:11:04
Here's our first shot of the Rita. Most of
the rest of the movie takes place on it.
:11:08
Back to the script of Black Lagoon.
Maurice Zimm handed in his draft,
:11:11
then a writer named Leo Lieberman
came in and worked for two months.
:11:15
But the story still wasn't in very good
shape. In fact, according to Arthur Ross,
:11:19
the Universal front office turned it down
and said they wouldn't do the picture.
:11:23
That was the point at which Alland turned
to Ross, a Chicago-born screenwriter,
:11:27
who did a lot of work
whipping the story into shape.
:11:30
Ross looked at what had been written
and quickly realised
:11:33
"that it was an imitation of films made
in the genre at Universal for 25 years".
:11:37
"The only difference was
it was an undersea creature
:11:40
instead of a mummy or
Frankenstein or Dracula."
:11:43
Ross was at the time reading
The Silent World by Jacques Cousteau,
:11:46
and it gave him the idea that the scientist
should be the hero, not the villain.
:11:51
Remember, neither of the two scientists
in Zimm's Black Lagoon was a hero.
:11:55
One was a publicity-seeking nut, the other
the villain, a real Snidely-Whiplash type.
:12:00
Ross wanted to make the scientist
:12:02
"a humanist who enquires of nature
rather than dictating to it or exploiting it".
:12:06
"He's the one who holds out
for not harming the creature."
:12:09
Alland understood right away
what Ross was trying to do.
:12:12
According to Ross, Alland knew
the first approach had failed,
:12:15
the old-fashioned script they were
trying to work with. Ross told me
:12:19
"Whether I'm writing something
just to make a living
:12:22
or something I really believe is important,
I never write down to an audience."
:12:26
"Audiences are not stupid. They may
not be geniuses or specialists in fields,
:12:30
but they are reasonably intelligent people,
in the main, and for that reason
:12:34
I felt I would present what I thought
was not only a melodramatic device
:12:37
but also a study of characters in conflict."
:12:40
"The conflict in this case
was these people versus the creature."
:12:43
"The more they attack him,
the more he attacks them."
:12:45
"I wrote intelligent people
doing intelligent things -
:12:48
everyone except Richard Denning who
wanted the creature dead and mounted,
:12:53
considering that just as good
as live and left alone."
:12:55
"He was unintelligent and arrogant,
and he caused the difficulties."
:12:59
"Those difficulties finally had to be
rectified in violence because by then