Producer William Alland was attending a 1941 dinner party during the filming of "Citizen Kane" (in which he played the reporter Thompson) when Mexican cinematographer Gabriel Figueroa told him about the myth of a race of half-fish, half-human creatures in the Amazon River. Alland wrote story notes titled "The Sea Monster" 10 years later, using "Beauty and the Beast" as inspiration. In December 1952, Maurice Zimm expanded this into a treatment, which Harry Essex and Arthur Ross rewrote as "The Black Lagoon". Following the success of the 3D film "House of Wax" in 1953, Jack Arnold was hired to direct the film in the same format.