Maybe I’m just a wee bit anal but the day of the week dictates the genre that I watch. Monday thru Friday are pretty wide open, however, Saturday and Sunday must stick to my criteria. Saturday afternoon is definitely B-horror/Sci-fi flicks and Sunday is reserved for Melodrama film classics.

If you’ve read my About Page you know that as a kid the Saturday Matinee had a big influence on my love of B-horror/Sci-fi movies and William Castle.

The Blob, The Incredible Shrinking Man and The Tingler. Now that’s good stuff!

 

 The Blob (1958)

The Blob, directed by Irvin Yeaworth, was Steve McQueen’s first leading role before he got his own TV series – Wanted: Dead or Alive (1959). McQueen was called “The King of Cool” and starred in such popular films as The Magnificent Seven and The Thomas Crown Affair. He received an Academy Award nomination for his role as Jake Holman in The Sand Pebbles.

The Blob plot revolves around what happens when an old man pokes a stick at a piece of meteor and it cracks open releasing an oozy substance that starts to crawl up the stick. He tries to shake it off but ends up with “the blob” all over his hand. (This is why you don’t poke at things that drop from the sky. Yeesh!)

Steve (also his character name) and his girl Jane, after almost hitting the old man who has run onto the road, take him to the local doctor. Cutting to the chase: while Steve and Jane ( Aneta Corsaut, who eventually plays Andy Griffith’s TV girlfriend Helen) leave the doc’s office to look for clues to what’s on the old man’s hand, The Blob absorbs the old man, the doc and his nurse. Next thing you know it’s at the midnight horror movie. Cue the fleeing and screaming and holy crap how do we stop it. Phew, that was exhausting.

The theme song, written by Burt Bacharach and Mack David (who wrote some of the top hits of the sixties) is a catchy little gem. “It creeps and leaps and glides and slides across the floor…beware of the blob.” Here it is:

 

The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957) 

Directed by Jack Arnold

I’ve watched this movie a hundred times and the ending always makes me cry. This thought provoking Science Fiction classic taps into an anxiety of meaning in life and what exactly is the meaning of life. Scott Carey (Grant Williams) is dusted by a radioactive mist while on a boating vacation with his wife Louise (Randy Stuart). A few weeks later he starts to notice his clothes are fitting more loose and he also appears to be losing height. After visiting a specialist, it is confirmed that he is indeed shrinking.

Reduced to living in a dollhouse and eventually fighting for his life against the cat and then a tarantula living in the basement of the family home, Scott finally shrinks to an infinitesimal size, entering the realm of the unknown.

For me this movie is so much more than just another Saturday afternoon B-Movie flick. The closing monologue makes the point by concluding that no matter how small, we still matter in the universe because, to God, “there is no zero.”

The film won the first Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation in 1958 by the World Science Fiction Convention. In 2009 it was named to the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for being “culturally, historically or aesthetically” significant and will be preserved for all time.

 

Producer/Director William Castle delivers his finest in The Tingler (1959), his third collaboration with writer Robb White. The film stars the incomparable Vincent Price as Pathologist, Dr. Warren Chapin who researches and discovers the existence of The Tingler.

Percepto is my favorite William Castle gimmick. There comes a time in the movie when the Tingler (a parasite that feeds on fear) is loose in the theater and to save your life you need to scream! For grins, in select seats in the theaters, Castle placed the Percepto system which made the seat vibrate to simulate the feeling of fear you feel in your body when The Tingler strikes.

Man do I wish I could have been there in 1959 when The Tingler attacks the projectionist, the film strip breaks and The Tingler appears on the screen. If that’s not enough, the lights go out and you hear the voice of Vincent Price declaring that The Tingler is loose in the theater so scream, scream for your life! Awesome!!

Just think of it, being in the movie theater watching The Tingler scene and ending up participating in the experience in your Percepto seat, with lights out and the sound of Price’s voice. I love it!!!

 

Break out the popcorn and let me know your faves in the comments.

And be sure to stay tuned for my next post:

Melodrama Sunday Movie Classics