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) and originally projected by the polarized light method. The audience wore viewers with gray polarizing filters, similar to the viewers most commonly used today. Because the brief 1950s 3D film fad had peaked in mid-1953 and was fading fast in early 1954, many audiences actually saw the film "flat", in two dimensions (2D). Typically, the film was shown in 3D in large downtown theaters and flat 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. Plot A geology expedition in the Amazon uncovers fossilized evidence (a skeletal hand with webbed fingers) from the Devonian period that provides a direct link between land and sea animals. Expedition leader Dr. Carl Maia orders his two assistants to stay in camp while he visits the marine biology institute. Carl reunites with his friend and former student, ichthyologist Dr. David Reed. David works at an aquarium in California, but more recently, he has been a guest at Carl's institute in Brazil to study lungfish. David persuades his boss, the financially minded Dr. Mark Williams, to fund a return expedition to the Amazon to look for the remainder of the skeleton. Soon after Carl leaves camp, a piscine amphibious humanoid, a living member of the same species from which the fossil originated, becomes curious about the expedition's camp. When its sudden appearance frightens the assistants, they panic and attack, and in response, the enraged Creature kills them both. The group goes aboard the tramp steamer Rita, captained