THE BLOB (1958) - Thirty Five Year Old Teenagers Battle Space Goo !!!

DIRECTED by Irvin Yeaworth 

SCREENPLAY by Kay Linaker & Theodore Simonson, from a story by Irving H. Millgate.

STARRING  - Steve McQueen as Steve Andrews, (AND A CAST OF EXCITING YOUNG PEOPLE including...) Aneta Corseaut as Jane Martin,  Earl Rowe as Lt. Dave Barton,  Olin Howland as Barney the Old Man,  Robert Fields as Tony Gressette,  James Bonnet as "Mooch" Miller.

PLOT - On a hot Summer night in 1958, a meteorite descends from space and crashes into a field on the outskirts of a small town in Pennsylvania. Local recluse Old Barney witnesses the crash and go's to investigate. Barney finds the meteor and notices a strange pink slime oozing from within. Foolishly, Barney touches the goo and it attaches itself to his hand, enveloping it painfully.

Two others have also borne witness to the arrival from space - Teenage hot rodder - Steve - and his girl - Jane. They where just 'making out' in Lovers Lane when they saw the meteor crash. Driving at speed to see where the space rock has landed, Steve narrowly avoids hitting Barney as he stumbles into the road. Checking if Barney is OK, the young couple notice the strange Blob attached to Barney's hand. Worried for Barney, Steve takes him to see the town's Doctor - Dr. Hallen.

Dr. Hallen notices that the blob seems to be eating Barney's hand, absorbing it, draining it, making it a part of itself...and it's getting bigger...

Before long the blob has completely consumed Barney - it then attacks and consumes Dr. Hallen and an attending nurse. Steve and Jane witness the doctor's horrible death and flee to find help. The Blob is free, oozing and squelching through the town, consuming every unfortunate that it comes into contact with. Every victim it eats causes the entity to become larger, the larger it gets, the hungrier it gets.

Only Steve and Jane know of the Blob and they must alert the authorities before the whole town is consumed by the alien menace - but who is going to believe a pair of 'crazy kids', and even if they do, how can the gelatinous alien lifeform be stopped before it absorbs the whole town...the whole country...the whole of Planet Earth ???

DIALOUGE  - Title Song lyrics - "Beware of the Blob ! It creeps, it crawls, and leaps, and glides and slides across the floor."

Lt. Dave - "Just because some kid smacks into your wife on the turnpike doesn't make it a crime to be seventeen years old."

"Mooch" - "Excuse us, we where just looking for a monster."

Jane - "But what about the little dog ?" 

Don't touch it Barney...oops...too late.

PERFORMANCES  - The main performer of note in this film is, of course,  the young Steve (here credited as Steven) McQueen. On the strength of this role it's not hard to see why he became the star he did. He makes for a likable hero - an ordinary small town boy, perhaps a little niave and misunderstood but with good intentions. He has a cocky streak when dealing with the local cops but even this is portrayed with a simple down to earth charm. 

Steve as Steve seems to be a good kid - it's a far cry from McQueen's later - much cooler roles but its a good solid start nonetheless. He doesn't get to do anything majorly iconic here like being chased by a horde of machine gun toting Nazi's whilst riding a motorbike, it's a much simpler heroic role he plays...mind you, he does get to fight a carnivorous alien protoplasm with a fire extinguisher, so that's something I suppose.

Aneta Corseaut puts in a workable performance as Jane but the truth is she really doesn't get a lot to do other than look pretty and react to dialogue other characters feed her. She's either gazing dreamily at Steve or reacting utterly horrified. Usually she's to be found swooning into his arms/sobbing traumatised sobs as she burys her face into his manly chest.

 The cause of these outbursts is not, as you would expect, the actual Blob itself. Rather it is "the little dog". The dog in question belongs to the old hermit - Barney. After taking the old man to the local doctor, Steve and Jane take it upon themselves to look after the dog. This is understandable enough, he's a cute little fellow after all. As an animal lover myself, I'd do exactly the same thing in that situation as I'm sure many of you would too. However what makes this funny (and a tad annoying too) is the dialogue they give to Jane as a result of this. In the second half of the film pretty much EVERY. SODDING. LINE of dialogue that spills from Jane's mouth is a variation of "Steve, what about the little dog/oohhh look at the little dog/NO ! THE LITTLE DOG !!!!!/look, the little dog's done a big fat shit over my shoes !!!"(well, maybe not that last one, but you get the general idea). Every line that Jane delivers about "the little dog" is delivered in this high, pitched near hysterical falsetto. For Christ's sake Blob scriptwriters  -  give the poor girl some variety of dialogue to say, please!!! It's funny, it's annoying, you'll want to rip your own ears off after half an hour of hearing it constantly. Obviously in 1958, we where a long way from the hard edged sci-fi heroines that where to come later. Jane is sadly no Ellen Ripley or Sarah Conner, she's a bit of a wet blanket all told.

SFX - The Blob effects are great for the time this film was made, it must have looked truly impressive as it oozed across the screen in 1958. it appears to be some kind of jelly/gelatin substance that its composed of, it pulses and quivers effectively making for a credible menace as it attacks the terrified townspeople. There are a few parts that haven't aged as well - the scene where the blob attacks the outside of the cinema is clearly the jelly substance being poured against a static photograph of the building for instance. All in all though, the majority of the effects still hold up well to this very day.

SEX & VIOLENCE - As with most 50's films the violence is implied. You never actually see anybody get "eaten" by the Blob, it's all in your mind's eye.

RATING - A lot of the tropes in this film may feel a little clichéd to modern eyes but at the time this was groundbreaking stuff. It certainly cemented McQueen as a star to keep an eye out for and the effects where state of the art for 1958. It's little wonder that the Blob went down in the annals as a classic and is still remembered fondly to this day. All in all 4 and a half malignant jellies out of 5.

"OOOHHHH, Me bloody hand !!!!!!"