The Blob is an
independently madeAn independent film, or indie film, is a professional film production resulting in a feature film that is produced mostly or completely outside of the major film studio system. In addition to being produced and distributed by independent entertainment companies, independent films are also produced...
1958 American horror/science-fiction film that depicts a giant
amoebaAmoeba is a genus of Protozoa.History=The amoeba was first discovered by August Johann Rösel von Rosenhof in 1757. Early naturalists referred to Amoeba as the Proteus animalcule after the Greek god Proteus, who could change his shape...
-like
alienExtraterrestrial life is defined as life that does not originate from Earth...
that terrorizes the small community of
Phoenixville, PennsylvaniaPhoenixville is a borough in Chester County, Pennsylvania, United States, northwest of Philadelphia, at the junction of French Creek with the Schuylkill River. The population is 16,440 as of the 2010 Census.- History :...
. In the style of
American International PicturesAmerican International Pictures was a film production company formed in April 1956 from American Releasing Corporation by James H. Nicholson, former Sales Manager of Realart Pictures, and Samuel Z. Arkoff, an entertainment lawyer...
,
Paramount PicturesParamount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
released the film as a
double featureThe double feature, also known as a double bill, was a motion picture industry phenomenon in which theatre managers would exhibit two films for the price of one, supplanting an earlier format in which one feature film and various short subject reels would be shown.The double feature, also known as...
with
I Married a Monster from Outer SpaceI Married a Monster from Outer Space is a 1958 science fiction film, directed by Gene Fowler Jr. and starring Tom Tryon and Gloria Talbott....
.
The film was Steve McQueen's debut leading role, and also starred
Aneta CorsautAneta Louise Corsaut was an American actress. She is best known for playing Helen Crump on The Andy Griffith Show ....
. The film's tongue-in-cheek theme song, "Beware of the Blob", was written by
Burt BacharachBurt F. Bacharach is an American pianist, composer and music producer. He is known for his popular hit songs and compositions from the mid-1950s through the 1980s, with lyrics written by Hal David. Many of their hits were produced specifically for, and performed by, Dionne Warwick...
and
Mack DavidMack David was an American lyricist and songwriter, best known for his work in film and television, with a career spanning from the early 1940s through the early 1970s. Mack was credited with writing lyrics and/or music for over one thousand songs...
and became a nationwide hit in the U.S. It was recorded by studio group
the Five BlobsThe Five Blobs were an American group of studio musicians put together in 1958 by session leader Bernie Nee. The ensemble was assembled in Los Angeles, California for the express purpose of recording "The Blob", the title song for the Steve McQueen film The Blob. Written by Burt Bacharach and Mack...
—actually singer Bernie Nee overdubbing himself.
Plot
It is July 1957. Teenager Steve Andrews (
Steve McQueenTerrence Steven "Steve" McQueen was an American movie actor. He was nicknamed "The King of Cool." His "anti-hero" persona, which he developed at the height of the Vietnam counterculture, made him one of the top box-office draws of the 1960s and 1970s. McQueen received an Academy Award nomination...
) and his girl Jane Martin (
Aneta CorsautAneta Louise Corsaut was an American actress. She is best known for playing Helen Crump on The Andy Griffith Show ....
) are out parking and see a falling star. They drive out to try to find where the meteor landed. An old man (
Olin HowlandOlin Howland was an American film actor. From 1909 to 1927 he appeared on the Broadway stage while balancing a career in silent movies. In 1921, he appeared in the play Two Little Girls in Blue with Oscar Shaw and the Fairbanks Twins. He was in Janice Meredith with Marion Davies...
) 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 creatureThe amorphous creature is a common trope in science fiction. Usually it is depicted as a living mass of jelly-like substance that can take any shape it wants...
, 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 BensonJohn Benson was a British television announcer, best known for saying "And Now ... from Norwich, it's the quiz of the week" at the start of each edition of the UK's long-running Sale of the Century, which ran on ITV from 1971 to 1983....
