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The Blob (1958)
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Bogmeister
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 03, 2019 3:42 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

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_________________ Trailer - The Blob (1958)


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Steve McQueen stars, credited as "Steven McQueen" in his first starring role (if you don't count The St Louis Bank Robbery, which was filmed earlier but released after) — hey, everyone had to start somewhere.

McQueen plays a local teen in a small American town (even though he was in his late twenties at the time). Aneta Corseaut, soon a semi-regular on The Andy Griffith Show, co-stars as his girlfriend.

They witness the Blob coming to Earth one night, in the form of a small meteorite. The Blob starts out as a small Blob, the size of a softball, but each time it feeds — primarily human beings — it grows in size, because it absorbs the mass of what it consumes . . .

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The Blob! Above is the poster (and the box cover) included in the Criterion DVD

The picture quality is really excellent, almost like watching a brand-new film. There's an essay inside written by Bruce Kawin in which he opines that audiences may have been threatened as consumers, besides the usual monster scares.

In other words, Americans tend to consume a lot, and here is this monster from outer space who outdoes even us. This may have been stressed in the supermarket scene. I think this was really a stretch on the writer's part . . . but maybe.

The film is a classic 'monster-from-space' story and sets the template for many-a-future sf scare film, with just a slightly slow pace in the middle act, but an effective creepy tone.

BoG's Score: _ out of 10



Here is the Italian poster for the film, art by Sandro Simeoni.


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BoG
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Last edited by Bogmeister on Sun May 19, 2019 3:08 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Tue May 14, 2019 8:40 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

This enjoyable fan-made video is 18 minutes long and a ton of fun! The producer of the video did a wonderful job of tracking down the original shooting locations and presenting them with great enthusiasm and witty remarks.

It concludes with footage of the annual "run out" from the Pennsylvania theater where fans gather each year to reenact the scene in the climax of the movie. Very Happy

Enjoy!
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The Blob (1958) Filming Locations & Special Event


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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)
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Maurice
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PostPosted: Fri May 24, 2019 1:02 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Bud Brewster wrote:
Damn, wrong again. Confused Gee, time has not been kind to these people.

They looked fine for their ages at the time. Why so unkind?
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 08, 2020 10:43 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Maurice wrote:
Bud Brewster wrote:
Damn, wrong again. Confused Gee, time has not been kind to these people.

They looked fine for their ages at the time. Why so unkind?

I was just making a joke based on the comment concerning the way those actors played teenagers long after there teen years had, shall we say, "dwindled in the proverbial rear view mirror".

I really didn't mean to be unkind. Very Happy

_________________
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)


Last edited by Bud Brewster on Wed Sep 22, 2021 11:53 am; edited 1 time in total
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Sun Sep 19, 2021 5:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

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Here's another YouTube member who has created Drive-in Double Feature videos which includes a vintage drive-in "welcome messages”, the trailer for the movies, and a double feature

It even has those great old “snack bar” promos during intermission!


"So, get comfortable, folks! Just sit back, relax, and enjoy the show!" Very Happy

Enjoy!
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Double Feature Drive-in: The Blob & The Man with X-Ray Eyes


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____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Thu Sep 30, 2021 5:24 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

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Let's Create a Sequel!
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~ A Question for the Members: After considering a few questions concerning the Blob that weren't addressed in the movie, could we concoct a sequel which addressed the fascinating issues I've described below?

~ Here's what I came up with.: The first thing that occurred to me was an idea I think was suggested by another member. What if the "meteorite" the Blob arrived in was actually an egg? Confused

Let's examine the evidence. Cool

Observation: It made a remarkable soft landing. The meteoric material was not broken by the impact, and the "crater" very small.

Supposition: The meteor had some way of actually slowing it's decent! Confused

Observation: The meteorite appeared to be a perfect sphere, aside from the tiny craters on its surface. That unusual shape for a meteorite, along with the small craters, are puzzling. Shocked

Supposition: The meteorite was biologically produced by a parent organism to serve as a shell for the organism inside, and the small "craters" are actually camouflage to hide the "egg's" nature among other larger meteoroids while floating through space!

But to hide it from what I don't know! Shocked

Observation: The meteor DID crack open when Olin Howlin touched it twice with a stick, very gently. And then it actually opened slowly . . . into four sections of nearly equal size . . . similar to the way the Alien facehugger eggs did!

Supposition: The Blob inside the meteorite was capable of sensing the gentle movement, causing it to . . . hatch!

Observation: When Olin pushed the end of the stick against the soft, dark mass, it attached itself to the end of it.

Supposition: The Blob was attracted to the first object that demonstrated movement and which came into physical contact with it.

Observation: When Olin pointed the stick upward to look closely at the Blob, it began to ooze down towards his hand. And when he quickly pointed the stick down to keep it away from him — it rush upward and engulfed his hand!

Supposition: The Blob sensed living tissue and seized it as food.







Observation: In a later scene, the teenagers examined the meteorite fragments and noticed that they were still quite warm.

Supposition: The heat caused by the friction when the meteor passed through the Earth's atmosphere didn't harm the Blob . . . because it has evolved a high tolerance for heat!

However, this ability comes at a price. The Blob has a high freezing point — as we see in the climax!

Observation: After the Blob had completely absorbed Olin Howlin, it left the examining table and was hiding on the floor when the nurse came in. And yet the examining table was spotlessly clean, without a drop of fluid on the white sheet and the pillowcase! Confused

Supposition: The Blob's ability absorb its prey was so complete, absolutely nothing was left!

Observation: When the nurse threw acid onto the Blob, the liquid did not simply run off the surface . . . it too was quickly absorbed, with no apparent damage!

Supposition: The Blob's own acid-based physiology would be not be harmed by acid any more than throwing water on a fish! Shocked

Observation: After absorbing the poor nurse very quickly, the Blob's appearance turned more red and translucent.

Supposition: This has be explained as the large amount of blood in the two human bodies it consumed. But that seems doubtful in view of the highly corrosive nature of the Blob's physiology.

The blood cells would have been destroyed.

Observation: Although the scene is not shown on-screen, the Blob consumed the patrons of a local bar, from which one man escaped and then stumbled into another bar, raving about the horrible disaster! Shocked

Supposition: There are three interesting possibilities concerning this scene.

(1) The bar was sparsely populated, allowing the Blob to consume a few victims before the lone survivor escaped.

(2) The bar was crowed, and the Blob somehow managed to "coral" his victims, blocking the door while it attacked them one-by-one one as they made attempts to escape.

This however, seems unlikely in view of the fact that the bar would have a back door.

(3) The Blob was able, under these circumstances, to divide itself into multiple parts, and they work as a team to contain the crowd while they picked off their victims, several at a time. The parts of the Blob would then recombine into one mass — now greatly increased in size.

Obviously this possibility of the three is the most disturbing. If the Blob could do this, the same hideous strategy would be employed in the movie theater, but on an even greater scale! Shocked

Observation: The Blob enjoyed considerable success at surviving in the small town after hatching, just hours earlier. I submit that this "newborn" demonstrated an impressive amount intelligence during it's brief lifespan.

Supposition: Whether or not it was learning from its experiences and becoming an even more dangerous creature is not really clear.

But the situation is remarkably similar to the one in 20 Million Miles to Earth, in which an alien egg is brought to Earth and hatches an infant creature which grows rapidly!










The Ymir's innate intelligence is also a subject of debate, and I maintain that the Venusian might have possessed a higher intelligence than we suspect!

With that in mind, while composing this brilliant and thought-provoking post — which I desperately hope will get more replies from All Sci-Fi's members than some of the other elaborate ones I've offered recently for their entertainment, like the ones about 50s sci-fi sequels — I came up with another very wacky idea. Shocked

Put this one in your pipes and smoke it!
Very Happy

THE YMIR vs THE BLOB!

Now folks, before you rush to the rash conclusion that the Blob would gobble up the Ymit and that would be the end of it, try to do what I do . . .

Think Like a Writer!

For example, would the military just stand by watch as the Blob gobbled up a priceless biological specimen from Earth's sister planet, Venus, without taking sides? Shocked

Hell no! Evil or Very Mad

The Italian military would be making ever effort to freeze that damned "Jell-O from space" while the Ymir was rapidly throwing big chunks of Roman ruins at that slimy son-of-a-bitch to see how it likes the tastes of marble! Laughing

"Et tu, Brute! You slimy wad of pond scum!"






So, what would the tragic conclusion be to this battle between a hideous organism from space and a "visitor" from Venus who fights on the side of mankind and eventually helps us defeat the gelatinous invader? Confused

I think the battle would take a heavy toll — and the innocent citizen of our sister planet, who was brought here against its will, would become one of the casualties of this battle. Sad






Boy oh boy, if I'd been a Hollywood producer in the 1950s, my studio would have turned out movies that changed the world of Science Fiction forever! Cool

Can I get an Amen. please? From anybody?
:
_________________
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)


Last edited by Bud Brewster on Wed Sep 28, 2022 12:45 pm; edited 5 times in total
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Gord Green
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PostPosted: Fri Oct 01, 2021 12:50 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Uh...….Amen?

Good story! Part of the problem with re-visioning 50's movies is doing so in a non-derivitive way. It's almost impossible to bring in plot points that have not been done before in some fashion. A 21st century sequel would be realized very differently than a mid 20th century one would. But then there were very few if any sequels done in that era!

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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Fri Oct 01, 2021 9:42 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Gord Green wrote:
A 21st century sequel would be realized very differently than a mid 20th century one would. But then there were very few if any sequels done in that era!

Quite true, Gord. And on those rare occasions when they did make a sequel, it was a rush job done simply to cash in the name recognition of the orignal. Very Happy

That's why my "imaginary sequels" are not meant to be movies made today, they're movies we wish had been made, a year or two after the originals.

