Godfrey Cambridge

Ragtime music publisher John Stark (Art Carney) watches Scott Joplin (Billy Dee Williams) walk down the back stairs of the Grand Opera House in New York City and recalls events from the composer's life. Joplin grows up in a musical family led by his mother, who washes clothes to pay for her son's piano lessons. When she dies, Scott's father considers music an activity for home and church and expects his son to labor for the railroad. Instead, Scott leaves home and finds work playing piano in a bordello. On his last day before leaving for Sedalia, Missouri, in 1899, Scott meets his replacement, Louis Chauvin (Clifton Davis), who decides to go with Scott and enter a "cutting contest," a head-to-head piano competition. The two agree to share the earnings if either one wins. In Sedalia's Maple Leaf Club, Scott tells the piano tuner that the A-flat key on one of the pianos is flat and introduces himself as a budding composer. The man advises him to seek out John Stark. Later, Chauvin informs his friend that the piano-tuner is Stark. During the competition, flashy performers eliminate one another, but Scott and Chauvin are the last men standing and Chauvin wins. However, the original tune by Scott catches the attention of Stark, who asks to see the music in his office the next day. Stark offers Scott $50 for the composition, called "Maple Leaf Rag," with ten percent royalties. Scott is ordered to demonstrate the tune by playing all day in Stark's store-front window, and to deliver the written composition that afternoon. Back at the Maple Leaf Club, the other piano players warn Scott that Stark is cheating him. Chauvin suggests they take their $100 prize money and move downriver to New Orleans, Louisiana. As Scott works on another song, he is seduced by a young woman and misses his appointment with Stark, who finds Scott at the Maple Leaf. When Scott announces that he can earn more playing saloons and brothels than by taking Stark's deal, Stark accuses the composer of fearing the challenge and Scott changes his mind. After signing with Stark, the sheet music to "Maple Leaf Rag" and other songs sell briskly, and ragtime music becomes popular. In 1901, a beautiful woman admires Scott's playing at Stark's store, so Scott follows her to a cemetery. He learns she is a widow named Belle Hayden (Margaret Avery) and they spend the day together. Scott tells her that Stark is moving his business to St. Louis, Missouri, and asks her to accompany him as his wife. They marry, move to St. Louis, and his publishing success continues. Later, Scott experiences some loss of control in his hand. Meanwhile, Sam Bundler (David Healy), the arts and music critic for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, comes to Stark's offices to interview Scott, wanting to write a piece decrying ragtime as the commercialization of a fad. Later, Scott sees a doctor who informs him that he has a secondary stage of syphilis. Scott has not yet infected Belle, but the disease could affect the child she is carrying, and the third stage could be debilitating for Scott. At the Joplin home, Chauvin visits with a prostitute on each arm. He teases Scott for his conservative appearance while Scott chides Chauvin for playing his music in ways other than it was written. Chauvin bears an invitation for Scott to play a gala gathering of madams at Tom Turpin's (Godfrey Cambridge) club and Scott dismisses the idea, despite longing for his raucous youth. When Belle says she does not mind if Scott plays at the club, he makes a surprise appearance and receives an ovation. As he plays, however, he remembers the woman who seduced and infected him in Sedalia and his hands begin to tremble. He recovers, but Chauvin observes the difference in his friend's performance. Sometime later, Stark notices that something is bothering Scott, who says he wants to distance himself from the past. Stark assures Scott that he is a great American composer and that he is proposing Scott to a committee staging the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis. However, the committee, including Bundler, describes ragtime as crude and is reticent to feature Scott's music alongside John Philip Sousa. Meanwhile, Scott hopes for committee approval and writes a new rag for the fair. Receiving a note from Chauvin saying that he is ill, Scott reluctantly visits his friend, who asks him to transcribe his music so he, too, will be remembered. As Chauvin plays and Scott writes the notes, Chauvin loses control of his hands and says he will send for Scott when he has recovered. Afterward, on the street, Stark says that the committee has approved Scott for the World's Fair and that Belle has given birth to a baby girl. Scott rushes home to discover there is something wrong with the baby, so he confesses he has been deceitful. The World's Fair arrives and Scott's music is ignored, overwhelmed by the scope and volume of Souza and his orchestra. Scott rages at Stark for failing him and decides that he is going to write an opera in ragtime. Stark warns that it