Creature from the Black Lagoon is one of the great movies in the Universal Monsters pantheon, introducing the human/amphibian missing link known as the Gill-Man into the pop culture zeitgeist for the next 70 years. Director Jack Arnold, perhaps the best sci-fi filmmaker of the 1950s, creates a palpable atmosphere of menace as his boatload of scientists venture down the forbidding length of the Amazon River, the monster — obsessed with a woman (Julie Adams) in the boat — stalking them even as they hunt for him.
On the other hand, the hurriedly produced 1955 sequel, Revenge of the Creature, is basically a knockoff of the original (with a different cast). And while the creature himself and the underwater photography are as compelling as before, there's an air of "cash grab" to the whole enterprise. Yet Revenge of the Creature may be remembered for one thing more than any other aspect of the film or its place in genre cinema: it marks the uncredited screen debut of Clint Eastwood, launching an acting and directing career that has cast a long shadow over the Western, crime, and drama genres in particular — and is still going today.
