The Blob (1958)

"Beware of The Blob" is right.

Give this film plenty of room.

This 1958 horror film moves as slow as the human eating space creature it depicts.

Yes, there are some spooky moments in one of the few movies directed by Irvin Yeaworth, Jr. But, overall, The Blob (1958) drags. Attempts at humour, including one of a firefighter and civil defense volunteer trying to figure out what to do when both alarms sound, are painful to watch.

Hey, I've enjoyed watching Steve McQueen in other films reviewed on this site, including Hell is for Heroes. But seeing a nearly 30-year-old man play high school senior Steve Andrews is painful to watch. His girlfriend, Jane Martin (Aneta Corasut) is a little better at 25.

Steve and Jane are enjoying some quiet time in the woods. They see a meteor crash not too far from where they're parked. Steve's curious. So is Old Man (Olin Howland). Said meteor crashes by his home. A little poking and prodding add up to his demise. There's something in that space rock, alright, and it loves to feed on human flesh.

Dr. Hallen (Stephen Chase) figures some sort of parasite has attached itself to The Blob's first victim. He and his nurse, Kate (Lee Payton) also meet their fates.

The Blob (1958) is hard to figure out. It seems to either move a) very slow or b) very fast.

How residents of the American small town react to The Blob is also, ah, unusual. Doc Hallen wants Steve and Jane to return to the old man's home and check for clues. That's a pretty important job, but Steve still finds time to jaw away, with no urgency, to some high school classmates. A driving contest follows. Hello! You kids just saw a gooey red mass envelop a man's hand. That's the priority. Wouldn't you share this news with the other kids?

Teens believe in monster, or are at least willing to entertain Steve and Jane's suggestion something is killing people. Adults, including police, are cool to the suggestion. So, The Blob keeps killing and gets larger.

This film does have the odd inspired moment. Having The Blob make an appearance at a midnight horror screening at the local movie theatre is inspired. I could rant about The Blob aiming to take out the projectionist first instead of a packed theatre, but I won't. But watch for The Blob's appearance in the theatre proper. That's pretty cool as is the panic when movie-goers discover the real horror isn't on the screen.

The Blob may be the only creature in film history to be felled by fire fighting equipment. Not that the audience gets to see that. Instead, we watch as a screen filled with towns folk do their civic duty and put The Blob in a deep freeze.

Best thing about The Blob - it looks great. Steve McQueen, in his first leading role, would be a major star in a few short years with The Great Escape out in 1963. And, The Blob is only 86 minutes long.

RATING: 4/10

FUN FACTS: You might recognize Aneta Corasut as Helen Crump from The Andy Griffith Show .

Olin Howland was a carpetbagger businessman in Gone with the Wind.

Stephen Chase was Dr. George Frye in When Worlds Collide.

John Benson, Sgt. Jim Bert in The Blob, was a salesman in Vertigo and guard in Spartacus.

Robert Fields, one of the teens in The Blob, also appeared in Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster.

The Magnificent Seven (1960)

Give The Magnificent Seven marks for being different.

Director John Sturges (The Great Escape) opens his film in an unusual way. An undertaker refuses to bury an Indian because the townfolk don't want him resting alongside the dead who have white skin.

Chris (Yul Brynner) and Vin (Steve McQueen) agree to bring the hearse to the graveyard, calmly ducking bullets and verbal barbs hurled their way. They have to face five armed men once they get to the cemetery too.

The opening minutes establish the film's theme of standing up for the little guy who is wronged, but can't fight back.

A delegation from a Mexican village appeals to Chris for help. Their community is pillaged on a regular basis by a bandido and his gang. They want him to round up, quite literally, some hired guns and free their community from tyranny.

Chris, being a gun for hire, knows where to find talent such as Britt (James Coburn), Bernardo (Charles Bronson) and Lee (Robert Vaughn). Part of his posse includes Horst Buchholz, a German actor who doesn't make much of an impression among such a stellar assembly of stars. That's a small quibble about a western that definitely stands out for its genre.

