in human blood in “Dracula” and “Frankenstein”. The 1940s brought a coating of fur (“Wolfman”) or shrouds (“The Mummy”), the humanoid shape regressing to animal or worse. Then, in 1954, a beast who was half-man and half-fish dragged himself out of the sea.
That is better than average monster movie analysis. There were a total of three movies man about the Gill-Man, as he was called in the movies: The Creature From the Black Lagoon; Revenge of the Creature, and The Creature Walks Among Us. All three explored the connection between human beings and other predatory animals, without explicitly mentioning the theory evolution. None of the movies is brilliant, but the first and second are quite good. The real star of the show is the costume. It cost a fortune to make, and it was unforgettable.
The creature was the basic celluloid monsters, after the Frankenstein Monster, Dracula, The Mummy, and the Wolf Man. The Gill-Man never got near as much play on Halloween as the first four, in large part because he had very little personality. Even the Wolf Man had Lawrence Talbot. But the movies were a great contribution to monster lore. Fare well, Mr. Chapman.
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