MONSTER FROM THE OCEANARIUM FLOOR more details: Gregg Mitman service, and no supply of fresh or writes that the impetus for drinkable water. “holding sea life in captivity The Shooting of Revenge of the Creature at Marineland to make its filming feasible” Once a few of these challenges were met, was Merian C. Cooper’s film a variety of new ones were involved in the By Tom Weaver Chang (1927), photographed in actual building of the place, which began in the Thailand jungles and fea- May 1937. Sally Baskin continues, June 23, 2013, was the 75th turing an elephant stampede anniversary of Marine Studios “shot within a stockade large They ran into a lot of prob- (now Marineland of Florida), enough not to impede the ani- lems, including an engineering one of Florida’s first marine mals’ actual movements and problem: They had to build tanks mammal parks. Constructed behaviors, yet small enough to that would be able to hold a large between the Atlantic Ocean allow camera operators to take capacity of water, which meant and the Intracoastal Waterway action shots with relative ease. that the walls were going to be too in north Flagler County, it was a [Burden and Tolstoy] decided thick for people to see through the unique attraction on its opening that a similar approach could glass portholes. So they developed day in 1938, and the word ocean- be used to obtain underwater a webbing system of steel rods arium was coined to describe it. action shots of marine life.” and so on; that way, the walls To mark the anniversary, The only child raised at Marineland, Sally Baskin was 12 when The marine mammal didn’t have to be as thick and there will be celebratory events the Revenge crew came calling. One day during the making of park’s founders’ search for a the movie, a woman makeup artist told her, “This is your make- at the sea-zoo throughout the up day. I’m going to make you up!”—and she did. The result is practical location led them to year and archived memora- pictured here. (Courtesy of Sally Baskin) the Sunshine State, as Corne- bilia and footage shared with lius Vanderbilt “Sonny” Whit- visitors. Monsters from the rine Studios, located on the Atlantic Ocean ney wrote in his 1977 memoir High Peaks: Vault joins in the festivities by shore in north Flagler County, and received running this excerpt from the a promise of cooperation with shooting the Florida, with the Gulf Stream upcoming Tom Weaver-David new Creature movie there. (In Revenge, the offshore and a good year-round Schecter-Steve Kronenberg seaquarium is called Ocean Harbor.) At that climate, seemed to us the best book The Creature Chronicles: time, this deep-sea zoo was one of the state’s place to start exploration. …Ilya Exploring the Black Lagoon top tourist destinations, drawing as many as Tolstoy was dispatched to locate Trilogy, describing the month 500,000 visitors annually. a site. I started, in the summer in the summer of 1954 when Throughout the 1950s, Marineland was of 1936, catching large sharks Universal shot their second home to Sally Baskin, daughter of Tom and off Montauk Point in the eastern Gill Man movie, Revenge of the Mildred Baskin, who operated its motel, the tip of Long Island [New York], Creature, on that site. Marine Village Court, which was a few hun- penning them up and studying Check out www.marine- dred feet south of Marine Studios on Ocean their behavior to see whether land.net for more information Boulevard. The Marine Village Court was the they would survive in captivity. about their anniversary activi- Creature troupe’s headquarters during their Douglas Burden worked with the ties, and also consider visiting Marineland shooting. “I was the only child Museum of Natural History to other Florida sites where the raised at Marineland—I was there from 1947 devise a type of harpoon with sy- Creature movies were shot, until 1960,” says Sally, who was 12 years old ringe and drug which could tran- with the help of the Official Gill Man Guide KAY: Do you suppose [the Crea- Alland’s (that the Gill Man be captured and when the Gill Man came a-calling. quilize any large creature from the to the Sunshine State (see pages 36 and 37). ture] remembers Mark’s attack transported to civilization, where it escapes “Marine Studios was begun by several sea long enough to transport it to and—and seeks revenge? and terrorizes the area). Location shooting at men,” Sally told me: shore and then to the projected Revenge of the Creature: Joe (John Bromfield) MARK: I welcome it! Marine Studios in Marineland, Florida, “The giant oceanariums we