foot in mooth.

The Abominable Snowman (AKA The Abominable Snowman of the Himalayas, 1957)
Dir: Val Guest.
Cast: Peter Cushing, Maureen Connell, Arnold Marlé, Richard Wattis, Forrest Tucker, Robert Brown and Wolfe Morris.

"They killed him. It was the sound of that howling. He couldn't stand it - it drove him mad."

The corduroy loving academic-type Dr. John Rollason (Cushing) alongside his lusciously librarian-like wife Helen (Connell) and their bespectacled colleague Dr. Peter Fox ( Wattis) have come to Tibet to make a study of the rare medicinal herbs used by the local monks at a remote Buddhist monastery at the foot of The Himalayas.

But Rollason's reason for being there isn't all to do with his plant based potterings as our erstwhile chum has a secret obsession with all things Yeti based.

So to this end he has arranged to meet up with brash American mountaineer cum salesman  Tom Friend (original Ghostbuster and star of The Trollenberg Terror, Tucker) in order to - hopefully- track down and capture the beast, much to his wife's chagrin.

You see he had a bad fall last time he went climbing (he fell off the roof fixing the Sky dish) and had specifically promised not to do it again.

What a rotter.

Peter farted....and it was an eggy one.

She's not the only one set against the idea tho' as the local lama (Marle) would much prefer Rollason to concentrate all his efforts on his studies of the plants too.

You see the lama is totally convinced that there's no such thing as the Yeti, explaining to Rollason the the legends - and noises - are probably just wolves.

Or maybe rats.

Plus winter is coming meaning that the already treacherous mountains will quickly become unclimbable.

A wee bit like your mum.

Or is that unmountable?

Either way neither of those, it seems, are real words.

Neither wistful wife nor knowledgeable Nepalese can sway John tho' and he excitedly joins up with Friend’s party - Edward Shelley (latter day Bond boss M, Brown) and Andrew McNee (Brill) as well as a single native guide Terry Kusang (Morris) - and heads off the very next day.

"Scarf on mah neck!"

Although the group man seem small (as in members wise, Tucker is sporting some mighty manbreasts), Friend has planned it with almost military precision, the previous year he ordered a much larger team into the mountains to prepare their base camps in advance and stock them with such supplies as non-perishable food, rifles, first-aid gear, and radios.

In fact everything a Yeti hunting expedition would ever need including a huge sledge to bring the beast home on.

Sorted.

They've no sooner left the monastery tho' than things start to go awry with Rollason soon realising that his plan to merely observe the creatures in their natural habitat has been superseded by Friend's plan to shoot one and bring the body back for exhibition.

Which he really should have asked about before they left if I'm honest.

The situation isn't helped by the fact that NcNee has encountered the beast (or at least heard it) before and is slowly losing his mind at the thought of encountering it again.

Typical bloody Scotsman.

Maureen Connell: Ask your Granddad.

 

As tensions flare and feelings run high the group bicker and bitch as they climb higher and higher but when poor McNee accidentally steps into one of Shelley's patented Yeti-traps and breaks his ankle resulting in much crying and poor old Peter Cushing having to bathe his stinky foot.

But things are about to take a turn to the sinister as that very night a Yeti sneaks into their camp (but not alas their hearts) and starts poking McNee thru' the tent walls.

Grabbing his rifle Shelley lets off a few rounds and kills the beast but not before Kusang has run away back to the monastery, leaving Friend, Shelley and Rollason to drag the bugger back to camp alone.

Upon their return tho' they notice that McNee has gone for a wander, climbing barefoot up a treacherous cliff whilst announcing that he loves big feet - or something - before falling to his death.

Meanwhile back at the monastery, Helen is so worried about her husband that - in the films most erotically charged scenes - she's taken to stomping around in her fluffy PJ's and a pair of big boots whilst shouting at everyone.

Fox, ever helpful suggests that she goes back to bed and get pissed but Helen, being a woman refuses and storms off to see the lama before deciding to blow her entire housekeeping money on hiring all the other sherpa's and mounting a rescue mission.

Girl power eh?

"I can see your house from here Peter!"

This it transpires is probably for the best seeing as by now Rollason, Friend and Shelley are currently being harassed by the dead Yeti's pals and as a combination of cabin fever (not the movie tho' thank fuck) and the lack of oxygen begins to take effect the three men must battle against not only their own fears and prejudices but a mysterious species that appears capable of invading their very minds.....

After hitting the horror big time in 1955 with their cinema-sized adaptation of Nigel Kneale's BBC classic The Quatermass Experiment, Hammer Films looked to repeat its success, first with a sequel in everything but name in X The ~Unknown (Hammer actually wanted it to be a Quatermass movie but Kneale refused permission for the character to be used due to Brian Donlevy's scenery chewing performance) and then with a big screen adaptation of Kneale's Himalayan horror The Creature which had been broadcast two years earlier.

Retaining Peter Cushing from the TV version but pairing him with an American co-star - Forrest Tucker replacing Stanley Baker - due in part to secure co-funding from producer Robert L. Lippert who also held the rights to distribute Hammer's films in the United States, The Abominable Snowman is a low budget slow burn of a picture that's as creepy as it is thoughtful.

"Oh Vic....I've fallen."

Inspired by the then recent reports concerning the mysterious Yeti, fueled in part by Sir Edmund Hillary’s photographs of large footprints while ascending Mt. Everest in 1953 as well as the 1954 Snowman Expedition (sponsored by the Daily Mail of all things), The Abominable Snowman plays against our expectations of a Hammer monster movie by having the titular creature not some blood crazed beast intent on killing everything with a normal shoe size but a creature that is determined to hide from man, waiting patiently to reclaim their world again once the ape-upstarts have destroyed themselves.

Their only acts of aggression against the humans is with a subtle use of telekinesis and telepathy, slowly driving the group mad as broken radios continue to broadcast and dead companions cry from the snowy wastes.

It's themes like this that not only would Kneale revisit but so would Doctor Who especially in its Quatermass inspired series 7, much to the writers chagrin.

"Brrrraaaa Shuper Ted! Do you require any scissors sonically sharpening?"

Unfortunately this wasn't what folk were looking for and The Abominable Snowman failed to find an audience at the box office.

But whilst the film is a wee bit of an undiscovered classic it's not all perfect,  Tucker is a wee bit of a set-chewing Shouty Kenneth but with the original being lost who knows if Baker was any subtler, plus the addition of Helen and Fox to the story adds nothing to it except a wee bit of a saucy thrill for any viewers with a 50s secretarial sex-fetish when Connell wanders passed in her fluffy oversized PJs and walking boots.

But just because the film was a wee bit of a flop doesn't make it any less enjoyable plus it's head and shoulders above most of the horror output of the time.

Bizarrely enough tho' we should really be thankful for it's less than stellar box office as its due to its relative failure plus the diminishing returns of Quatermass II the same year that Hammer decided to re-invent their horror output for a rapidly approaching new decade.

For it was later that very year that the company unleashed The Curse of Frankenstein, quickly followed by the horror powerhouse that is Dracula, changing the face of British horror cinema with it's new found focus on blood, boobs and bare flesh forever.