will be professional suicide, adding that he is moving to New York City and the Joplins should accompany him. Scott returns home in turmoil and finds Belle sitting alone in the nursery; the baby has died and Belle leaves him. Scott stops speaking to Stark and pours his energy into writing the opera. One day, he comes across the composition he transcribed for Chauvin and remembers his friend's request for help. In 1906 Chicago, Illinois, a derelict Chauvin returns to home to find Scott playing the piano and the old friends reunite before Chauvin passes away. In 1910, Scott goes to New York City to see Stark and hands him the composition he wrote with Chauvin, as well as a stack of newly written rags. After a celebratory dinner, Scott tells Stark that he has finished the opera, Treemonisha, and he wants Stark to finance it, but the publisher guesses that Scott is ill and tells the composer he will not pay penance for Scott's misdeeds. Later, Scott begins rehearsals with performers on his own, but they do not go well. Poor Alfred (musician Taj Mahal), Scott's piano player, tells Stark that Scott needs $3,000 to produce the opera and reports of the staging of a one-night, bare-bones showcase in Harlem. Although Stark claims he is penniless and is moving back to St. Louis, Alfred confesses that Scott is dying of syphilis and Stark agrees to find a backer. Later, Scott performs for one of Stark's potential investors and Stark reflects on Scott's career. While playing "The Entertainer," Scott's hands give him trouble and he is unable to finish. Later, Stark and Scott say goodbye on the back stairs of the Grand Opera House and Scott walks home alone as snow falls around him. In 1974, Joplin's music won an Academy Award® for The Sting (1973), Treemonisha was staged successfully on Broadway; and in 1976, the composer was awarded the Pulitzer Prize. Joplin died in 1917.

Picking up 15 years after the events of the first Blob movie, an oil pipeline engineer and geologist named Chester Hargis (Godfrey Cambridge) returns to his suburban Los Angeles home from a three-month excursion to Alaska near the North Pole, bringing with him a small sample of a mysterious frozen substance uncovered by a bulldozer on a job site... an off-camera story which he tells his wife Marian (Marlene Clark). Not aware that the substance is a piece of the Blob from the original 1958 incident in Pennsylvania, Chester stores the substance in a small metal container in his home freezer prior to taking in to the laboratory to be analyzed. When Marian takes the metal container out of the freezer and leaves it unattended on the kitchen counter, both she and Chester forget about it since Chester is planning to go away on a week-long fishing trip which he has stored several cans of beer in his fishing container. With both Chester and Marian distracted by their bickering, the substance thaws out and a red gelatinous substance oozes from the metal canister after consuming a small house fly. The small blob then quietly engulfs their pet kitten. Seemingly energized by the sustenance, the blob oozes out into the back yard, where Marian is searching for the kitten. As the creature grasps Marian's legs to engulf her, she faints in terror and succumbs, unknown to Chester, who is watching television in the living room. Soon after, family friend Lisa Clark (Gwynn Gilford) enters the house to find Chester sitting in his reclining chair being dissolved/digested by the ever-expanding blob. Horrified, Lisa races to her boyfriend Bobby Hartford (Robert Walker Jr.) at his farm for help, but when they return to the Hargis house, no evidence of the tragedy remains. Meanwhile, bowling alley owner Edward Fazio (Richard Stahl), having spotted Lisa speeding, reports her to the police and follows her to Chester's house to admonish her. When Lisa tries to explain to the police that her friends are missing, they search the house while Mr. Fazio insists that they arrest her for speeding. After finding nothing suspicious, the police release Bobby and Lisa. Elsewhere, two teenagers, a guitar playing hippy named Randy (Randy Stonehill) and his girlfriend (Cindy Williams), are smoking marijuana in a storm drainage culvert, when policeman Deputy Zed (Sid Haig) confronts them. When Deputy Ted Sims (Ted Baar) arrives and tells Deputy Zed to report back to the police station, he tells the two teenagers that they are under arrest for possession of a controlled substance. Sims then leaves Zed to arrest the two teenagers. Seeing the red, viscous material dripping into the culvert behind Deputy Zed's head, the teenagers warn the policeman, but he suspects they are trying to trick him and ignores their pleas. Within seconds, the blob engulfs Zed and the two teenagers. Later that evening, the blob seeps into a hair salon through the sewer system, swallowing the customer's head (John Houser) and hairdresser's arms (Shelley Berman) during a shampoo at the sink. Meanwhile, Bobby and Lisa return to her house, where dozens of Bobby's friends are waiting to throw him a surprise birthday party. As