The Lady From The Black Lagoon: Hollywood Monsters And The Lost Legacy of Milicent Patrick by Mallory O'Meara

Creature From The Black Lagoon is a popular choice of old-fashioned Halloween monster movie viewing, as an alternative to the numerous Dracula and Frankenstein movies out there. A recent release of the DVD for Creature shows that the text on the back of the container has stopped attributing credit for the design of the creature to Bud Westmore, the then-head of Universal's makeup department. This was not always the case; older editions of the film on DVD and VHS cassettes would give credit to Westmore, though the Blu-Ray edition did not.

      The cover of the current DVD.

So...what brought about the change? There's substantial proof that Westmore was a fraud who took credit for more work than he actually did; the design of the creature was created and drawn by Milicent Patrick, a former Disney Animator - she was an assistant to Bill Tytla for the character Chernabog on the "Nightmare On Bald Mountain Sequence" in Fantasia:

   That's right - she drew this guy!

Milicent Patrick had movie star looks and could articulate her ideas clearly; Universal's marketing executives concocted the idea of having Patrick go on a promotional tour of various TV and radio stations to promote Lagoon; this rubbed Bud Westmore the wrong way. As head of the makeup department, he wanted to be the only individual credited with anything and saw this as a coup, even though Patrick is on record as working hard to downplay her own contributions, knowing quite well that Westmore was fuming. It wouldn't have mattered; Patrick was doomed - Westmore came from a family of designers with considerable clout in Hollywood; he made certain she was fired from Universal and would never find work at any other studio as a designer. Wrongful Termination lawsuits in Hollywood did not become known, or common until the early-80s, both cases involving actresses; Cindy Williams sued Paramount after she was fired from "Laverne & Shirley" because the studio would not allow for maternity leave and her schedule would've required her to work while 9 months pregnant; in the late-80s, Valerie Harper sued Lorimar Telepictures, the company her self-titled sitcom, Valerie, when she was fired from the show after asking for a pay raise. 

Could Milicent Patrick have sued Universal Studios for Wrongful Termination? I would say yes, she could, but she didn't - most likely out of fear that she would never find any work at all. Mallory O'Meara's biography of Patrick does a great job of covering the essential details of her life, but stops short of insight into what Patrick was thinking afterward. Patrick passed away over 20 years ago at an assisted living facility; after being fired, she briefly took on a career as an extra, appearing in small parts in TV series and some movies, then married a wealthy man and spent the 1960s & 1970s as a philanthropist & socialite; in the 1980s she was living in squalor - the Hollywood mansion she occupied had fallen into decay after a mudslide. Her health had also fallen into serious decline; the last decade of her life was spent marking time. She had no children and was estranged from most of her family, except for one niece, who had whatever remained of Patrick's belongings that survived, including documents. There's no mention of Patrick keeping a diary, so she remains elusive. O'Meara admitted in the afterword that she could not find any corroborating information that could explain why Patrick once described herself as "..a Bugs Bunny expert." And O'Meara then has to hazard an educated guess as to what Milicent Patrick's mindset was like by finding correlations with her own biography; the end result was that I felt like I knew O'Meara more than I knew Patrick, which reminded me of the Julia Child biopic Julie & Julia, but I don't find any fault with her conclusions. I definitely recommend this book.

If someone were to tell you, "If you're good at something, stick with it," what can you do if you've been shut out of your chosen field? Milicent Patrick's life story starts off as a success story, then becomes a tale of someone who moved on after success was fleeting, then seems to fall into entropy and isn't vindicated until after her lifetime. It's sad, but it's real life..and monsters in real life don't have to wear fangs, green makeup or prosthetic gills; they can look like Bud Westmore...

      Milicent Patrick, Pioneer, RIP

Let's Get..The Spinoff!

I used that old press kit image of Darkwing Duck characters because I think it inspired the concept-heavy approach to reintroducing Darkwing Duck into the current Ducktales revival. In that picture, it's just a visual gag because the production team wanted to show Darkwing and his civilian identity, Drake Mallard, in the picture; for the 2017 reboot, however, it really is 2 different characters, now: Drake Mallard and Jim Starling. Jim was an actor who played Darkwing in a superhero TV series; Drake Mallard is the actor cast to play Darkwing in a big-budget movie. Jim went insane from the notion that he was passed over and the part was recast; he decides to sabotage the film's production and winds up becoming this series' incarnation of Negaduck:

Drake, in the meantime, having been a lifelong fan of the Darkwing character, decides to become the new Darkwing in real-life, relocating from Duckburg to St. Canard - the locale where all the classic Darkwing Duck adventures were set. His latest adventure introduces the new series' take on Drake's adopted daughter, Gosalyn.

And that's the new "Team Darkwing". I miss Jim Cummings as the voice of Darkwing/Drake Mallard, even though the production team has him onboard as Jim Starling/Negaduck, but it should be a law that the cartoon character's voice actor should only be recast if the original/defintive actor is either incapable of recreating their original performance, incarcerated or deceased. Cummings is alive and well, perfectly capable of recapturing every nuance that character needs. Chris Diamantopolous is okay as the new Darkwing, but he doesn't make me forget Jim. On the other hand, his performance is strengthened by the presence of Beck Bennett, who has been terrific as the new voice of Launchpad McQuack, and Stephanie Beatriz, who, in her debut as the replacement for the late Christine Cavanaugh as the new Gosalyn, is excellent here, as the character has been sharply revised to be more determined and/or less mischievous (the original version of Gosalyn had the capacity for this development and had similar agency, but often characterized as a wild card, often with no provocation).

           Prototype "Protoducks"

The 2017 Ducktales' Darkwing Duck would be the 3rd incarnation of Darkwing, though the 1st - Double-O-Duck (pictured) - only exists in concept art and some press kit material, including a lapel pin(!), but I'm inclined to count him and bring him up because the new take on Darkwing is closer to this prototype, from when it was initially conceived as a pitch by Tad Stones for a spinoff of the 1987 Ducktales featuring Launchpad & Gizmoduck as spies that was rejected by Jeffrey Katzenberg as not having "..a sense of family," then reworked, sans Gizmoduck, with a colorful new sidekick for Launchpad who was a single father...and ultimately reworked to be the real star of the show when the production team at Disney learned that they could not use "Double-O-Duck" because the owners of the James Bond brand owned "Double-O.." and had to come up with a new name.

Even though the new Ducktales show is considered a success and it seems like a foregone conclusion that Darkwing Duck is going to be picked up to become it's own series revival, it's something I'm ambivalent about. I find this Ducktales revival to be just okay; it's clear to me that the team behind the revival respected the success of the original Ducktales series from 1987, but with Darkwing Duck, the affection is a lot more genuine, so a revival of that will be much better than the Ducktales show we've had for the last 3 years. I figured if Disney is interested in keeping Ducktales in circulation like Warner Brothers does with Scooby-Doo, then expect additional revivals from other creative teams that might come closer to rekindling the appeal of the old series...as is, there's no denying the success..as another cartoon with talking ducks.