John Brownlee

How To Make A Rubber Gill Monster

The Neato Coolville blog has posted some excellent scans of the May, 1954 issue of Mechanix Illustrated, harkening back to an era before the ascetic proliferation of CGI, when Hollywood just really knew how to put together a rubber monster man. An ominous order ran through the studios of Universal-International pictures recently: “Gill-Man: report to […]

Mechill01

The Neato Coolville blog has posted some excellent scans of the May, 1954 issue of Mechanix Illustrated, harkening back to an era before the ascetic proliferation of CGI, when Hollywood just really knew how to put together a rubber monster man.

An ominous order ran through the studios of Universal-International pictures recently: "Gill-Man: report to the underwater tank to test your three heads! Accordingly, a horrible monster, half man and half fish, lumbered menacingly across the lot, stopped at the huge water tank, poised for an instant and then plunged into the murky depths.

The article details how they went about creating a rubber fish man costume capable of participating in Creature from the Black Lagoons' awkward subaqueous swimming pool fights.

Creature from the Black Lagoon in Mechanix Illustrated [Neato Coolville] (via Eye of the Goof)