The ghastly creatures — Dracula, Frankenstein, the Werewolf and others — in the old-school monster movies from Universal Pictures scared audiences in the 1930s and 1940s.

So, too, did the Gill-man from 1954’s “Creature From the Black Lagoon,” said to be inspired by stories of a half-human, half-fish monster living in jungle rivers. But the Gill-man was all make believe, right?

“It seemed plausible,” Mallory O’Meara, a screenwriter, film producer and co-host of the literary podcast “Reading Glasses,” writes in “The Lady From the Black Lagoon: Hollywood Monsters and the Lost Legacy of Milicent Patrick.” “An amphibian missing link? No less crazy than a human going into space.”

Lurking off screen, though, was genuine horror for the careers of creative women working behind the camera in the boys-club confines of Old Hollywood. Hidden from public view — but doing far more long-term damage than the fainting spells occasionally suffered by audiences of scary movies — was the lack of credit given women for their often innovative work.

Read More –A woman who created a monster, a legend and a path for women in Hollywood – Washington Post