How ‘The Blob’ transformed one town

updated 3:58 p.m. ET Aug. 12, 2008

There is a man. He carries a can, and inside it is a weird, blood-red hunk of goo the size and consistency of a generous bowl of lumpy raspberry Jell-O.

Each summer, man and can climb into the car and drive to a small town on the edge of the Philadelphia suburbs, not far from where Washington spent that bitter, long-ago winter in Valley Forge.

The town, Phoenixville, is a place of history, too. Fifty years ago, this place was touched by the spotlight. A small production company two towns over made a film that no one expected to go anywhere. Instead, it became one of the iconic sci-fi horror flicks of the 1950s and introduced the world to an actor named Steve McQueen.

In the movie, this happens: A mysterious hunk of extraterrestrial gelatin kills a physician in his home, menaces teenagers in a grocery store, surges toward a crowd of people in a darkened theater and engulfs a diner.

In real life, this happens: Each summer, hundreds of locals and folks from as far away as Oregon and Jamaica come to the center of Phoenixville. They visit the house where the doctor “died,” stop by the strip mall where the market once stood, eat at the diner on the site where the alien met its frozen end. And, on Phoenixville’s main drag, on a warm summer evening, more than 400 of them run screaming from the same theater, the Colonial, in a joyous re-enactment of the movie’s big scene.

The man and the can play starring roles in The Big Weekend and its ocean of science-fiction fans and weekend excursioneers. The man is Wes Shank, collector of movie memorabilia. The can contains his showpiece, the thing that gave rise to all the commotion in the first place.

It is a miniature film prop, nothing more, a chunk of silicone manufactured by Union Carbide in West Virginia. But it is also the centerpiece of a story of tourism and entertainment that, a half-century and six manned moon landings later, refuses to go away.

All around the hunk of goo, something odd unfolds: Because a movie was made long ago, because a town’s gotta do what a town’s gotta do, a festival has risen. A downtown has come back. A past has been leveraged — a fictional past, but a past nevertheless.

Once, in 1958, “The Blob” came from beyond the stars and brought death to Phoenixville. Today, just as unexpectedly, it is bringing life.

‘Historic sites for the ADD generation’
“When you see something that was on film, it takes you into the movie. It’s almost like you are a character,” says Dave Perillo, an artist from Swarthmore, Pa. He has come to hawk his sci-fi caricatures at “Blobfest,” Phoenixville’s name for its annual street-fair excursion into the blobosphere.

“These places,” Perillo says, “are our new historic sites for the ADD generation.”

Entertainment can be an unpredictable beast. What appears up on the big screen — some of it, at least — was created in real places. And sometimes, because of the fiction, those real places begin to change.

In Scotland, an ancient castle has become a pilgrimage site because part of “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” was filmed there. In Dyersville, Iowa, the baseball diamond carved from cornfields for “Field of Dreams” draws fans who consider it a real ballpark. Mount Airy, N.C., has taken pains to make itself feel like Mayberry, the quintessential small town from “The Andy Griffith Show.” And the bar exterior from “Cheers,” once called the Bull and Finch, has renamed itself; these days, it’s “Cheers Beacon Hill.”

We live in a land of big stories, in an age where entertainment trumps most everything. So events like Blobfest become natural leisure options at a time when towns need to stand out, to become on-site theme parks and draw tourist dollars.

And here in the cradle of American independence, where real-life history is everywhere, why shouldn’t fictional history become something tangible?

“History, the Liberty Bell, the significance of it gets lost of me,” says Ellen Plummer of Portland, Maine. “This,” she says, “is more real.”

She is walking up Bridge Street in Phoenixville with her boyfriend, Rick Naratil, a native who moved away years ago. He remembers, at 5, seeing “The Blob” on TV and thinking, hey — that’s the theater where I watch Disney movies.

While the diner and other filming locations draw gawkers during Blobfest, the Colonial Theater is the epicenter of all things blob. Inside, sci-fi flicks play to enthusiastic audiences, and people at the edges of fame like Kris Yeaworth, son of “Blob” director Shorty Yeaworth, discuss the intricacies of filming the movie originally titled “The Molten Meteor.”

Outside, the blobbery takes on as many forms as creativity and entrepreneurial savvy allow.

There is the wooden blob cutout that allows you to poke your head through a hole and pretend you’re being swallowed by its unearthly maw. There are the actual fire truck and the 1950 Ford coupe that McQueen drove in the movie. Outside the pizza parlor opposite the theater, the proprietors have created their own creamy, oozy pink mass, confined to a garbage bin for the moment.

Slideshow   Celebrity sightings Gerard Butler faces “The Ugly Truth” in Los Angeles, KISS member Gene Simmons gets in his licks in Quebec, Kris Allen and the “Idols” are back on stage and more. more photos

And there is the parade, led by a fire-extinguisher-wielding grand marshal dressed as McQueen, whose James Dean-like teenage leading man figured out that its frozen contents were lethal to the creature. The lookalike leads an unholy Conga line around the theater marquee while discharging bursts of carbon dioxide skyward.

Only in America, you might say. But there’s more here than meets the eye.

“Visitors bring their own imagination with them,” says Sue Beeton, author of a critical study called “Film-Induced Tourism.” She admits: She’s been moved to tears by sites she’s visited that figure in her favorite stories.

“Often, simply being in a place is sufficient ‘touchstone’ for their experience,” Beeton writes in an e-mail from Australia, where she teaches.

“People often respond extremely personally and passionately to film,” she says. “For many, their journeys verge on a pilgrimage.”

MORE FROM MORE NEWS AND OTHER FEATURES

Toned down version of ‘Bruno’ to play U.K.

Toned down version of ‘Bruno’ to play U.K. GLAAD takes a stand against ‘Bruno’ Jeremy Renner wants success on his own terms ‘Brüno’ sashays to top of weekend box office Clooney to shoot film in Italian earthquake city Hollywood convicted in ‘Alpha Dog’ slaying Jolie trumps Aniston atop actress earning list Oscar-winning actor Karl Malden dies at 97 And the new Oscar voters are ... ‘Do The Right Thing’ still resonates   Add More news and other features headlines to your news reader: