It is a foggy night near the famed Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. I am on my way to Phoenixville, a small town forever made famous by a famed 1950’s horror film. I blissfully ignore the history that passes me by with eye solely focused on my destination, the setting of this 1950’s movie, The Famed Colonial Theatre. I reach Phoenixville, weave my rental care through its old and narrow street and come across the glowing pulsating beauty that is the Colonial. Nothing had changed, the marquee was the same, the lights filled the night with a wondrous yellow glow. It was further enhanced by the light fog. I had reached the home of The Blob.
A cult classic that still holds up today, The Blob tells the story of the havoc wreaked on a small town by goopy, growing monster and fell onto to the Earth courtesy of a wayward meteor. The film stars Steve McQueen in his first starring role, playing the misunderstood teen who attempts to warn the residents of his conservative town about the pudding like invader from outer space. Strong performances and slick special effects help The Blob stand out amongst the crowd of cheaply made 1950’s sciencefiction exploitation movies.. Made outside of Hollywood by a maverick film distributor, Jack Harris and a crew whose made primarily religious and educational short films. The movie was even directed by a sometime Methodist minister. The Blob launched the careers of McQueen and composer Burt Bacharach, whose totally out of place snappy title song is just one of this movie’s many unexpected guilty pleasures.
The idea for THE BLOB is actually based on a supposed true story. In 1950, two veteran Philadelphia police officers, Joe Keenan and John Collins, saw a large, lump of something fall to the ground They chased it, and found that the lump mass was purple and it shined. The officers described it as “purple jelly” that was approximately six feet in diameter, about a foot high. The lump was pulsating, and when the officers turned off their flashlights, the lump glowed.
Backup was called for and two more cops showed up. The cops drew straws to see who would approach this mysterious lump. Sergeant Joe Cook drew the short straw and and grabbed a piece of this off object. It fell apart in his hand , with tiny pieces of the lump sticking to his skin. Supposedly within seconds, those globules evaporated, and he was left with according to the police report “odorless scum” covering his hand. After watching the glowing lump for another 30 minutes, the lump evaporated entirely. All four of the officers believe that the lump that they witnessed was some kinf of living organism.
Fast forward to seven years later. Philadelphia based film distributor and aspiring movie producer Jack H. Harris was looking to make a monster movie. B grade monster movies were a pretty safe bet to make a few bucks , so he asked a friend to come up with some ideas. Harris had some pretty clear ideas of what he was looking for: “It’s gotta be a monster movie. It’s gotta be in color instead of black and white. It can’t be a cheapy creepie, it’s gotta have some substance to it. It’s gotta have characters you can believe in. And there’s gotta be a unique monster — never been done before. And the method of killing the monster would have to be something that grandma could have cooked up on her stove.”, a quote from Mr. Harris
The friend remembered the article from the Philadelphia Inquirer, telling of the cops discovery of that mysterious lump and a movie monster legend was born.
With little to no money to make the movie, Harris prudently turned to a Pennsylvania-based studio called Valley Forge Studios, a company that had made around 250 religious films, but had never made a feature before. The consummate showmnan and salesman Harris managed to convince Valley Forge, to make the film helmed by Methodist minister and filmmaker Irvin S Yeaworth, . And so it was that a group of devout Christians ended up making one of the most successful sci-fi films of the 1950s.
The Blob quickly began to take shape as Harris and the at Valley Forge began to draw out pictures of major scenes. When they had this done they engages the services of Theodore Simonson (also a minister) and former Philadelphia based actress Kate Phillips to pen the screenplay.
Director Yeaworth did not want to cast Stev McQueen calling him “dirty guy” and “an opinionated ass,” Harris weant ahead and cast the 27-year-old, still unknown Steve McQueen in the role of teenager Steve Andrews. McQueen was paid a meagre $2,500 for his role.
With story and cast in place, The Blob was made over the course of 31 days and a patry budget of just $110,000. After the principal photography was completed, the special effects took an additional nine months to produce.
The Blob is drawn from the traditional of the 1950’s horror film but in many ways stands firmly outside that tradition, its use of color and simple special effects are highly effective, and the monster is all the more watchable because of its pure simplicity of both conception and execution. Where other creatures from outer space in the B-movies of the time were most likely played by men in cheap costumes, there’s something unique about an unearthly threat that is The Blob. It’s motivation is simple and pure, it simply wants to consume, with no discrimination or convolution.
Comic book writer Del Close was quoted in a 1988 issue of Starlog as saying,”There’s also a subtle, weird, political message in the original Blob. Joe McCarthy had just been disgraced, and the Cold War was very much a fact of life That’s what the Blob is – a creeping red menace – the Cold War.”
The Blob is frozen by a group of towns peoples led by Steve McQueen . Disposed of in the Arctic by the US Air Force, the Blob is therefore out of harm’s way but still a potential threat, just waiting to be thawed out by some human stupidity. Jack Harris no doubt was aware that maybe a sequel could be looming.
Made by untried filmmakers, The Blob was distributed by Paramount, who packaged it as a double feature with I Married A Monster From Outer Space. The Blob was a more than respectable hit, making around $4m at the box office. Phoenixville, Pennsylvania plays host to Blobfest ,an annual celebration which takes place in one of the towns where the film was shot. Events include a fire extinguisher street parade, and a recreation of the scene where cinema-goers flee from a Colonial theatre engulfed by the blob.
Jack H. Harris, 98, a Philadelphia native who produced The Blob died Tuesday at his home in Beverly Hills, California on March 14th, 2017. In 2008 Jack Harris allowed me to screen The Blob as a fundraiser for flood victims. He was a good man and a pioneer.
As I left Phoenixville, I found myself humming the tune for the title track,
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