visualized. and Johnson (Robert B. Williams) of Ocean —Dialogue from Creature World’s First Oceanarium,” was obviously There was Cornelius Vander- By late summer Tolstoy returned Harbor, a Florida deep-sea zoo, go to the from the Black Lagoon under consideration right from the start, be- bilt Whitney, there was his cousin with the great news that he had Black Lagoon and use dynamite to stun cause that is where much of Berkeley’s March W. Douglas Burden, there was found a practical site for the type and capture the Gill Man. Comatose, he is In Universal’s Creature from the Black 19, 1954, treatment (and his eventual script Ilya Tolstoy [grandson of novelist of operation we envisioned [near brought to Ocean Harbor and “walked” Lagoon (1954), the Gill Man did get a measure and the ensuing movie) is set. Apparently Leo Tolstoy] and there was Sher- St. Augustine], at a spot where the in a receiving tank until he revives, and of revenge against the humans who arrived Berkeley, or someone connected with the proj- man Pratt. What had happened inland waterways came within then he is put on public exhibit in their uninvited in his Edenic Black Lagoon and ect, even researched the layout of the place, was, they’d been in the jungles of several hundred yards of the At- oceanarium. Animal behaviorist Clete (John disrupted his solitary but satisfactory exis- because in the treatment a scene description somewhere-or-other and visited a lantic Ocean. ...Fish caught in the Agar) and ichthyologist Helen (Lori Nelson) tence. And he was just getting warmed up... of a plane arriving at Marineland is followed friend who was making a wildlife sea or inland waterways could be regularly descend into the oceanarium and Producer William Alland, who hatched by the note that a river “wide enough for movie, and this person had built a transported by boat with mini- try to condition the Gill Man to respond to the idea to make Black Lagoon, knew from the landing of a plane, is at the back door of compound and kept the animals mum delay to the site... spoken commands. The Gill Man eventually Day One that the web-footed wonder might Marineland, some 200 feet away.”1 in it while he filmed ’em. Whitney The problems, however, escapes, killing Joe in the process, and later be sequel-worthy, and he and Universal pro- On May 17, Alland, director Jack and the others wondered, “Would were: a one-lane sand road from finds and abducts Helen, with whom he is ceeded on that assumption: In late February Arnold, and unit production manager Ed- this work with marine animals?” St. Augustine south, no great smitten. Clete, the police, and search party 1954, around the time of Black Lagoon’s first ward Dodds departed for Florida to scout centers of population nearby, the members rescue Helen, and the Gill Man is play dates, it was decided to hire Martin locations. Within days, they had completed From the 1999 book Reel Nature—America’s site was presently flooded with shot and apparently killed. Berkeley to write a sequel based on an idea of arrangements with representatives of Ma- Romance with Wildlife on Film, we get a few brackish sea water, no telephone 26 MONSTERS FROM THE VAULT #32 SUMMER 2013 27 they could put the portholes in. up all the way to Crescent Beach, about ten stream of scientists, writers, artists, celebri- scenes”—and Tom Hennesy (hired ture in those scenes was Hennesy. In the They also had to come up with a miles north. They were bumper to bumper, ties, and members of the media. For the first to play the on-land Gill Man) told afternoon, after work moved back to the certain cement and a certain paint Model Ts, Model As and whatever else kind time, showmanship was added to the display me in 1994 that in the scenes fea- oceanarium, retakes were done of the shots that would withstand the salt wa- of cars they had! Once the owners realized of marine life, thanks to daring deep-sea div- turing the bound-in-a-net Gill Man of three divers bringing the netted-up Gill ter, and a filtration system where they were ‘onto’ something here, they built ers and friendly sailor-clad dolphin trainers.” (shot on Days One and Two), the Man to the bottom of the oceanarium and they could bring the water out of a restaurant and also a motel [the Marine In 1953, the first unit and second unit Gill Man was Browning. securing the ankle chain, plus shots of the the ocean and get the seaweed and Village Court] which looked like a castle out scenes of Black Lagoon had been shot si- Yes, I know, this is all very net being removed and the Gill Man doing sand out.