Viewers would expect these gunslingers to be tough, macho men. Instead, they definitely show signs of humanity. Lee looks like he's struggling to hold it together mentally. He's wondering if he's lost his touch with his gun and will soon be struck down by a quicker adversary. Bronson's Bernardo chews out youngsters who suggest their fathers are weak because they don't stand up for their community. This comes from a guy who has made plenty of money fighting other people's wars.

Conductor Elmer Bernstein was rightly nominated for an Oscar for best score. His music is a powerful sidekick to the action on the screen.

The Magnificent Seven helped establish McQueen, Bronson and Coburn as major screen talents. They'd be reunited for another film by Sturges, The Great Escape, in 1963.

RATING: 8/10

FUN FACTS: See if you can spot Victor French (Little House on the Prairie) in a small role in his first feature film.

Horst Buchholz also appeared in Life is Beautiful.

James Coburn was the owner of El Sleezo Cafe in The Muppet Movie.

Bullitt (1968)

Bullitt packs a punch.



This 1968 police drama from director Peter Yates (Breaking Away, Krull) is best remembered for its electrifying car chase through the hilly streets of San Francisco. That scene no doubt played a big role in Bullitt being added to the national film registry by the National Film Preservation Board in 2007.



That roughly 10-minute scene still stands up very well more than four decades later. There's a quick seatbelt shot that prepares viewers for what's to come as the chase prepares to heat up.



But Bullitt also offers viewers a very solid cast of actors including Steve McQueen, Robert Vaughn, Robert Duvall, Don Gordon and Simon Oakland. Plus, director Yates isn't afraid to use silence frequently. Conversations between characters are held at a distance. Some times characters are looking at something or someone. Hurray for a soundtrack that's not wall-to-wall dialogue and music.



Bullitt (McQueen) is a San Francisco police lieutenant assigned to keep watch over a Senate witness who's on the run from the mob. Chalmers (Robert Vaughn) is the oily senator who expects great things to happen to his career when Johnny Ross testifies.





But when a couple of hitmen get to Ross before he can speak, Bullitt is under the gun. Chalmers wants to know why his starmaking tool is dead. Bullitt is suspicious about how the man he was supposed to protect was tracked down so easily. He has the support of his immediate supervisor, Capt. Bennet (Simon Oakland), but another superior, Baker (Norman Fell!) wants to kiss up to Chalmers and ride his expected wave of upcoming political power. Bullitt isn't interested in kissing anyone's backside. There are sparks during his several run-ins with Chalmers.



With all that on-the-job intrigue, Bullitt still takes time to look at things on the home front with Bullitt and his better half, Cathy (Jacqueline Bisset). She's an artist. Her life is miles away from the brutal world, where violence is commonplace, that Bullitt inhabits. "You're living in a sewer, Frank," she tells him. The film's final scene relates to the domestic front and is a memorable one.



While the car chase gets all the attention, how about the film's climax at the San Francisco airport when Bullitt and his partner Delgetti (Don Gordon) finally connect all the dots. Hands up for all the other films you can remember where there was a foot chase in-between planes preparing for lift off.



Bullitt was nominated for two Oscars (editing, sound) and won a statue for the former. This film hits the mark for a solid evening's entertainment.



RATING: 9/10



FUN FACTS: Norman Fell is remembered for his work in television's Three's Company. Simon Oakland starred in Baa Baa Black Sheep.



It must have hurt, but both Fell and Vaughn appeared in C.H.U.D. II: Bud the Chud. Larry Linville (M*A*S*H) and June Lockhart (Lost in Space) are also in the cast. Yikes.

Hell Is For Heroes (1962)

Here's a taut, gritty war film with a solid cast and some neat stunt casting.

Hell Is For Heroes came out a year before one of the greatest war films ever made, The Great Escape.

American actors Steve McQueen and James Coburn appeared in both releases as well as The Magnificent Seven.

