Beware! The Blob

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Beware! The Blob

Credits
Title:	Beware! The Blob
Director:	Larry Hagman
Writers:	Anthony Harris; Jack Woods; Richard Clair; Jack H. Harris
Producers:	Jack H. Harris; Anthony Harris
Composer:	Mort Garson
Cinematography:	Al Hamm
Editors:	Tony de Zarraga
Production
Production company:	Jack H. Harris Enterprises, Inc.
Released:	June 21st, 1972
Rating:	PG
Running time:	87 min.
Country:	USA
Language:	English
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Beware! The Blob is an American independent feature film of the science fiction and horror genres with some elements of comedy. It was directed by Larry Hagman with a screenplay written by Jack Woods and Anthony Harris. It is based on the story "A Chip Off the Old Blob" by Richard Clair. It was produced by Jack H. Harris Enterprises, Inc. and was first screened in San Antonio, Texas on June 10th, 1972. It opened to wider release in the United States on June 21st, 1972.

Synopsis[]

Chester gets blobbed — Chester Hargis gets BLOBBED!

An oil pipeline engineer named Chester Hargis returns to his suburban Los Angeles home from the North Pole, bringing with him a small sample of a mysterious frozen substance uncovered by a bulldozer on a job site, a story which he tells his wife. Not aware that the substance is a piece of the Blob from the original 1958 incident in Pennsylvania, Chester comes home to store the substance in his home freezer prior to taking in to the laboratory to be analyzed. However, he and his wife Marianne Hargis accidentally let it thaw, re-animating the Blob. It starts by eating a fly, then a kitten, then Marianne, and finally Chester himself.

Family friend Lisa Clark walks in to find Chester in the final stages of being consumed by the Blob. She escapes, but cannot get anyone to believe her, not even her boyfriend Bobby Hartford.

Blob on the window — "There's uh... some BLOB on the window! Eww."

Meanwhile, the rapidly growing creature quietly preys upon the town. Some of its victims include a police officer named Zed, two hippies in a storm drain, a barber and his client, several transients, a Scoutmaster, a farm full of chickens and horses, and people in a gas station, a bar, as well as various townspeople who turn up "missing."

At one point, Lisa and Bobby find themselves trapped in Bobby's truck with the creature attempting to find a way inside. While panicking, the truck's air conditioning is accidentally switched on and the Blob retreats because of its vulnerability to cold.

Blob attacks a cop — Even the LAPD cannot resist the charming embrace of... THE BLOB!

The now-massive Blob consumes a hippie in a dune buggy, who inadvertently crashes into it while it was crossing the road, followed by his girlfriend who tried to save him, and then invades a neighboring bowling alley during a championship tournament. After consuming dozens more people, the Blob moves on to an attached skating rink under renovation. It is finally stopped when Bobby activates the rink's ice mechanism, freezing it. While the frozen Blob is being filmed by a television crew, one of the crew's bright lights is positioned on the ground, melting a small portion of it, which oozes toward the sheriff and envelops his feet as he is speaking on camera to a nationwide television audience.

Cast[]

Actor	Role
Robert Walker	Bobby Hartford
Gwynne Gilford	Lisa Clark
Richard Stahl	Edward Fazio
Richard Webb	Sheriff Jones
Shelley Berman	Hair stylist
Godfrey Cambridge	Chester Hargis
Larry Hagman	Young hobo
Carol Lynley	Leslie
Marlene Clark	Mariane Hargis
Gerrit Graham	Joe, ape-suited party guest
J.J. Johnston	Deputy Kelly Davis
Danny Goldman	Bearded teenager
Rockne Tarkington	Deputy Williams
Dick Van Patten	Scoutmaster Adleman
Tiger Joe Marsh	The naked Turk
Tim Baar	Deputy Ted Sims
Fred Smoot	Mike Pinsetter, repairman
Randy Stonehill	Randy, guitar player
Del Close	Hobo wearing eyepatch
Cindy Williams	Randy's girl
Preston Hagman	Preston, a scout
John Houser	Hair stylist's customer
Larry Norman	Blonde party guest
Robert N. Goodman	Henry, security guard
Patrick McAllister	Al, repairman's assistant
William B. Foster	Bowling alley manager
Byron Keith	Bowling customer
Margie Adleman	Party guest with Joe

Notes & Trivia[]

