| The Blob | |
|---|---|
Original film poster |
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| Directed by | Irvin Yeaworth |
| Produced by | Jack H. Harris |
| Written by | Kay Linaker Theodore Simonson |
| Story by | Irving H. Millgate |
| Starring | Steve McQueen Aneta Corsaut Earl Rowe Olin Howland |
| Music by | Ralph Carmichael Burt Bacharach |
| Cinematography | Thomas E. Spalding |
| Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
| Release date(s) | September 12, 1958 |
| Running time | 86 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $240,000 (estimated) |
The Blob is an independently made 1958 American horror/science-fiction film that depicts a giant amoeba-like alien that terrorizes the small community of Phoenixville, Pennsylvania. In the style of American International Pictures, Paramount Pictures released the film as a double feature with I Married a Monster from Outer Space. and also has 2 sequels and a prequel but "the blob" is the original created in 1958
The film was Steve McQueen's debut leading role, and also starred Aneta Corsaut. The film's tongue-in-cheek theme song, "Beware of the Blob", was written by Burt Bacharach and Mack David and became a nationwide hit in the U.S. It was recorded by studio group the Five Blobs—actually singer Bernie Nee overdubbing himself.[1]
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It is July 1957. Teenager Steve Andrews (Steve McQueen) and his girl Jane Martin (Aneta Corsaut) are out parking and see a falling star. They drive out to try to find where the meteor landed. An old man (Olin Howland) has heard the meteor crash near his house. He finds the meteor and pokes it with a stick. The rock breaks open to reveal a small jelly-like blob inside. This Blob, a living creature, crawls up the stick and attaches itself to his hand. Unable to scrape or shake it loose (and apparently now in pain), the old man runs hysterically onto the road, where he is seen by Steve, who takes him to see the local doctor, Doctor Hallen.
They reach the clinic when Doctor Hallen is about to leave. Hallen anesthetizes the man and sends Steve back to the crash site to gather more information. Hallen decides he must amputate the man's arm which is being consumed by the Blob, calling in his nurse. However, the Blob completely consumes the old man. Now an amorphous creature, it eats the nurse and the doctor while increasing in size.
Steve and Jane return to the office and Steve witnesses the doctor's death. They go to the local police and return to the clinic with the kindly Lt. Dave (Earl Rowe) and cynical Sgt. Bert (John Benson). However, there is no sign of the creature or the doctor, and the police dismiss Steve's story. Steve and Jane are sent home with their fathers but sneak out and retrieve Steve's friends and successfully enlist their help warning the town.
In the meantime, the Blob has consumed a mechanic, the janitor in Mr. Andrew's grocery store, and a bar room of late-night drinkers. Investigating, Steve and Jane are confronted by the Blob in the grocery store and seek refuge in the walk-in refrigerator. The Blob starts to ooze in under the door but then retreats. Steve and Jane escape and set off the town's fire and air-raid alarms. The whole town gathers and demands to know what is going on. As the townspeople and police angrily confront Steve, the Blob enters the Colonial Theater – which is showing horror classic Daughter of Horror – engulfing and eating the projectionist before oozing into the cinema seating area.
The patrons run screaming out of the theater, alerting the assembled townspeople to the danger. The Blob leaves the theater, but Jane's little brother appears from the crowd to confront the Blob with his cap gun before running into the adjacent diner. Jane and Steve run in after him but become trapped along with the owner and a waitress.
The Blob – now an enormous mass – engulfs the diner and begins to ooze in through the windows while the occupants seek refuge in the cellar. The police try to kill the Blob by dropping a power line onto it, but this fails and only sets the diner ablaze. Defending themselves inside, the diner's owner uses a CO2 fire extinguisher attempting to put out the fire, which also causes the approaching Blob to recoil. Steve remembers that the Blob retreated from the refrigerator, too, and tells Lt. Dave that the Blob apparently cannot stand the cold ("CO2, Dave, CO2!"). Jane's father, Mr. Martin (Elbert Smith), takes Steve's friends to the high school to retrieve fire extinguishers which are used to freeze the Blob. Dave requests an Air Force jet to transport the Blob to the North Pole to keep it frozen. A military plane is shown dropping the Blob into an Arctic landscape. The film ends with the "The End", which morphs into a question mark.
