Title: The Lady from the Black Lagoon: Hollywood Monsters and the Lost Legacy of Milicent Patrick
Author: Mallory O'Meara
Genre: Non-Fiction
About the Book...
Among the most recognizable of the classic movie monsters is the Creature from 1954's The Creature from the Black Lagoon, but what most people don't realize or choose to contest is that it's creator was a woman named Milicent Patrick. With little to start with, Mallory O'Meara set out on a personal journey to learn more about Patrick and the incredible part this largely forgotten woman played in Hollywood history.
What I Think...
This book is what I'd refer to as casual non-fiction, meaning that it's more like someone telling their friend about something with the book taking the reader on the journey of the research process and then sharing the discoveries. I tend not to care for this sort of book, though I get that in this case this style is in part due to the personal importance to O'Meara, who is a screenwriter and producer of monster movies, of Patrick's role in designing the Creature and overall the importance of Patrick being a woman in a male dominated career setting.
With that in mind, I did thoroughly enjoy the portions that were written in a more traditional sense and especially loved reading about the making of The Creature from the Black Lagoon and the tours Patrick went on to promote it. Not knowing much about the people behind the scenes, I also liked reading about what her job entailed and found learning about her personal life to be interesting, though sad.
While it's clear that O'Meara did her research and does present the reader with a great deal about Patrick, the primary downsides were all the personal asides. I found the tangents about present day sexism in Hollywood to be rather distracting from the overall text and along with most of the footnotes, which were almost entirely personal commentary.
To Sum it All Up...
An interesting look at Milicent Patrick's life and the heyday of Hollywood horror movies, but with a lot of additional commentary that I felt detracted from the overall focus on Milicent Patrick and O'Meara's quest to learn about who she was. ♥️