the festivities ensue, Lisa, upset that Bobby does not believe her story, asks him to take her to his ranch. In another part of town, a middle-aged Russian man (Tiger Joe Marsh) is taking a bath when the blob slips under the door and swallows his pet dog as the man watches helplessly. Petrified and naked, the man runs into the street, where police pick him up for exposing himself. Back at the police station, reports of missing persons are piling up, including a group at a bar that the blob consumes (off-camera). Boy Scout Taskmaster Adleman (Dick Van Patten) is with his troupe hiking through the area and observing the events that are unfolding around them. Adleman becomes a victim himself (off-camera) when he confronts the blob in a field near the late Chester's house, but most of his fellow Boy Scouts escape. At Bobby's ranch, the blob, having already consumed three hobos (Larry Hangman, Burgess Meredith and Del Close), is growing exponentially after consuming live chickens and possibly some livestock, and quickly envelopes Bobby's truck when the couple arrives. Knowing what fate awaits them, Lisa screams for help, but they cannot escape. Suddenly during the tumult, when Lisa accidentally switches the air conditioner of the car on full blast, the blob recedes for no apparent reason. This allows Bobby to re-start his car and drive away. Bobby and Lisa race to a gas station (where the Blob has apparently been and consumed, off-camera, the attendant and an unknown number of patrons) to call Sheriff Jones (Richard Webb) and are told that he is at the bowling tournament. Seeing their friend Joe (Gerrit Graham) and his girlfriend Leslie (Carol Lynley) driving by, Bobby and Lisa describe the horrific monster. Although Leslie is convinced of their sincerity, Joe mocks them in disbelief and drives off in his dune buggy to investigate their claims. As Bobby, Lisa and Leslie make their way to the town bowling tournament to find the sheriff, they are confronted by the Blob, which has covered the road and is enveloping Joe and his car. A hysterical Leslie rushes to help Joe, but dies with Joe under the oozing mass. Taking an alternate route, Bobby and Lisa reach the bowling alley, where Bobby uses the loudspeaker to advise everyone to leave the area, but his warning goes unheeded. Angered by the disruption, Fazio orders his bouncer to bring Bobby and Lisa to his office, where they explain the danger. Meanwhile, the blob, having already devoured the bowling alley mechanic, surges down all the lanes toward the terror-stricken people, who run for their lives. Bobby, Lisa and Fazio barricade themselves in a broadcast booth high above the adjacent ice rink, which is closed for repairs, and watch as dozens of people succumb to the fast-flowing blob. Using the speaker system, Bobby tells the sheriff and his men, who are waiting outside, that the blob is a giant single-celled animal that can ooze through cracks. As the sheriff and his men dress in riot gear to prepare to attack the creature, Bobby tries to electrocute it with a live wire, but does not succeed. Jones and his deputy shoot at the creature, which is unharmed and subsequently eats the deputy. Having devoured the remaining public in the facility, the blob seeps into the booth through a hole in the floor. Scrambling to get away from the creature, Bobby knocks over a small refrigerator and spills ice onto the blob, which shrinks from the cold. Realizing that the air conditioner in their truck must have been the reason the blob did not eat them earlier, Bobby and Lisa asks Fazio how to cool the rink to freeze the blob. Meanwhile outside, the sheriff, having lost contact with Bobby, assumes that he and the others have been eaten, and orders his men to dowse the building in gasoline so they can burn the blob, unaware that fire will have little effect on the creature. Inside, Bobby heroically climbs the ropes leading to the rink's switch box. Once the rink's cooling system is on, the blob freezes solid instantaneously. Bobby then runs out of the building just in time to stop the sheriff from setting it ablaze. Minutes later, the sheriff proudly stands on top of the mounds of the frozen blob to give a television interview about the shapeless monster that almost destroyed their town and possibly the world. Just under his feet, a small section of the blob defrosts from the camera light and begins to engulf the sheriff's boot..... Is this really....THE END?

A psychiatrist suddenly gets assigned to be the US president's shrink. Paranoid from the many spies tailing him in hope of kidnapping him, he runs away, and dozens of spies, and the FBI, CIA, and various agencies scramble to retrieve him. At first, Dr. Sidney Schaefer feels honored and thrilled to be offered the job of the President's Analyst. But then the stress of the job and the paranoid spies that come with a sensitive government position get to him, and he runs away. Now spies from all over the world are after him, either to get him for their own side or to kill him and prevent someone else from getting him.