Release Year: 1957
Country: United Kingdom
Director: Val Guest
Writer: Nigel Kneale
Starring: Peter Cushing, Forrest Tucker, Maureen Connell, Richard Wattis, Robert Brown, Michael Brill, Wolfe Morris, Arnold Marle, Anthony Chinn
Editor: Bill Lenny
Cinematographer: Arthur Grant
Producer: Michael Carreras, Aubrey Baring
Music: Humphrey Searle
AKA: The Abominable Snowman of the Himalayas

You know, I have actually met people that think that Hammer films are boring. It has been suggested that by today’s standards they are slow paced and light on for action, and their ‘horror’ moments aren’t particularly scary. If you’re the type who believes that, then you’ll find The Abominable Snowman an absolute bore. It only runs for around eighty-six minutes, and the first thirty or so minutes are filled with talk, talk, talk. And when the expedition finally heads off to track down the fabled Yeti, nothing really happens. The humans do nothing except bicker at one another, and The Abominable Snowman is on the screen for about ten seconds — talk about a lazy cop-out.

I’d like to apologize to all regular Teleport City readers. That introductory paragraph was for all those film viewers (and I use the words loosely) who have lived on a diet of wafer thin, vapid, noisy, MTV edited, jiggy-pop-tuned movies, that cannot appreciate good old-fashioned story-telling, characterisation and craftsmanship. You don’t have to worry about me offending them, because they have such short attention spans that they have only read the first paragraph and skipped off to the next website. Now the real review starts.

Firstly can I say how can you not like the house of Hammer? Their films drip with atmosphere and style. These days they tend to be known for their colourful, dare I say it garish horror features, and therefore The Abominable Snowman, a black and white feature made prior to the release of The Horror of Dracula and The Curse of Frankenstein is one of their less lauded features. However this feature is pretty damn good. It was directed by Val Guest and written by Nigel Kneale. These men worked together (although apparently not too closely) on The Quatermass Experiment (AKA: The Creeping Unknown) and Quatermass 2: Enemy From Space. It’s funny, I have seen a few Quatermass films but strangely I cannot remember anything about them. It’s almost as if my mind has been wiped clean. I know I even saw that weird live version in 2005 with Jason Flemyng as Quatermass — again, no retention whatsoever. However, the stories and films are highly regarded. This was the third teaming of Guest and Kneale, and the story was based on a BBC Sunday Night Theatre episode called The Creature, that Kneale had written previously in 1955. Co-incidentally, both Peter Cushing and Wolfe Morris are reprising their roles from The Creature.

Kneale’s script may seem a little hokey now over fifty years later, especially with a plot about an elaborate plan to scale the Himalayas and track down the fabled Abominable Snowman, but at the time, the plot was actually quite topical with real-life expeditions heading off to do just such a thing. Going by memory here (so I could be slightly wrong), but I believe The Daily Mail Newspaper in Britain, actually had a competition with a cash reward for someone who could catch or conclusively prove that the Yeti truly existed.

The film begins at the Rong-Ruk Monastery in the Himalayas, and British scientist John Rollason is carrying out some research for a botanical foundation. Accompanying him are his wife Helen (Maureen Connell), and his research assistant Peter Fox, AKA: Foxy (Richard Wattis). It seems that Rollason is one of those generic scientists know knows about everything. Although he happens to be currently working on botany, as the story plays out it would appear that he is also an expert on zoology, anthropology, and archeology. Added to this, he also used to be an expert mountain climber, but gave it away after an accident.

After several weeks at the monastery, the Lhama (Arnold Marle) has decided to assist Rollason in his research and has provided him with some samples of rare flowers and herbs that grow around the mountains. Rollason is naturally curious about the plants and asks if he can see where they grow in the wild. He is told that it is out of season, and also that the snows are coming, so a trip would be hazardous at this time. The Lhama’s manner indicates that he is not keen for foreigners to venture up the mountain. It also seems that the Lhama has provided the plant specimens, not to assist Rollason in his work, but to speed up the process, so hopefully he will leave with his wife and Foxy. The Lhama doesn’t want scientists near. It appears that the Lhama knows a great many things about the area; things that modern science doesn’t know, and the cagey old man is not prepared to give these secrets up.

The film is only three minutes into its running time and its key message has already been brought to the fore. This film may masquerade as a horror film, but in reality it is a little essay on ecology, sustainability and the nature of man. If there is one thing we have learned time and time again from horror films, it is that the ‘true monster’ is man himself.

Despite the gift of the herbs and plants, Rollason’s research isn’t really close to be finished. He has been a little bit deceitful with his wife and Foxy. Yes, he is working for a botanical foundation collecting plant specimens, but he also has arranged to meet an expedition at the monastery. This expedition intends to climb high into the mountains to track down and capture the fabled Abominable Snowman. Helen and Foxy didn’t know about this part of the scheme and are not happy about the deception. Helen in particular is quite worried by her husband’s obsession with tracking down the monster.

