Revenge of the Creature/Fun Facts

From The Grindhouse Cinema Database

< Revenge of the Creature

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  • A young Clint Eastwood makes his first screen appearance as a lab technician. He discusses with Professor Ferguson (John Agar) about an experiment involving a cat and several mice sharing the same cage. He points out that one of the mice in the cage is missing and accuses the cat of eating it, but discovers that the missing mouse was in his lab coat pocket.
  • Actor/Stuntman Tom Hennesy almost drowned during filming. Playing The Creature, he grabs Helen Dobson (actually stuntwoman Ginger Stanley) on a pier and jumps with her into the water. The scene was shot at night, and when Hennesy and Stanley hit the water, they discovered it was full of jellyfish; in addition, a freak current started to pull them both down. Hennesy let go of Stanley, who swam to the surface, but Hennesy's inflexible Gill-Man costume had become waterlogged and too heavy to fight the current. He was rescued by two local boys who happened to be watching the filming from a nearby boat, and quickly raced over and pulled him in.
  • Much of Revenge Of The Creature was filmed on location at the Marineland of Florida oceanarium. The actors filmed in the water during the tank scenes, were required to swim with its real-life underwater inhabitants, including sharks, eels, barracudas, and more. Despite the close proximity to ocean predators, the only incident was that of a sea turtle biting off the prosthetic foot of Ricou Browning's Creature costume.
  • In the preceding film, Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954), the creature suit was built to hold the air in so their were no bubble when the creature was under water. In order to save money and to provide air for the stuntman in underwater sequences, the suit design was changed to allow a hose to pump air to the actor. As a result, bubbles could be seen coming out of different parts of the suit.
  • While re-releases of the film in theaters and on television have utilized the more-recognizable red-and-blue glasses anaglyph form of 3-D, the film was originally released as 3-D entertainment in theaters using the polarized light method and used glasses with gray polarizing filters.
  • Many of the extras in the film were employees at Independent Life Insurance Company in Jacksonville, Florida.
  • Reported to be the highest-grossing film of the "Creature" trilogy.
  • Ricou Browning requested to be credited for playing the Creature. He was denied this by studio executives but did make an out-of-costume appearance as one of the lab technicians.
  • Astute viewers may notice that the clock in the Lobster House moves forward in time by over two hours in just a matter of seconds. There is a good explanation for this continuity error. While filming the scene in the crowded restaurant, heat from the film equipment triggered the building's sprinkler system. The actors, extras, and production equipment were soaked. It took several hours for the large number of people in the scene to dry off and find new clothes and for the equipment to dry off. The break explains why time progressed on the clock so quickly in the final cut of the scene.
  • This film is the first sequel to a 3-D film to be shot in 3-D as well.
  • The St Johns River in Florida served as the setting for aquatic scenes filmed outside of the Ocean Harbor Oceanarium (Marineland Florida).
  • The restaurant from which the creature abducts Helen was the Lobster House in Jacksonville, Florida. The restaurant was destroyed in a fire several years after the making of the film.
  • For this film, Ricou Browning wore a creature head intended for John Lamb, who had originally been hired to assist Tom Hennesy in playing The Creature in this sequel. Lamb was dismissed after filming began, and Browning was hired to replace him. Lamb's Creature suit had to be cut down to fit Browning.
  • In its first run engagements, it was usually supported by Cult of the Cobra (1955) on the lower half of the bill.
  • The only one of the three Gill-Man movies to be parodied on Mystery Science Theater 3000 (1988).
  • Director Jack Arnold liked to use the sides of the movie screen as the arches in a proscenium-style theater with unexpected intrusions coming in from the sidelines. This technique can be seen here when John Agar goes out into the darkened area around the motel to look for Lori Nelson's missing dog. A hand suddenly reaches out from the right side of the screen to touch him, giving him (and the audience) a start, but it's not the dreaded Gill Man. It's simply Lori Nelson.
  • At the beginning of Back to the Future Part III (1990), Marty exits a movie theater dressed in his cowboy outfit, and tells Doc "I'm pretty sure Clint Eastwood wouldn't wear this." When he says this, he is standing next to the poster of this film, which is Eastwood's first film appearance.
  • Tom Hennesy is The Creature in the receiving tank fighting John Bromfield and others, when a cargo net is dropped on him to control him. In the next scene when The Creature is being escorted into the permanent tank underwater, The Creature in the net is Ricou Browning, and Tom Hennesy is the diver swimming next to him wearing white swim trunks. Later Hennesy can be seen as the first diver climbing out of the tank.
  • When the Gill-man becomes an attraction at Ocean Harbor, a life size cutout of Ben Chapman in his Gill-man suit can be seen at the entrance.
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