THE BLOB, meteorite goo from a galaxy hopefully far, far away, was an unwelcome visitor to a small town in Pennsylvania, where it consumed a number of hapless, badly acted citizens, but as a 1958 drive-in & make-out excuse it took the country by its ponytails as a literally monstrous hit. Granted, the year had its share of decidedly doofy sci-fi opuses: I Married A Monster From Outer Space, Attack Of The 50 Foot Woman, Queen Of Outer Space, Monster On The Campus and Attack Of The Puppet People slither to mind. But The Blob was a bonanza, one of three surprises from the shallow end of the ’58 pool. Hercules flexed in from Italy to assume box office stature of #8, its novelty ushering in the Age of Musclemen, and homegrown freak The Fly buzzed many times its weight, landing at 24th, buoyed by the familiar face of Vincent Price and the prettier one of Patricia Owens, popular from the previous year’s big hits Sayonara and Island In The Sun. Icky but determined, The Blob trailed 17 places behind at #42, but its success was outsized: made for just $110,000 (with $300,000 smart-spent on promotion) the gross of $6,000,000 was off the charts. And nobody knew who the lead actor was, some 28-year-old bit player named Steven McQueen. After this blob on his record, he’d cut the cautious ‘Steven’ to the chase in favor of studlier ‘Steve’, didn’t really care to be reminded of this paycheck, and soon moved up & beyond to sandier, more magnificent escapes. Meanwhile, like The Thing, the Blob bides its time chilling out in the Arctic. *

“I don’t know what this is, but it’s got to be killed before it gets any bigger.”

Ralph Carmichael’s catchy title theme suddenly turns into the silly song (written by Burt Bacharach and Mack David) that cues you in from the start to not take it all—or any of it—seriously. What follows—a gelatinous cannibalistic substance from another space in Outer Space decimates a typical Eisenhowerish American town until a savvy teenage dragster (Steve) and his chick (Aneta Corsaut, 25) make a desperate stand in a meat locker and valiantly rally support from the town squares—is so badly written and acted there’s little reason to think anyone over five would accept it in any other way than as a joke. There are a few moments where some unease is generated, but they’re outnumbered by chuckles over the daft dialogue and are-we-really-doing-this? performances. Yet it’s endured as a pop phenom and has a faithful fan base. Blob on!

82 minutes, with Earl Rowe, Stephen Chase, Olin Howland, John Benson (the irate Sergeant), Robert Fields, James Bonnett (as ‘Mooch Miller’, teenager).

*  You can’t kill it—in 1972 the jokey sequel Beware! The Blob slimed in, with a bunch of name actors, directed by Larry Hagman. Then a more upscale (it would have to be) and grisly remake gooped forth in 1988. Lest we forget (and someone reminds/scolds us) 1958 also provided invaluable science lessons from a curriculum that also boasted The Space Children, The H-Man, Fiend Without A Face, It! The Terror From Beyond Space, The Hideous Sun Demon, War Of The Colossal Beast, The Astounding She-Monster, The Woman Eater, Earth vs. The Spider, The Crawling Eye and Teenage Caveman.

Of the above, The H-Man (an import from Japan) is similar, threat-wise, ditto the highly regarded 1955 British winner The Quatermass Xperiment and Italy’s 1959 cave-headquartered Caltiki, the Immortal Monster. That one did creep me out as a kid, and we’ll concede that Ala’s pass-the-jello Blob blurb might be longer and more admiring had I witnessed it as a spellbound youngster. It just doesn’t ring my personal nostalgia bell (like, for example, 1960’s The Lost World and Dinosaurus!, neither of which are what you’d call convincing—unless you were five years old in 1960) and it’s abundantly clear from clicking pages of the Holy Internet that the McQueen Monster Mash does command fondness and loyalty from many-a-boomer, cautioned way back when to “Keep watching the skies!” A more adept, certainly less lazy look into the gab belt of the blobosphere can be found from the ever-estimable Glenn Erickson, so we humbly suggest time traveling (who knew it would be accomplished by key-stroke?) across the ether to  https://www.dvdtalk.com/dvdsavant/s4105blob.html