Think of them as movies porduced in a parallel universe in which Hollywood figured out how profitable the "franchise" concept could be if they made a sincere effort to surpass the quality of original, instead of just milking the public's vain hope that the sequel would be good.
Sad
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 07, 2022 1:30 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

Thinking Outside the "Plot"!
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~ A Question for the Members: As I've often suggested in my posts about 20 Million Miles to Earth, we can't really assume that an alien creature who hatched here on Earth and only survived for a short time was not much move intelligent than we give it credit for.

With that in mind, just how intelligent was the Blob? Confused

~ My Theory: As I described in my previous post, the Blob didn't just gobble up anything organic which happened by. It literally hunted for prey — and it demonstrated considerable skill in doing so.

After consuming the old man, the nurse, the doctor, and the car mechanic, it sought out groups of people who were in enclosed buildings.

One of these was a bar it cleaned out completely except for a lone survivor (a scene not shown on screen, but revealed in dialog), and then it tried to consume Steve McQueen and Aneta Corsaut after trapping them in the store.






But they hid in the freezer and learned that the alien couldn't tolerate cold.

Its next attack was on the projectionist as the movie theater, followed immediately by a mass attack on the theater audience.

But how did the alien — which was fairly large by this time — get from store to the movie theater without being seen by anyone in the town?

McQueen had alerted the sheriff and his deputies about the creature, and his teenage friends had been told about it, too. If the car-sized creature had just oozed down main street, somebody would have seen it and sounded the alarm!

So, does this indicate that the alien was intelligent enough to realize that (a) it need to avoid being seen, and (b) it needed to find a "target rich environment" where there was plenty of prey?






When the theater turned out to have too many people to corral and consume —





— it fled to the small dinner and enveloped the structure, trapping a small group of victims inside which it assumed it could easily consume!

Clever.

Unfortunately, Mr. McQueen (aka "Wanted: Absorbed or Alive") used a fire extinguisher to hold it at bay, and he conveyed this effective defense to Sheriff Dave so he could mobilize the town and immobilize the Blob! Very Happy

Gentlemen, I submit that the Blob was at least as intelligent as the alien in Alien!

And that brings up an interesting question: what would happen if the Blob went up against the Alien — which has acid for blood and is made of an acid-proof material? Shocked

Inquiring minds want to know! Cool

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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)
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Pow
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PostPosted: Sat Jan 08, 2022 10:04 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

From Bill Warren.

Actually, it's a decent enough little film, and there are near-successful tries at characterization.

The script by Theodore Simonson and Kate Phillips (from a story by Irvin H. Millgate), is solidly structured with decent dialogue and relatively rounded characterizations. Director Irvin S. Yeaworth, Jr. is somewhat plodding, not helped by the slow-paced editing of Alfred Hillman, and the film never builds up a head of steam. But it is a promising attempt, and has a commendably un-Hollywood air about it. The Blob could actually have been a classic; if the production values had been better and if the pacing was better. As it is, it's still a distinctly above-average monster movie.

The Blob was filmed for a reported $240,000 in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania and produced by Jack H. Harris who also gave us the 4D Man and Dinosaurus.

All three films would end with "The End" which would reform into an ambiguous "?."

The movie is better written than most Hollywood monster movies, certainly of this period; care is taken to give adequate motivation for all characters, and vignettes of characterization are provided from time to time.

It's not outstanding dialogue, but it easy and natural, and Steve McQueen is very good throughout the film.

In short, the two writers have tried to write a decent, craftsmanlike script. And on the level of their work, the film is not only basically a success, it is distinctive and admirable.

However, the film is diminished by Irvin S. Yeaworth, Jr.'s earnest, intelligent but plodding direction. Almost every scene runs a little too long; except for McQueen, people don't move quickly, and an air of amateurishness hangs over the picture.

Though it is done with some wit and sophistication, the story is quite serious. Apparently the idea was to make a film with a simple, direct story line, and a simple, direct monster.

The Blob has the feeling of intelligent people making a film in a disreputable genre, trying to do something they could be proud of. They don't seem to have realized that films like this almost never dealt with characters, but with stereotypes. There's hackneyed material in The Blob, to be sure, but the writers' attempt to characterize people does raise the film above the level of the usual teenagers-versus-monster story.

The special effects that bring The Blob to life are inventive.

Ralph Carmichael's music for The Blob is as intelligent and low-key as the rest of the film.

This was the first film produced by Jack H. Harris; The Blob made a handsome profit even before release, so Harris was able to film 4D Man soon thereafter.

The Blob was greeted with some amazingly contemptuous reviews.

Overall, The Blob is not a classic, but it is respectable and intelligent, certainly worthy of more praise than it has generally received.
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Wed Sep 28, 2022 12:47 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

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Bill's review outlines both the strengths and the weakness of this classic 1950s science fiction movie. I appreciate the fact that he gave credit were credit is due, and he didn't come down too hard on the film's faults.

I think it's notable that he avoided mentioning the absolute worst child actor in cinema history. All that kids scenes should have been cut right out of the movie. Rolling Eyes

As a staunch Steve McQueen fan I still find is odd that two of his most enjoyable roles were in two films he claims he hated — The Blob and The Honeymoon Machine.

Thanks for sharing Bill Warren's review, Mike. Cool

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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)
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