The tagline to this film is "The Blob is Back! And You are There!"
Beware the Blob and Son of Blob both redirect to this page.
There are a total of twenty-eight credited cast members in this film.
Production on Beware! The Blob began in April, 1971 with filming wrapping up in June, 1971. The movie was shot in Los Angeles with scenes of the bowling alley being filmed in Glendale at 1435 Flower Street, and the ice-skating rink being filmed at the Culver City Rollerdome in Culver City.
In original U.S. trailers, this film has also been marketed under the alternative title Son of Blob. This is something of a misnomer as the Blob that appears in this film is derived from the same creature from the original The Blob.
Actor Robert Walker, Jr., who plays Bobby Hartford, is credited as Robert Walker in this film.
Actor Bill Coontz, who plays the manager of the bowling alley, is credited as William B. Foster in this film.
Executive producer Jack H. Harris makes an uncredited cameo appearance in the film as a man running across the ice at the ice-skating rink.
Director Larry Hagman also makes an appearance in the film as a young hobo.
Actor Burgess Meredith makes an uncredited appearance in the film as a homeless man.
Actor Sid Haig makes an un uncredited appearance in the film as Zed.
Actor Preston Hagman, who plays a scout, is the son of director & actor Larry Hagman. Preston will also make appearances with his father on the nighttime soap opera drama Dallas.
As of 2023, Beware! The Blob has a user submitted star rating of 4.1 out of 10 on the Internet Movie Database (IMDB) based on more 2,300 votes.
This movie does not have a Tomatometer rating on the movie review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes. It does however have an audience score of 21% based on more than five-hundred verified user ratings, averaging 2.4 out of 5.
On Letterboxd, Beware! The Blob has a weighted average rating of 2.29 out of 5 based on 1,942 user ratings.
Producer Anthony Harris is the son of executive producer Jack H. Harris.
Unlike the original film, Beware! The Blob actually has black characters in it.
Actor Del Close, who plays a hobo wearing an eyepatch in this film, will go on to play Reverend Meeker in the 1988 remake of The Blob.
Later releases of the movie added the tagline of "The film that J.R. shot", which is a play on "Who shot J.R.?", which is a catch phrase relating to director/actor Larry Hagman's work on the nighttime drama series Dallas. In the season three finale of the show, the character of J.R. Ewing, played by Hagman, suffered a near fatal gunshot wound by an unknown assailant. The marketing campaign of "Who shot J.R.?" carried over throughout the summer season until it was resolved in season four.
Some later releases omitted the four-minute opening scene of Chester Hargis discovering the original blob monster in the Arctic.
Actor Dick Van Patten is best known for playing "America's Dad" Tom Bradford on the 1980s family series Eight Is Enough, as well as its spin-off TV movies.
Actress Cindy Williams is best known for playing Shirley Feeney on the 1970s sitcom series Laverne and Shirley.
Actor Robert Walker performed his own rope-climbing stunts in the film.
A third film, which was to be helmed by writer and producer Anthony Harris was prepped to go into production, but never materialized. The movie was going to be called Curse of the Blob.
Scenes from the original The Blob appears in this film on a television screene. A similar gimmick was used in Halloween III: Season of the Witch, which showed a scene on a television from the first Halloween. The difference between the two franchises however is that Halloween III was not intended to take place in the same continuity as Halloween.
This movie marks the film directing debut of Larry Hagman, who is primarily known as a TV actor. This is also his final film work as a director. Prior to directing Beware! The Blob, Hagman did direct some TV projects including three episodes of the I Dream of Jeannie sitcom series.

Body Count[]

All names listed here, unless otherwise stated are victims of the blob. There are twenty-six human victims and eight animal victims for a total body count of 34.

A fly
Sam the cat
Marianne Hargis
Chester Hargis
Zed
Randy
Randy's girlfriend
Hair stylist customer
Hair stylist
Dog
Chicken #1
Chicken #2
Chicken #3
Chicken #4
Chicken #5
Hobo #1
Hobo #2
Hobo #3
Adleman
Joe
Leslie
Al
Mike Pinsetter
Bowling alley manager
Henry
Mechanic
Priest #1
Priest #2
Male bowler #1
Male bowler #2
Male bowler #3
Female bowler #1
Female bowler #2
Kelly Davis

Recommendations[]

1970s Sci-Fi

External Links[]

References[]

The Blob
RUN... DON'T WALK... and check out these other flicks in the Blob film series!
category.

Original Series

The Blob • Beware! The Blob

Remakes

The Blob

Characters

Steve Andrews • Jane Martin • Tony Gressette • Mooch Miller • Brian Flagg • Meg Penny • Paul Taylor • Herb Geller • Fran Hewitt • Reverend Meeker