). 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 TheaterThe Colonial Theatre is located in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania at 227 Bridge Street. Built in 1903 as a vaudeville house, the "Colonial Opera House" brought professional shows and live entertainment to Phoenixville for the first time....
– 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 CO
2 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 ("CO
2, Dave, CO
2!"). 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 ForceThe United States Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the American uniformed services. Initially part of the United States Army, the USAF was formed as a separate branch of the military on September 18, 1947 under the National Security Act of...
jet to transport the Blob to the
North PoleThe North Pole, also known as the Geographic North Pole or Terrestrial North Pole, is, subject to the caveats explained below, defined as the point in the northern hemisphere where the Earth's axis of rotation meets its surface...
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.
Cast
- Steve McQueen
Terrence Steven "Steve" McQueen was an American movie actor. He was nicknamed "The King of Cool." His "anti-hero" persona, which he developed at the height of the Vietnam counterculture, made him one of the top box-office draws of the 1960s and 1970s. McQueen received an Academy Award nomination...
as Steve Andrews
- Aneta Corsaut
Aneta Louise Corsaut was an American actress. She is best known for playing Helen Crump on The Andy Griffith Show ....
as Jane Martin
- Earl Rowe as Lt. Dave
- John Benson
John Benson was a British television announcer, best known for saying "And Now ... from Norwich, it's the quiz of the week" at the start of each edition of the UK's long-running Sale of the Century, which ran on ITV from 1971 to 1983....
as Sgt. Jim Bert
- Olin Howland
Olin Howland was an American film actor. From 1909 to 1927 he appeared on the Broadway stage while balancing a career in silent movies. In 1921, he appeared in the play Two Little Girls in Blue with Oscar Shaw and the Fairbanks Twins. He was in Janice Meredith with Marion Davies...
as Old man
- Elbert Smith as Henry Martin
- Hugh Graham as Mr. Andrews
Production
The film was originally titled
The Molten Meteor until producers overheard screenwriter
Kay LinakerMary Katherine Linaker, known professionally as "Kay Linaker", "Kate Phillips", and "Kay Linaker-Phillips" was an American actress and screenwriter, who appeared in many B movies during the 1930s and 1940s, most notably Kitty Foyle...
refer to the movie's monster as "the blob." 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 KellyWalter Crawford Kelly, Jr. , or Walt Kelly, was an American animator and cartoonist, best known for the comic strip, Pogo. He began his animation career in 1936 at Walt Disney Studios, contributing to Pinocchio and Fantasia. Kelly resigned in 1941 at the age of 28 to work at Post-Hall Syndicate,...
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.
The Blob was directed by
Irvin YeaworthIrvin Shortess "Shorty" Yeaworth, Jr. was an American film director, producer, screenwriter and theme park builder. He began his career singing at age 10 at KDKA, the world's first radio station in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He later became a radio producer...
, 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.
The Blob was filmed in and around
Valley Forge, PennsylvaniaThe Village of Valley Forge is an unincorporated settlement located on the west side of Valley Forge National Historical Park at the confluence of Valley Creek and the Schuylkill River in Pennsylvania, United States. The remaining village is in Schuylkill Township of Chester County, but once...
. The primary shooting took place at Valley Forge Studios, and several scenes were filmed in the towns of
Chester SpringsChester Springs is an unincorporated community in Chester County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is centered on West Pikeland Township, and extends into Upper Uwchlan Township, East Nantmeal Township, Wallace Township and West Vincent Township. The Chester Springs postal zone is considerably...
,
DowningtownDowningtown is a borough in Chester County, Pennsylvania, west of Philadelphia. As of the 2010 census it had a population of 7,891. Downingtown was settled by English and European colonists in the early 18th century and has a number of historic buildings and structures.-History:The town was...
