The Blob is a 1958 American science fiction horror film directed by Irvin S. Yeaworth Jr.
The Blob was future screen icon Steve McQueen’s debut leading role; it also starred Aneta Corsaut but, aside from The Toolbox Murders (1978) her movie career petered out and was confined to TV roles such as on The Andy Griffith Show.
The film’s tongue-in-cheek theme song, “Beware of the Blob”, was written by pop music maestros 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 Knee overdubbing himself.
The film was originally titled The Molten Meteor until producers overheard screenwriter Kay Linaker 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 (even the monster was called “the mass” in the shooting script) 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.
A pseudo-comedy sequel, Beware! The Blob, was made in 1972, directed by Larry Hagman (who eventually found infamy as J.R. Ewing in soap opera Dallas).
In 1988, a remake of the same name was made and received generally good reviews. A second remake is apparently in development for a 2019 reboot.
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.
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Reviews:
“The remarkable seriousness the actors, particularly method disciple McQueen, bring to the material makes the film difficult to dismiss as mere camp. So does a finale that unites the entire town, teens and grown-ups alike, in an all-metaphors-aside fight against an alien threat…” The Onion’s AV Club
“It ends up being one-quarter pretty good blob rampage scenes, and three-quarters deadly dull teen melodrama [although I suppose drinks and friends could make these scenes amusing], making it still worth seeing, but less fun than one would hope.” Cinema de Merde
Choice dialogue:
Cop: “There’s nobody in here but us monsters.”
Cop: “It’s the most horrible thing I’ve seen in my whole life!”
Release:
In the style of American International Pictures (AIP), Paramount Pictures released the film as a double feature with I Married a Monster from Outer Space.
Film Facts:
The movie theatre that the panicked crowd streams from had been showing Daughter of Horror (1953).
