Favorite Stars in ‘B’ Movies– Steve McQueen in “The Blob” (1958)

Beware of the blob, it creeps
And leaps and glides and slides
Across the floor
Right through the door
And all around the wall
A splotch, a blotch
Be careful of the blob

“The Blob” performed by The Five Blobs in “The Blob” (1958)

And so begins the greatest movie theme song of all time–the theme song to the 1958 sci-fi classic, The Blob. The theme song was written by Burt Bacharach and Mack David. Bacharach of course would later go on to win two Best Song Oscars, most notably for “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head” from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. However, for my money, “The Blob” is his best tune, an earworm so catchy that it’ll stay with you days, even weeks after watching the film. My husband and I saw this film at The Hollywood Theatre on our 11th anniversary a couple years ago. It was awesome seeing it up on the big screen.

The Blob starts out like many other 50s sci-fi films. A pair of teenagers, Steve (Steve McQueen, in his screen debut) and Jane (Aneta “Miss Crump from The Andy Griffith Show” Corsaut) are necking at lover’s lane. They see what appears to be a meteorite cascading through the sky and hear it crashing. Steve and Jane drive off to see what it was, but an old man and his dog get to it first. The old man finds the meteor and pokes it with a stick. When he does, it splits open and a mysterious bloblike creature (i.e. “the blob”) escapes and attaches itself to the man’s arm. In pain and unable to get the blob off, the man runs out into the road, nearly being hit by Steve. Steve and Jane take the man to see Dr. Hallen.

In a moment of desperation before her inevitable consumption by the blob, Nurse Kate tries to subdue it with a glass of water.

Dr. Hallen subdues the man with an anesthetic and sends Steve and Jane back out to the site and look for information. While Steve and Jane are gone, Dr. Hallen decides that the old man’s arm must be amputated. During this entire time, between the blob’s escape from the meteor and staying at Dr. Hallen’s, the blob has grown in size. Before Steve and Jane return, the blob fully absorbs the old man, Dr. Hallen, and his nurse Kate. This scene features a lot of delightful screaming by Kate. Screaming, while standing completely motionless and not trying to escape at all, is a common trope in 50s sci-fi. The blob grows and becomes more red with each subsequent victim.

At this point, Steve, Jane and his other “teenage” friends try to warn the police about the blob. I am not convinced that any of the teenagers in this film are actually teenagers. Steve McQueen was 28 and looks every inch of it. Aneta Corsaut was 25. I can see why McQueen wanted to avoid discussing this film. His screen debut is not flashy, it’s not a star-making role. McQueen doesn’t really do anything in this film other than warn the adults about the blob. The real star of this film is the blob. He should have gone onto bigger and better things.

But I digress. The police investigate Steve’s claims but are unable to locate the blob or any victims. They assume that Steve is playing a prank on the police and ignore his subsequent warnings. As these films tend to go, Steve and Jane have continued run-ins with the blob and find more and more victims. The police continue to ignore them until they have their own encounter and see the blob with their own eyes.

The blob oozes through the front doors of the Colonial Theater.

In The Blob‘s most famous sequence, one that is also featured in Grease, another film that features near-30 year olds playing teenagers, the blob is seen creeping through the vents in the projection booth of the local Colonial Theater. Steve and Jane continue to warn everyone of the danger, but to no avail. They are vindicated when the blob completely absorbs the projectionist, and then takes over the theater. The crowd flees the theater in panic, while the blob oozes through the front doors. As an aside, at the annual Blobfest in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, people can participate in a reenactment of this scene. Participants can run screaming, out of the now-restored Colonial Theater, trying to escape being consumed by the blob.

At the film’s conclusion, the now enormous blob completely absorbs a diner, complete with customers inside. The police, now finally believing Steve’s claims, try to figure out how to take the blob down before he consumes the entire town. They try to electrocute the blob, but all that accomplishes is setting a fire elsewhere. Steve notices that the blob recoils when coming in contact with the cold CO₂ fire extinguisher liquid. He comes up with a plan to acquire as many fire extinguishers as possible from a variety of sources. Copious amounts of fire extinguishers in hand, the firefighters, police and students spray the blob. Now frozen, the Air Force is contacted to carry the heavy frozen blob to the Arctic. However, he’s not dead.

The best thing about this film is the blob. He’s some sort of alien that crashes to earth. His only way to stay alive is to eat people. With every person consumed, the blob grows in size and becomes more and more red. At the beginning of the film, he was a tiny blob, maybe 5″ in diameter and was semi- translucent. By the end of the film, he’s grown to gargantuan portions and is a deep deep red. I love that the film has no resolution. The blob, while frozen, is not defeated. Freezing him was a temporary solution.

The film warns that the blob will stay away as long as the Arctic stays cold. Oops. With the arctic melting, are we in danger of the blob’s imminent return? The answer is a resounding “yes,” because apparently at the aforementioned “Blobfest” in Pennsylvania, fans of the blob can meet the star of the movie, the blob himself, in person! It’s only a matter of time before he wrecks havoc again.