,
PhoenixvillePhoenixville is a borough in Chester County, Pennsylvania, United States, northwest of Philadelphia, at the junction of French Creek with the Schuylkill River. The population is 16,440 as of the 2010 Census.- History :...
and
RoyersfordRoyersford is a borough in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, northwest of Philadelphia, on the Schuylkill River. The town drew its name from the location of a ford across the Schuylkill River, which happened to be adjacent to land owned by the Royer family...
, 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
widescreenWidescreen images are a variety of aspect ratios used in film, television and computer screens. In film, a widescreen film is any film image with a width-to-height aspect ratio greater than the standard 1.37:1 Academy aspect ratio provided by 35mm film....
.
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 BacharachBurt F. Bacharach is an American pianist, composer and music producer. He is known for his popular hit songs and compositions from the mid-1950s through the 1980s, with lyrics written by Hal David. Many of their hits were produced specifically for, and performed by, Dionne Warwick...
(along with
Hal DavidHarold Lane "Hal" David is an American lyricist. He grew up in Brooklyn, New York. David is best known for his collaborations with composer Burt Bacharach.-Career:...
, 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
MackMack David was an American lyricist and songwriter, best known for his work in film and television, with a career spanning from the early 1940s through the early 1970s. Mack was credited with writing lyrics and/or music for over one thousand songs...
.
The background score for
The Blob was composed by
Ralph CarmichaelRalph Carmichael is a composer and arranger of both secular pop music and contemporary Christian music, being regarded as one of the pioneers of the latter genre...
. It was one of just a few film scores that Carmichael wrote. Carmichael is best known for his musical associations with
Billy GrahamWilliam Franklin "Billy" Graham, Jr. is an American evangelical Christian evangelist. As of April 25, 2010, when he met with Barack Obama, Graham has spent personal time with twelve United States Presidents dating back to Harry S. Truman, and is number seven on Gallup's list of admired people for...
and for arranging the popular Christmas album by
Nat King ColeNathaniel Adams Coles , known professionally as Nat King Cole, was an American musician who first came to prominence as a leading jazz pianist. Although an accomplished pianist, he owes most of his popular musical fame to his soft baritone voice, which he used to perform in big band and jazz genres...
. 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.
Legacy
A comedy
sequelA sequel is a narrative, documental, or other work of literature, film, theatre, or music that continues the story of or expands upon issues presented in some previous work...
,
Beware! The BlobBeware! The Blob is a 1972 sequel to horror science-fiction film The Blob. The film was directed by Larry Hagman. The screenplay was penned by Anthony Harris and Jack Woods III, based on a story by Jack H. Harris and Richard Clair...
, was made in 1972, directed by
Larry HagmanLarry Martin Hagman is an American film and television actor, producer and director known for playing J.R. Ewing in the 1980s primetime television soap opera Dallas and Major Anthony "Tony" Nelson in the 1960s sitcom I Dream of Jeannie.-Early life and career:Hagman was born in Fort Worth, Texas...
. In 1988, a
remake of the same nameThe Blob is a 1988 American monster horror film distributed by Tristar Pictures. It is a remake of the 1958 film of the same name, which starred Steve McQueen. The film was written by Chuck Russell and Frank Darabont and directed by Russell. The shooting took place in Abbeville, Louisiana.-Plot:A...
was made. In August 2009, it was revealed that musician turned director
Rob ZombieRob Zombie is an American musician, film director, screenwriter and film producer. He founded the heavy metal band White Zombie and has been nominated three times as a solo artist for the Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance.Zombie has also established a career as a film director, creating the...
was working another remake, but is no longer working on this project.
Since 2000, the town of
Phoenixville, PennsylvaniaPhoenixville is a borough in Chester County, Pennsylvania, United States, northwest of Philadelphia, at the junction of French Creek with the Schuylkill River. The population is 16,440 as of the 2010 Census.- History :...
—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, 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." 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?"
Trivia
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.
External links
The Blob (1958) redubbed with a comedy soundtrack.