Introduction Creature from the Black Lagoon is a 1954 American black-and-white 3D monster horror film produced by William Alland and directed by Jack Arnold, from a screenplay by Harry Essex and Arthur Ross and a story by Maurice Zimm. It stars Richard Carlson, Julia Adams, Richard Denning, Antonio Moreno, Nestor Paiva, and Whit Bissell. The film's plot follows a group of scientists who encounter a piscine amphibious humanoid in the waters of the Amazon ; the creature, also known as the Gill-man , was played by Ben Chapman on land and by Ricou Browning underwater. Produced and distributed by Universal-International, Creature from the Black Lagoon premiered in Detroit on February 12, 1954, and was released on a regional basis, opening on various dates. Creature from the Black Lagoon was filmed in three dimensions (3D) at the time in 1954 and originally projected by the polarized light method. The audience wore viewers with gray polarizing filters, like the viewers most used today. Because the brief 1950’s 3D film fad had peaked in mid-1953 and was fading fast in early 1954 , many audiences saw the film "flat", in two dimensions (2D). Typically, the film was shown in 3D in large downtown theaters and flats in smaller neighborhood theaters. In 1975, Creature from the Black Lagoon was released to theaters in the red-and-blue-glasses anaglyph 3D format , which was also used for a 1980 home video release on Beta and VHS videocassettes. In the mid-1950s, a grotesque costume turned Ricou Browning from a soft-spoken family man into an ugly "gill man," also known as the "Creature from the Black Lagoon." Now remembered along with King Kong and Godzilla as one of the most horrific monsters of the silver screen, Browning had the underwater role of the amphibious monster in the Universal Studios black-and-white horror flick, originally shot in 3-D. Browning then continued filling that role in two sequels, "Revenge of the Creature" and "The Creature Walks Among Us."