The Abominable Snowman
Director: Val Guest
Year: 1957
Rating: 7.0
I felt
cold the entire time I was watching this. The endless snow, the wind blowing
down from the mountains, the long trek in untouched snow. I wanted to put
a sweater on. The filmmakers do a wonderful job of capturing the poetry and
beauty of the landscapes as well as the smallness of man trying to traverse
it. Tiny dots in an immense world of white. Insignificant but never realizing
it. The editing of combining film shot with doubles in the Pyrenees and the
actors in the studio in the make believe snow is near flawless. It had me
fooled. This is a Hammer production. One of the earliest in their turn towards
horror and sci-fi. Hammer had been around for decades knocking out low budget
crime, adventure and comedy films but with Four Sides Triangle and Spaceways
in 1953 they began changing direction. The success of The Quatermass Experiment
and X the Unknown in 1957 was more of a motivation. And then came The Curse
of Frankenstein in the same year and their course was set for the next 15
years.
The Abominable Snowman came out in the same
year and was a remake of a TV play that writer Nigel Kneale had produced
a few years earlier titled The Creature. Kneale brought on the director of
his two Quatermass films, Val Guest and the star of The Curse of Frankenstein,
Peter Cushing. Cushing who had played the same role in The Creature as he
does here of course was to become a regular with Hammer. At the time Hammer
was considered a low man in the British film hierarchy and many of their
films were co-produced with the American company Lippert. Lippert always
demanded an American star - that is why we have Brian Donlevy in the two
Quatermass Films and Dean Jagger in X the Unknown. In this one they are saddled
with Forrest Tucker who never met the concept of subtlety in his career.
Guest said of his actor ""Forrest Tucker might have been very good at some
things but, to many people's minds, acting wasn't one of them and I think
he rather spoilt the picture". Well, in truth he is supposed to play an obnoxious
ugly American and he does that fine.
Dr. Rollason (Cushing) is a botanist collecting
plant samples with his wife and a colleague at a Buddhist temple in the Himalayas.
The spooky Lhama (Arnold Marlé) appears to have ESP abilities and
tells Rollason that men are approaching. In roundabout language he also warns
Rollason that his fate is not clear if he joins them. They (Tucker) are going
to look for the Yeti, the legendary creature that people have claimed to
have seen for decades. Of course, Rollason does join them because he is a
scientist and needs to know if it really exists. It dawns on him slowly that
the motivations of the other three men is not the same as his. It also
begins to dawn on him that the Yeti are watching them and have powers as
well. It becomes more a human drama than a horror film - an exploration of
our psyche and it is clear that the Yeti are not the monsters. That is us.
It was shot in black and white and did poorly at the box office. Directors
in films like this have to decide whether to show the beast or to what extent.
Guest decided less is more and that is probably for the best because it is
really just a MacGuffin for man to show his true self.
