“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!”
THE BLOB screens Wednesday, August 3rd at Schlafly Bottleworks Restaurant and Bar (7260 Southwest Ave.- at Manchester – Maplewood, MO 63143) as part of Webster University’s Award-Winning Strange BrewFilm Series. The screening is Sponsored by Planet Score Records
THE BLOB is chiefly remembered now for launching Steve McQueen’s career. Soon after the release of this film, he was offered the role of Josh Randall on the hit TV series Wanted: Dead or Alive, and super-stardom was only a few years away. Here, billed as “Steven” McQueen, he leads a pack of teenagers who are determined to stop the Blob from devouring their small town. The main problem is that the authorities (i.e. the local police) refuse to believe their story about a “monster” killing people and think it’s all a “gag.” Hatched from a meteor, the Blob itself (with the help of about $100 worth of Special Effects) is a magnified slab of Jell-O that looks like it’s been left over from yesterday’s desert menu. As the film progresses, it gets bigger and bigger and is soon eating up whole buildings. The 28-year-old McQueen, who’s supposed to be a teenager himself in the movie, is smart enough to figure out that this evil hunk of space glob can’t stand low temperatures. In no time, everyone in town is bombarding it with CO-2 Fire Extinguishers and putting it into the deep freeze. The best scene in the film is when the Blob attacks the downtown theater during a midnight showing of DAUGHTER OF HORROR and the panicking and screaming (actually smiling and laughing) crowd comes running out into the street.
THE BLOB was distributed by Paramount Pictures who quite rightly figured it would be a smash hit with teenagers and it certainly was all of that.. Also in the cast is Aneta Corsaut who later had a long career in television with co-starring roles on the “Andy Griffith Show” and “Matlock.” McQueen, one of Hollywood’s biggest movie stars of the 1960s and 1970s, died at the age of 50 in 1980. He was a one-of-a-kind actor who marched to his own beat, to say the least. Broke at the time, McQueen settled for a $3000 flat fee to str in THE BLOB although he was also offered 10% of the gross profits in lieu of any upfront money. Late in his career, McQueen was asked about having any regrets and answered “I should have taken the offer for 10% of THE BLOB”
So beware of THE BLOB (and Burt Bacharach’s opening theme tune- which you will not be able to get out of your head!) when it screens Wednesday, August 3rd at Schlafly Bottleworks Restaurant and Bar in Maplewood (7260 Southwest Ave.- at Manchester – Maplewood, MO 63143) as part of their Strange Brew film series . The movie starts at 8pm and admission is $5. A yummy variety of food from Schlafly’s kitchen is available as are plenty of pints of their famous home-brewed beer.
A Facebook invite for this event can be found HERE
https://www.facebook.com/events/251554671895007/
