Rare Unpublished Life Magazine Photos of the Creature From The Black Lagoon

Back in November of 2008 Life Magazine dug up a batch of unpublished photos of Ben Chapman and Julie Adams from the 1954 Universal horror classic Creature From The Black Lagoon. These shots were taken on the back lot of Universal and feature Chapman in the 'publicity' version of the Creature costume and Adams in her famous white bathing suite that was featured in the film.

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In 2008 Cortlandt Hull, a documentary film maker and owner of  "The Witch's Dungeon Classic Movie Museum" interviewed Julie Adams and she had this to say about the different Creature suits:

"The costume in the film was not painted with the vivid shades of the color publicity costume."  Adams added - "The colors in the film costume were more muted, various shades of moss green - no red lips! These photos were not taken during actual production of the film, but to promote the film."

Here are the images that surprisingly never made it into the pages of Life Magazine: 







Here are a couple of photos of the Creature From the Black Lagoon suit that was used exclusively for publicity images. These both came from Ben Chapman's personal collection:




BEN CHAPMAN having fun with our Creature figure. We were packing up for a show, he put the cape & hat of our Chaney "Red Death" on our Creature and said - "Now he's "The Phantom Of The Black Lagoon"! - Cortlandt Hull


Photo courtesy of Cortlandt Hull.


Here is a shot of Julie Adams from our interview with her in our new documentary -the bust is from the museum collection, made from the original mold used for Ben Chapman's Creature head piece. - Cortlandt Hull

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