MAN NOT MAN
 
My pal Jim Terman has noted that the central dilemma for makers of Superman movies is whether to emphasize the "Super" or the "Man."  Do we focus on his impossible strength, or his impossible love for Lois Lane?  Similarly, in Jesus movies, do we focus on the divine or the human aspect of the God who took on human form?

This duality - part man, part not man - is key to understanding both Superman and Jesus.  Can Superman take the hand of the mortal woman, knowing it will cost him his powers and his calling to save the world?  Can Jesus take the hand of Mary Magdalene, knowing it will block him from his destiny: dying on the cross as a sacrifice to wash away the sins of all mankind?  Because of their split natures, these heroes must choose between love for an individual, and love for all the world.

The greatest of movie monsters - again, part human and part not human - also struggle for Love.  All Frankenstein's monster wants is a "friend."  All Dracula wants is a girl with whom to stride through the ages.  The Wolfman must push away his love, lest he destroy her during a transformation.  A monster movie is really a love story.

In this essay, I'd like to focus on one being in particular: The Creature from the Black Lagoon, aka The Gill-man, part man, part fish.  His story - told in the eponymous 1954 film - is, again, a love story.  All the Creature wants is to take the girl to his little hideaway beneath the waves.

The moviemakers understood that the Creature's (partial) humanity set him apart from other aquatic monsters, the giant octopi and lobsters and crabs.  Producer William Alland said, "It would still frighten you, but because how human it was, not the other way around."

The Creature occupies a felicitous spot in the Uncanny Valley curve.  The Uncanny Valley is a hypothesis developed by roboticist Masahiro Mori, following earlier work by Freud and Ernst Jentsch.  The hypothesis tracks the relationship between the likeability of an object and its resemblance to a human face.  Cartoons of faces (such as smiley faces) are very likeable, as are accurate portraits (such as da Vinci's Mona Lisa).  However, images very similar to human, but not quite human - such as zombies and corpses or diseased or badly drawn faces - are disturbing and repellent.

The Gill-man occupies a spot on the Uncanny Valley curve that maximizes both his inhumanity and his likeability.  The inhumanity is clear from the hideous lips and mouth and eyes as cold and expressionless as those of a dead fish.  As for its likeability, consider that the film yielded two sequels and innumerable model kits, marking him the most popular of fifties (humanoid) movie monsters.

Yet despite the ugliness in the features, there is a rhythmic exuberance to the shape of the scales and external gills.  But most of all, it is his elegant movements underwater (while played by Ricou Browning) which lend humanity to the beast.  Particularly, there is a scene wherein the Gill-man performs a synchronized swim with an unwary Julia Adams, thus endowing the creature with a charm and sophistication alien to any other fifties monster.  Thus, despite his horrid visage, the Creature is made human-like by his intelligence, his mastery over his underwater domain and, most of all, his unrequited love.

The first sequel to the eponymous film - "Revenge of the Creature" is unremarkable.  Retelling the same story in a different locale with a different girl, this film merits no further discussion.

The third and final Gill-man film - 1956's "The Creature Walks Among Us" - is, however, fascinating.  Some critics consider it the least of the trilogy, the runt that killed off the series, the only one not shot in 3-D.

For me, however, the third is the most interesting; it is the one most heavily laden with science and philosophy.

In this film, we are introduced to a transformed version of the Gill-man.  He becomes more human, and thus more repugnant, as he haunts the deepest level in the Uncanny Valley.

The Creature in this movie is shot at, wounded, hit twice with spears tipped with "sleeping juice," and set on fire.  (It's impressive that it took that much effort to bring him down.)  His gills and scaly outer skin are burned away, revealing human skin underneath.  We also find out that - like the African lungfish - the Creature has both lungs and gills.  An emergency tracheotomy fills his lungs with air, switching him to an air-breathing metabolism.  This change coincides with a softening of the flesh, a shrinking of the finger webbing and a humanizing of the eyes.  (I'm not judging the film's science, just reporting it, folks.)

"We are changing a sea creature into a land creature," announces the (handsome but evil) Dr. Barton in the film.  Barton's purpose is, in a way, somewhat noble.  In a convoluted way, making the Creature more human will teach scientists how to modify people to make them suitable for space travel.  (Sputnik would be launched the year after this film premiered.)  "We can create an entirely new form of life," Barton notes.  "Modern man is limited, Earth-bound to this planet.  He's bound to it because he's physically incapable of making the next giant step... into outer space.  Well, we can make him physically capable."  (Dr. Barton had apparently been reading James Blish.)

In contrast to the evil Dr. Barton, the good Dr. Morgan cautions thus: "It's the interaction of heredity and environment for millions of years that makes a new species... We only changed the skin, doctor, not the animal.  But we can bring out the best or worst in any living thing.  The environment does that.  If we threaten him, if he's afraid of us, he'll revert to the wanton killer... We all stand between the jungle and the stars, at the crossroads.  I think we'd better discover what brings out the best in humankind and what brings out the worst, 'cause it's the jungle or the stars."

The Gill-man teeters on an apex, balanced between man and monster.  We see the monster's humanity in a newly disclosed talent: He is a brilliant strategist, luring the pursuing ship into shallow, narrow waters, forcing his pursuers to continue in a small, vulnerable motorboat.  We also see his vulnerability, as the good Dr. Morgan actually saves the monster's life.  Twice.

In the end, the true monster in this film is not the Creature, but rather the evil Dr.Barton - a drunkard, a self-important windbag who's mean to his wife.  The creature kills, becoming an amphibious Mike Tyson, but only when provoked.  He kills a mountain lion, but only in self-defense and in his finally rampage, he kills Dr. Barton, but only after Barton has killed a man who was hitting on his wife.  The monster's ultimate fate is tragic.  Its gills destroyed, it can no longer breathe under the water.  Nor can he live on land with man.  In the end, with no home or hideaway left in this world, he walks out to the sad, beautiful ocean to drown himself.

As the credits roll, we understand the ugliness in beauty, and the beauty in ugliness.  We shed a tear for the monster, and we glimpse the human and inhuman at war within ourselves, as we struggle to find love and peace in a cruel, misunderstanding world.