McQueen plays much the same character - a rebel - but with a much darker edge. Note the butcher knife he packs as part of his kit.

MCQUEEN SHINES IN DARK ROLE

Here, McQueen is Private Reese, a soldier decorated for his bravery on the battlefied. But, either through struggling with the stress of combat or just not able to handle authority, he gets reprimanded for his actions behind the lines.

His latest posting reunites him with Sgt. Pike (Fess Parker). The pair served together in North Africa. Pike knows what his comrade can do on the battlefield and cuts him a little slack for his behaviour away from the front line.

DEFENDING THE LINE FROM GERMANS

Pike's men think they're heading back home when wrapping up their furlough in France in 1944. But, they're ordered to return to combat. Worse, only a small number are left to defend part of the American line against a larger German force. About a half-dozen men will be on their own for a day, two or maybe more.

Here's where things get interesting.

The GIs cook up ways to make the Germans think there's more American soliders defending the area.

A jeep and the mechanical talents of Cpl. Henshaw (Coburn) are pressed into service. A lost clerk, Pvt. Driscoll (Bob Newhart), shows up. Newhart broke through with audiences in the early 1960s as a comic who wrote clever one-way phone conversations in comedy clubs. What endeared him to audiences is pressed into service here. It's some comic relief in an otherwise tense film.

Reese knows the Germans will eventually find out just how few Americans are in the area. He decides to take out a dominating machine gun tucked inside a concrete pillbox to help prevent an overwhelming attack.

With much of the film shot during the night, director Don Siegel brings to life several intense combat sequences. The violence isn't as graphic as Saving Private Ryan, but many of these soldiers don't just fall over and die.

Most riveting is the death of one of the American soldiers. The scene is shot from above as he's carried to possible medical help.

GOOD USE OF STUNT CASTING WITH NEWHART, DARIN

Pop singer Bobby Darin has a strong supporting role as Pvt. Corby, a scrounger who is eager to make a good from loot he's taken for his own use.

My only caveat is the stock footage used in a couple of scenes. That detracts from what is otherwise a strong Second World War film.

Robert Pirosh, who helped write the screenplay, was the series developer of Combat, an American war series starring the late Vic Morrow that aired from 1963 to 1967.

I stumbled upon this film in a bargain rack at a music store. It was well worth the $5 purchase price.

McQueen, who already appeared in The Blog and The Magnificient Seven, would see his star rise even higher in the 1960s with Bullitt and The Thomas Crown Affair. But boy, he is scary good in Hell Is For Heroes.


Rating: 8/10

FUN FACTS: Henry Guardino (Sgt. Larkin) worked with another screen icon, Clint Eastwood, in Dirty Harry and The Enforcer. Hell Is For Heroes was Newhart's film debut after starring in The Bob Newhart Show television series in 1961. Nick Adams (Homer Janeczek) appeared in two episodes of Combat! Pirosh was also a contributing writer on The Wizard of Oz. Fellow co-screenwriter Richard Carr penned scripts for several television series including Batman, Rawhide, Charlie's Angels, The Waltons, Wonder Woman and Six Million Dollar Man. Fess Parker starred as Davy Crockett in the hit television show from the 1950s. Read the Wikipedia posting of Hell Is For Heroes for interesting information about the film's production.

Marshall Torrill's Steve McQueen: Portrait of an American Rebel includes four pages about the film's production. Interesting facts from this biography include:

* McQueen clashed with director Robert Pirosh, who also wrote the film's script. Result: Pirosh was turfed and replaced with Don Siegel.

* Hell is for Heroes was shot in Redding, Calif., where temperatures hit as high as 117 F during filming.

* Director Stanley Kubrick called Hell is for Heroes "the best portrayal of a solitary soldier I have ever seen."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hell_Is_for_Heroes_(film)

Two albums I enjoy listening to with war-related songs are from Genesis (Calling All Stations) and Dire Straits (Brothers in Arms).