In 1958, director Irvin Yeaworth and writers Kay Linaker and Theodore Simonson unleashed "The Blob" upon the world. In it, a mysterious, gelatinous, corrosive, amoeboidal material seeps out of a meteorite that has crash landed onto earth. The unknown sludge slowly begins to consume everything in its path, growing stronger and larger with each envelopment. "The Blob" terrorizes small Pennsylvania towns as it grows more aggressive with its hunger, and grows monumental in size.
"The Blob" was terrifying due to its unstoppable nature, and unlike most horror movies of the time period, "The Blob" is not destroyed at the end of the film. Instead, the Air...
The post The Terrifying 'True' Story That Inspired The Blob appeared first on /Film.
"The Blob" was terrifying due to its unstoppable nature, and unlike most horror movies of the time period, "The Blob" is not destroyed at the end of the film. Instead, the Air...
The post The Terrifying 'True' Story That Inspired The Blob appeared first on /Film.
- 10/26/2021
- by BJ Colangelo
- Slash Film
By Hank Reineke
It was never his intention to be remembered as the Alfred Hitchcock of the Chester-Delaware Counties of Eastern Pennsylvania. Director Irvin S. Yeaworth Jr. was a devout Christian whose real passion was turning out religious-themed short films that would bring the Gospel to the masses. But such proselytizing was cost prohibitive. So, at the suggestion of - and in partnership with - Philadelphia-based distributor/producer Jack H. Harris, Yeaworth signed on to direct a handful of low-budget teenage dramas and science-fiction films. Harris had convinced Yeaworth that there was a cash-grab market for such indie films, and these productions would bring in enough revenue to fund projects with loftier aspirations.
Yeaworth’s first feature film (as co-producer), The Flaming Teenage (1956), was not really his at all. It was instead a cobble of pre-existing footage from a drug-abuse morality fable now disguised and sold to distributors as an exploitation film.
It was never his intention to be remembered as the Alfred Hitchcock of the Chester-Delaware Counties of Eastern Pennsylvania. Director Irvin S. Yeaworth Jr. was a devout Christian whose real passion was turning out religious-themed short films that would bring the Gospel to the masses. But such proselytizing was cost prohibitive. So, at the suggestion of - and in partnership with - Philadelphia-based distributor/producer Jack H. Harris, Yeaworth signed on to direct a handful of low-budget teenage dramas and science-fiction films. Harris had convinced Yeaworth that there was a cash-grab market for such indie films, and these productions would bring in enough revenue to fund projects with loftier aspirations.
Yeaworth’s first feature film (as co-producer), The Flaming Teenage (1956), was not really his at all. It was instead a cobble of pre-existing footage from a drug-abuse morality fable now disguised and sold to distributors as an exploitation film.
- 9/4/2019
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
An old monster formula props up this fantastic film, but at its heart is a brilliant central idea that excites the imagination. Jack H. Harris’s sophomore picture after The Blob is on the awkward side, but the good stuff is much better than we expect it to be. Ambitious performances by Robert Lansing, Lee Meriwether and James Congdon come through with something unique, with graces we just don’t find in independent Sci-Fi from the late 1950s. And the new Blu-ray rejuvenates the film’s special effects — all it took was a good 4K restoration.
4D Man
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1959 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 85 min. / Street Date August 20, 2019 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring: Robert Lansing, Lee Meriwether, James Congdon, Robert Strauss, Edgar Stehli, Patty Duke, Guy Raymond, Chic James, Elbert Smith, Jasper Deeter.
Cinematography: Theodore J. Pahle
Film Editor: William B. Murphy
Original Music: Ralph Carmichael
Written by Theodore Simonson,...
4D Man
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1959 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 85 min. / Street Date August 20, 2019 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring: Robert Lansing, Lee Meriwether, James Congdon, Robert Strauss, Edgar Stehli, Patty Duke, Guy Raymond, Chic James, Elbert Smith, Jasper Deeter.
Cinematography: Theodore J. Pahle
Film Editor: William B. Murphy
Original Music: Ralph Carmichael
Written by Theodore Simonson,...
- 8/13/2019
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Stars: Steve McQueen, Aneta Corsaut, Earl Rowe, Stephen Chase, John Benson, Olin Howland | Written by Theodore Simonson, Kay Linaker | Directed by Irvin S. Yeaworth Jr
Alongside The Fly and The Thing, Chuck Russell’s remake of The Blob was the third in the Holy Trinity of 1980s cover versions of 1950s sci-fi horror. Like David Cronenberg’s and John Carpenter’s films, it improved upon the original work in virtually every way.
If you’re familiar with the Frank Darabont-scripted schlocker, you’ll be aware from the first note of the ridiculously jaunty “Beware of the Blob” theme song that we are dealing with a very different amorphous beast with this, the 1958 original.
I’m a sucker for movies set over a single night, as well as small town settings, and here we have both. It’s Pennsylvania, and Steve (Steve McQueen) is at a kissing spot with his...
Alongside The Fly and The Thing, Chuck Russell’s remake of The Blob was the third in the Holy Trinity of 1980s cover versions of 1950s sci-fi horror. Like David Cronenberg’s and John Carpenter’s films, it improved upon the original work in virtually every way.
If you’re familiar with the Frank Darabont-scripted schlocker, you’ll be aware from the first note of the ridiculously jaunty “Beware of the Blob” theme song that we are dealing with a very different amorphous beast with this, the 1958 original.
I’m a sucker for movies set over a single night, as well as small town settings, and here we have both. It’s Pennsylvania, and Steve (Steve McQueen) is at a kissing spot with his...
- 12/3/2018
- by Rupert Harvey
- Nerdly
We know the greats; movies like Metropolis (1927), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Star Wars (1977).
And there are those films which maybe didn’t achieve cinematic greatness, but through their inexhaustible watchability became genre touchstones, lesser classics but classics nonetheless, like The War of the Worlds (1953), Godzilla (1954), Them! (1954), The Time Machine (1960).
In the realm of science fiction cinema, those are the cream (and below that, maybe the half and half). But sci fi is one of those genres which has often too readily leant itself to – not to torture an analogy — producing nonfat dairy substitute.
During the first, great wave of sci fi movies in the 1950s, the target audience was kids and teens. There wasn’t a lot in the way of “serious” sci fi. Most of it was churned out quick and cheap; drive-in fodder, grist for the Saturday matinee mill.
By the early 1960s,...
And there are those films which maybe didn’t achieve cinematic greatness, but through their inexhaustible watchability became genre touchstones, lesser classics but classics nonetheless, like The War of the Worlds (1953), Godzilla (1954), Them! (1954), The Time Machine (1960).
In the realm of science fiction cinema, those are the cream (and below that, maybe the half and half). But sci fi is one of those genres which has often too readily leant itself to – not to torture an analogy — producing nonfat dairy substitute.
During the first, great wave of sci fi movies in the 1950s, the target audience was kids and teens. There wasn’t a lot in the way of “serious” sci fi. Most of it was churned out quick and cheap; drive-in fodder, grist for the Saturday matinee mill.
By the early 1960s,...
- 3/17/2012
- by Bill Mesce
- SoundOnSight
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