The expedition party arrive. They are lead by a gruff American, Tom Friend, played by Forrest Tucker. Tucker is the token American in the production supplied by AIP, so the film would appeal to American audiences. Incidentally, in the television production, The Creature, Tom Friend was played by Stanely Baker, best remembered for his role in Zulu. Friend has a dubious past as a mercenary, a gun-runner and a shonky showman in the Carl Denham vein.

The rest of the party is comprised of Ed Shelley (Robert Brown), who is a hunter, Jock MacNee, a photographer, and Neema Kusang (Wolfe Morris), the Tibetan Guide who will lead the way. Friend figures that previous expeditions have marched up the mountains with loads of guides and equipment barers, almost like an army, alerting all living things to their approach. Instead, Friend wishes to take a small scale approach and only five of them will participate in the expedition.

As the expedition heads off the story veers off into Treasure of the Sierra Madre territory, with the true nature of each member of the expedition coming to the fore. Whereas Rollason may be driven by a quest for knowledge and answers, some of the other members’ motives are not quite so noble. As they head higher into the mountains to hunt the Yeti, the cold, harsh environment begins to take it toll. On the wind they hear strange mournful cries, that sound almost human. The sounds put everybody on edge.

The first casualty is MacNee, who inadvertently steps into one of Shelley’s Yeti traps and damages his ankle. Already weakened, tired and stressed, now he is confined to his tent. Meanwhile Fiend and Shelley choose to go on the offensive and shoot and kill anything that moves. All the while the environment slowly draws each of the party into his own little world of madness. Sure The Abominable Snowman is there too, watching, observing and acting when appropriate.

One of the oft cited complaints about this film is that The Abominable Snowman doesn’t get much of a look in during the film, and that is very true. Director, Val Guest has said that makeup and costumes at that time were not really up to the task of creating an effective and frightening looking monster. He therefore believed that ‘what was not seen’ was actually going to be more frightening than anything the special effects, wardrobe and makeup departments could create. Subsequently he chose to only show the snowman in small glimpses, allowing the monster to live in the ‘theatre of your mind’, rather than being unconvincingly paraded in front of your face.

I agree with Guest. When the monster is first (really) sighted, and you get a glimpsed of the beast’s hand reaching for the weapons that the expedition have in their tent, it is a truly involving and exciting scene. Later, when the film has to deliver the big reveal, it does fall down a little, and in all fairness, some of this has to do with the actual nature of The Abominable Snowman (as written). As you may have gathered from the paragraphs above, this monster isn’t a wild marauding killer. If it was, maybe it would have been easier to show snappy fast paced glimpses, followed by reaction shots and footage of the carnage and devastation caused. But this is not that type of film and therefore a more restrained resolution is required and subsequently, showing a rather docile and human monster is always going to be more disappointing to horror fans than a crazed beast with wild, snapping jaws and giant claws.

Despite the fact that the closing titles list the film being shot at Bray Studios – Hammers home, a great deal of this film was filmed in the French Pyrenees, and on a larger silent stage at Pinewood Studios. Strangely enough though, both Forrest Tucker and Peter Cushing in latter years, when recollecting the making of this film, both recall traveling to the Pyrenees to shoot scenes in the biting cold. However, Val Guest, in interviews has said, that that only a preliminary team and doubles for the main cast went to France to shoot on location. The main actors filmed at Bray (for the monastery scenes) and at Pinewood (for the snowscapes) and actually never left dear old England. Let’s just say that some of those studios back in the ’50s used to get pretty cold.

One of the many misleading things these days is that Hammer Studios are considered solely a horror studio. In fact the DVD cover of the disk used for this review has in bold lettering Hammer Horror Classic, where in truth it isn’t scary at all. In fact I don’t think it ever was meant to be. It’s an adventure story, made at a time when a quest to find the Yeti was entrenched in the public’s mind. Surprisingly, for a film that is fifty years old, it hints at, but doesn’t slap you in the face with it, an ecological message that man’s quest for power and profit at the expense of mother nature is stupid and ultimately self defeating.

Okay it sounds a little twee to say that, but isn’t that an underlying message in King Kong too. I am sure it could be equally applied to Godzilla as well — although the trigger would be a quest for power (the War / the Bomb) rather than profit. Now I am not comparing or suggesting that The Abominable Snowman is as good as Kong and the Big G, but none-the-less, a good quality monster film has a good solid story underneath it, and at the end of the day, that’s exactly what The Abominable Snowman has going in its favour — a decent story, told well, by people and craftsmen who know what they doing.

All in all, solid entertainment from Hammer Studios.