Gotta Love Those Drive-In Flicks, Daddio
I have a real soft spot for those drive-in movies from the 50's and 60's. "I Was a Teenage Werewolf" (1957) and "I Married a Monster from Outer Space" (1958) or any number of science fiction horror flicks ("Earth Versus the Flying Saucers" (1956) or "It Came from Beneath the Sea" (1955) or "It Came from Outer Space" (1953)). I'm just smitten with them. I think they are harmless. One among them that seems to be towards the top of the heap that I recall seeing frowned upon in the 90's and early 2000's, starring Steve McQueen before his career went nuclear in Hollywood, The Blob (1958). Turner Classics was showing it Friday night and I was sort of mulling over just the right cap-off flick to sort of bring me into the weekend. Now, "The Blob" is very talky. Lots and lots of dialogue. But I admit that seeing McQueen ten years before he starred in one of the best films of the 60's (well, to me, anyway), "Bullitt" (1968), is just cool. The film might not be taken very seriously today, but I just can't help but embrace it wholeheartedly. It has this gelatinous man-absorbing creature that lands within a small meteorite and continues to enlarge with each human meal. McQueen and his girlfriend, Aneta Corsaut ("The Andy Griffith Show"), come across an "old timer" with the blob on his hand after he cracks open a meteorite. They carry him to the town doctor's house, leave, encounter some "teenagers" (though they look to be in their 20's) who take him to task for passing them in his ride, and they race backwards to a red light, eventually drawing the ire of cops who let them off after a stern warning. That blob eventually absorbs the old timer, the doc's nurse, and eventually the doc, which Steve sees from outside at the window. The cops are contacted by Steve and that sets off a blob-hunt. John Benson as the police sergeant is the kind of cop who snarls his nose at "those darn kids", considering McQueen's testimony about seeing the blob absorb the town doc balderdash. When McQueen and Corsaut sneak out of their houses after their fathers come to the station, they hope their teen friends can help them warn folks in town to beware of the blob. Gradually the blob starts to absorb more folks like a mechanic in his shop, even nearly trapping McQueen and Corsaut in a grocery store. It's hilarious to see McQueen's pals trying to tell adults at a party and a bartender about a monstrous threat to them...even a couple necking alone don't appreciate the teens looking for "monsters". Eventually McQueen and Corsaut realize the blob fears cold when it fails to get them in meat locker.
I recently watched the 1988 Blob remake this year and it was just as good, if not better, than my memory realized. I definitely can see the argument for it being an example of the remake being better than the original. I have no problem with that myself because I really think that 1988 remake is a damn good horror film that alters a few things that separates it from the '58 version. Benson's cop treats McQueen and his teen team much like DeMunn does against Dillon in the remake. It isn't until Benson faces the hard truth of the blob himself that he recognizes a serious threat.
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