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.

So Bad, It’s Good Blogathon–“Attack of the 50 Foot Woman” (1958)

Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, despite rating a 5/10 on imdb and being known as “one of the worst movies of all time,” is actually an excellent film (based sheerly on entertainment value) and is the epitome of “so bad, it’s good.” This is a low budget film. There is no doubt about that. The 50 Foot Woman’s enormous hand is obviously papier-mâché. For being a wealthy woman, her house isn’t really that nice. As the audience, we only know she’s rich, because the movie tells us she is. The alien’s spaceship is a weird semi-translucent circle. The alien is also played by the bartender. The 50 Foot Woman is clearly a projection in some scenes, in others she’s transparent, finally in other scenes, the quality is better and the actress is actually being filmed in the scene, albeit with a bumpy papier-mâché hand.

Regardless, I love this movie.

One of the all-time greatest movie posters. It’s disappointing that nothing like this happens in the film.

At its heart, Attack of the 50 Foot Woman is a film about a woman scorned. At the beginning of the film, the wealthy Nancy Fowler Archer (Allison Hayes), heiress to the $50-million Fowler family fortune and owner of the largest diamond in the world, spots a satellite while driving late at night through a desert. After a glowing sphere (i.e., the satellite) lands on the highway in front of Nancy, she veers off the road. An alien emerges from the satellite and tries to reach for Nancy, but she escapes.

When Nancy returns home, she tries to tell everyone what she saw and nobody believes her–including her husband Harry (William Hudson). Her credibility is shot as she was recently released from a mental institution and is known to have a drinking problem. Harry is no saint, as he’s openly involved in an affair with the town floozy, Honey Parker (Yvette Vickers). The lovebirds do not try to hide their relationship at all–they openly neck in the booth at the local roadhouse. The deputy sheriff gives Harry updates about Nancy in the roadhouse, in front of Honey. There is no discretion. The lovebirds do their thing while the other locals dance the “Carolina Shag.” As an aside, I didn’t know until my recent rewatch of this film, but Attack of the 50 Foot Woman would make a great companion to the 1989 film Shag, as both feature the “Carolina Shag.”

The town floozy, Honey Parker, played by Yvette Vickers.

Anyway, Harry doesn’t care he’s cheating on Nancy and has no issues talking trash about her to Honey. Honey doesn’t seem to care much that she’s carrying on with a married man. Neither Harry nor Honey seem to care that they live in a small town and word gets around. One might ask “if Harry hates Nancy so much, why doesn’t he divorce her?” the answer to that would be money. Nancy has a lot of money and Harry wants it. His and Honey’s plan is to wait for Nancy to “snap” again so that she’ll be committed. He then will legally have control of her estate, which leaves he and Honey set for life.

Wanting to prove her sanity once and for all, Nancy convinces Harry to take her out to the desert where she saw the first satellite. She says that if there isn’t a satellite, she’ll voluntarily commit herself. However, Nancy does see the satellite. An alien emerges and seemingly abducts Nancy. Harry, being that manly man he is, drives away and leaves Nancy to fend for herself. She is later found on the roof of her pool house and is sedated by the family physician. After examining Nancy and the scratches on her neck, the doctor deduces that she was exposed to radiation. Nobody else in the home seems concerned about potentially also being exposed to radiation by being in the same vicinity as Nancy.

This ridiculous hand.

The doctor keeps Nancy doped up on morphine and instructs his nurse to be very careful when filling the syringe. Too much morphine could cause Nancy to overdose. Harry’s ears perk up when he hears about the possible overdose and manages to steal some morphine and a syringe from the nurse while she’s asleep. Filling the syringe with a large dose of air and morphine, Harry is ready to make his move when he discovers that his wife has now grown to gargantuan size. We only see her giant hand in the room and have to suspend disbelief that despite being larger than the home, Nancy still fits inside while resting.

The 50 Foot Woman’s fashionable two piece made of bedsheets.

Eventually Nancy comes to and breaks free. Fashioning a chic looking bikini top and skirt from bedsheets, the now 50-foot Nancy slowly walks through town, looking for her philandering husband. She reminded me of Ursula the Sea Witch in Disney’s The Little Mermaid, when she obtains King Triton’s trident and makes herself giant and ruler of the ocean. Ursula’s voice is deeper as she proclaims that she’s “all powerful.” As Nancy searches for Harry, her deep voice booms as she yells “HAAAAAAARRRRY.” She of course finds Harry and Honey at the roadhouse, because heaven forbid they take a break while Nancy is supposedly ailing at home. With her target in view, Nancy rips the roof off the roadhouse and throws it on top of Honey, killing her instantly. Then she grabs Harry and carries him through town until she’s electrocuted by an exploding powerline. Both Nancy and Harry are dead.

“She finally got Harry all to herself.”

Frankly, Nancy could do better than Harry. I think she could have really made it as a 50 Foot Woman. The radiation gave her a fresh blond wavy haircut, a definite upgrade from the mousy brunette ‘do she sported earlier. She definitely could have tried to make a go of it with the Amazing Colossal Man. But I digress. We never know if the alien gets away with all the diamonds. It seems that the sheriff figured out that the alien powered his ship with the diamonds and then he just ran away. Nothing ever comes of it. That whole storyline didn’t add anything to the story. It’s somewhat absurd considering the Sheriff has the butler come with him and not his deputy. Though the deputy was kind of a dope, so maybe the butler was a better choice. In the roadhouse, Harry asks the Sheriff to hand over his gun AND HE DOES. At 50 feet tall, I think Nancy could have had a real shot at becoming the new sheriff. She definitely could have cleaned that place up.

The templar knight enthusiast alien.

Attack of the 50 Foot Woman is a hysterical example of the 50s sci-fi craze. It premiered right after Russia sent Sputnik to space. The alien spaceship in this film is referred to as a “satellite” because the scriptwriter thought any spherical-shaped spacecraft was a satellite. The alien in this film, much like the alien in The Day the Earth Stood Still, looks human and in the right clothing, would blend into the general population easily. In Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, the alien is inexplicably dressed as a templar knight. We can only assume that he is a medieval enthusiast. The alien is definitely not as suave and sophisticated as Michael Rennie in the aforementioned The Day the Earth Stood Still.

But I digress. Despite its negative reviews and ratings, Attack of the 50 Foot Woman is one of the all-time greatest 1950s science fiction films. It features every trope that fans of low-budget science fiction love–improbable plots, cheesy special effects, bad acting, bad props (the satellite in this film had a string hanging from it, e.g.), over-the-top deaths, a terrible looking alien, bad lighting, everything. I highly recommend this film to anyone who enjoys this era of filmmaking. Keep in mind, this recommendation is coming from someone who typically does not enjoy science fiction. However, I love low-budget 1950s science fiction.

“I know where my husband is! He’s with that woman!”