The film was originally titled The Molten Meteor until producers overheard screenwriter Kay Linaker refer to the movie's monster as "the blob."[2] Other sources give a different account, saying that the film went through a number of title changes before the makers settled on The Glob, then hearing that cartoonist Walt Kelly had used The Glob as a title for his children's book, and mistakenly believing that they could no longer use it as a title, they changed it to The Blob.[3]
The Blob was directed by Irvin Yeaworth, who had directed more than 400 films for motivational, educational, and religious purposes. Though the budget was set at US$100,000 it ended up costing $110,000.[4]
The Blob was filmed in and around Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. The primary shooting took place at Valley Forge Studios, and several scenes were filmed in the towns of Chester Springs, Downingtown, Phoenixville and Royersford, including the basement of a local restaurant named Chef's. (The setting is apparently Downingtown Pennsylvania itself as the one policeman identifies his department's office as "Downingtown HQ to East Cornwall HQ" over the two-way radio during his chess game, and the final scenes take place in a restaurant that is clearly labeled "Downingtown Diner".) It was filmed in color and widescreen.
For the diner scene a photograph of the building was put on a gyroscopically-operated table with cameras mounted. The table was shaken and the Blob rolled off. When the film was run in reverse it appeared to be oozing over the building.
McQueen received only US$3,000 for this film; he had turned down an offer for a smaller up-front sum with 10 percent of the profits because he did not think the movie would make any money and he needed the money immediately to pay for food and rent; it ended up grossing US$4 million.
Though legend has it that the opening novelty song was composed by a young and unknown Burt Bacharach (along with Hal David, Burt's famous songwriting partner), Bacharach had already achieved some measure of success by the time the film was released, and the lyrics to the song were composed by David's brother Mack.
The background score for The Blob was composed by Ralph Carmichael. It was one of just a few film scores that Carmichael wrote. Carmichael is best known for his musical associations with Billy Graham and for arranging the popular Christmas album by Nat King Cole. Carmichael also composed the original theme for the film, entitled "Violence" on the soundtrack album, which started the film on a serious and frightening note. It was against the director's wishes to replace the original theme song with that by Bacharach/David. However, because the latter encourages audiences to view The Blob as campy fun, it has contributed to the film's enduring popularity. Both Carmichael's score and Bacharach/David's song were released in 2008 by the Monstrous Movie Music soundtrack label.
A comedy sequel, Beware! The Blob, was made in 1972, directed by Larry Hagman. In 1988, a remake of the same name was made. In August 2009, it was revealed that musician turned director Rob Zombie was working another remake,[5][6] but is no longer working on this project.[7]
Since 2000, the town of Phoenixville, Pennsylvania—one of the filming locations—has held an annual "Blobfest". Activities include a re-enactment of the scene in which moviegoers run screaming from the town's Colonial Theatre, which has recently been restored. Chef's Diner in Downingtown is also restored, and is open for business or photographs of the basement on weekday mornings only.
The Blob itself was made from silicone, with increasing amounts of red vegetable dye added as it "absorbed" people. In 1965, it was bought by movie collector Wes Shank,[8] who has written a book about the making of The Blob.
According to Jeff Sharlet in his book The Family, The Blob was "about the creeping horrors of communism" only defeated "by freezing it—the Cold War writ small and literal."[9] Rudy Nelson, one of the scriptwriters for the film, has denied many of Sharlet's assertions, saying "What on earth can Sharlet say about the movie that will fill 23 pages—especially when what he thinks he knows is all wrong?"[10]
A trailer for "The Blob" appears later on in the drive-in sequence in the film "Grease" whilst Sandy, Danny and friends sneak in during the hot-dog commercial with the dancing soda-pop.
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