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The Lady from the Black Lagoon: Hollywood Monsters and the Lost Legacy of Milicent Patrick by
meadows2020's review against another edition
adventurous
informative
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
It was a little disorganized. This might be edited a little more and it would have been excellent.
katiescho741's review against another edition
2.0
This was a tough one to rate so low. The story of Milicent is so important and inspirational, and deserves to be learnt by all horror fans, but, my God, this author was insufferable!
I enjoyed learning about Milicent and her journey through Disney working on Fantasia, to working at Universal and beyond, but the author insists on inserting herself and her life story into this book. If you took a drink every time she wrote she was a nerd, has tattoos, and blue hair, you would die of alcohol poisoning in no time. Most of her footnotes were obnoxious jokes and asides that were not needed, and she seemed very ignorant on the basics of research.
She also constantly mentions #MeToo, and the lack of representation of LGBT+ people, and POC, and while these are important issues, they have nothing at all to do with the story of Milicent, and so the regular mentions felt like virtue signalling. She spent a lot of time telling the reader long stories about sexism she experienced in her job, and it felt like she was writing an autobiography instead of a biography.
She talks a lot about photos and clippings she found, but barely any of them are in this book. Also, she constantly criticises the men of the era for talking about Milicent's beauty - but she does this exact things throughout the whole of the book! Even the captions on the rare photos refer to how stunning Milicent was.
Basically, this story deserved a better author/researcher. I love The Creature from the Black Lagoon, and the Universal monsters in general, so I was expecting much more from this book.
I enjoyed learning about Milicent and her journey through Disney working on Fantasia, to working at Universal and beyond, but the author insists on inserting herself and her life story into this book. If you took a drink every time she wrote she was a nerd, has tattoos, and blue hair, you would die of alcohol poisoning in no time. Most of her footnotes were obnoxious jokes and asides that were not needed, and she seemed very ignorant on the basics of research.
She also constantly mentions #MeToo, and the lack of representation of LGBT+ people, and POC, and while these are important issues, they have nothing at all to do with the story of Milicent, and so the regular mentions felt like virtue signalling. She spent a lot of time telling the reader long stories about sexism she experienced in her job, and it felt like she was writing an autobiography instead of a biography.
She talks a lot about photos and clippings she found, but barely any of them are in this book. Also, she constantly criticises the men of the era for talking about Milicent's beauty - but she does this exact things throughout the whole of the book! Even the captions on the rare photos refer to how stunning Milicent was.
Basically, this story deserved a better author/researcher. I love The Creature from the Black Lagoon, and the Universal monsters in general, so I was expecting much more from this book.
toribeth521's review against another edition
1.75
This could/should have been a blog. As a prior videographer, I was extremely excited to see this piece on my library's shelves but was left sorely disappointed on the read itself. The author inserts more speculation than necessary, overtalks the feminism, and at times makes the piece more about herself and who she knows rather than the "amazing" Milicent herself. What accredited, hard proof the author did bring to the table really wasn't enough to have made this piece into the full book that it is, and frankly it's disappointing that an editor and publisher(s) let this get this far. Bummer.
elysareadsitall's review against another edition
4.0
"The Lady from the Black Lagoon" is a fascinating biography of Milicent Patrick who designed the famous "Creature from the Black Lagoon" costume. O'Meara explains Patrick's life and work, and she also explains how people's contributions to early movies were erased due to misogyny, lack of recognition in movie credits, and toxic work environments. I found all of the information fascinating. I also liked that the author included how she became interested in Patrick and details of her research process. I highly recommend this book for people interested in forgotten historical women and Hollywood, especially classic monster movies.
kashkosk918's review against another edition
2.0
I almost never start a book without finishing but this book is insufferable. It starts strong but quickly becomes overly detailed for no reason. Toward the end it seems as if the author has completely forgotten the topic of her book and just needed a platform to air her grievances about the film industry hierarchy. I initially bought a hard copy of this and decided to listen on audible & gift the hard copy to a friend, but I honestly couldn’t subject a friend to reading this.
knight101's review against another edition
challenging
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
3.0
emilydaisies's review against another edition
5.0
I should probably preface this with the fact that I am a fan of the podcast reading-glasses which Malory is a cohost on. That is how I knew about this book. Also that I don't normally like nonfiction and rarely give any 5 stars.
That said I was very entertained by this book. If you are looking for a flat biography this is not that. It's a story of Mallory's search to find more about a woman she idolized and a bit about that woman's life. As someone who had no previous knowledge of Hollywood and how things worked in the early 1900s this was an interesting intro into that. It was also interesting to hear about the woman who designed the creature from the black lagoon. But my favorite parts are where she connects the story of Millicent to the larger experience of being a woman in the workforce and how she went about doing the detective work to unearth her info.
That said I was very entertained by this book. If you are looking for a flat biography this is not that. It's a story of Mallory's search to find more about a woman she idolized and a bit about that woman's life. As someone who had no previous knowledge of Hollywood and how things worked in the early 1900s this was an interesting intro into that. It was also interesting to hear about the woman who designed the creature from the black lagoon. But my favorite parts are where she connects the story of Millicent to the larger experience of being a woman in the workforce and how she went about doing the detective work to unearth her info.