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Retro SciFi Film of the Week…
The Blob (1958)
This movie was marketed as a horror film but technically it’s also a science fiction because the Blob came from outer space on a meteor. This is a B-movie with a lot of cheesy special effects but it makes fun of itself and it was marketed to young people many of whom actually thought the film was scary.
The Blob itself was basically just watered down gelatin with food coloring and they got it to move by placing it on a table with a camera mounted on it. Then they would tilt and jiggle and move the table around at various angles to get the gelatin to move around. Then they’d film it in slow motion or print the film in reverse or turn the whole jig upside down to get the different effects that they wanted.
The scene where the blob jumps from the stick onto the man’s arm was simply filmed upside down to get the blob to defy gravity.
To the producers of the film, the Blob was a self-referential metaphor. The film was produced about a decade after the end of World War II; all the returning veterans had jobs by then and were making a lot of money. This was the beginning of the hay day for a new advertising and promotion industry for all consumer products including movies. Just a couple of years after this film was released, The Beatles arrived on the scene using the new promotion techniques to help fuel their meteoric rise, resulting in Beatlemania during the 1960s.
Here’s a trailer for the film, showing the style of advertising they used, which seems quaint compared to the psyops employed by businesses today.
Accessible video description:
The trailer opens with Steve McQueen and another woman entering the police station to tell the police about the blob then there are big title graphics that say “Beware of the blob” as the announcer talks about the film.
It shows a bunch of people sitting in a theater and it shows the blob oozing from the projection booth then it shows a bunch of people running from the theater screaming.
More Title Graphics say “it crawls... it creeps... it eats you alive!” The Blob, now very large, oozes out of the front doors of the theater. a man and a woman are briefly shown kissing in a car as they are interrupted by a falling meteor, the man and woman drive off. then it shows an old man with a stick with the small blob on it and the blob jumps up from the stick onto his arm. Shows the blob indoors, about the size of a bear, a man tries to shoot it with a gun. then it shows Steve McQueen trying to calm people down but they run towards a diner. then the blob engulfs the diner. next it shows Steve McQueen, the text says, “starring Steve McQueen”, then more title Graphics say, “Get Set it's coming soon”, then in huge type “The Blob” with smaller type that says “a Tonylyn production”, “color by Deluxe”.
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