MovieChat Forums > The Snow Creature Discussion > Points

Points

posted 15 years ago by escalera-2
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I happen to agree with Jim Riecken's 20 October 2001 review:

"Poor snowman costume sinks this one" 20 October 2001
(youroldpaljim)

Holy cow -- if I can't find anything good to say about this picture then I really have wasted the time.

1) At the beginning when the expedition gets going (and used again when the remaining members are carrying the hog tied Snow Creature back down)there's a nice process shot.

2) Very effective use of camera angles to hide the fact that they are tracing the same area over and over again. Bronson Canyon never looked so good.

3) The wind machines were used effectively as well.

4) Props to the Prop Department for digging up a lot of good looking hiking gear.

5) The Japanese extras did a good job of it. When they are shown sleeping, those guys look like they were really asleep. It sounds easy, but it is not. ACTING!

6) The crude building at the beginning of the expedition is a fake brought out to Bronson Canyon (there would seem to be a giveaway at one point when a shadow on the inside starts to flap around).

7) This movie features a nice collection of film footage of the TWA Constellation. There are even some fine models in the airport office in evidence.

A deal must have been worked out to demonstrate the elegance of the plane, it's world wide reach and its direct flight service (New York to Los Angeles).

(And speaking of stock footage, did anyone notice that the "speaker" system at the airport is the same "speaker" system used during the prologue in Wilder's Killers from Space ? I've looked and just cannot see anything other than an array of dish antennas)

8) The maps of the Himalayas are effective. I wonder if they were produced for use in The Snow Creature or if they came from a travelogue.

Sure there are only eight points and they may not seem to add up to much, but if you know the movie-making process -- and I don't mean one where a bunch of friends working for beers and "screen credit" get together and dash one out on weekends, I mean one with a full paid crew, actors, locations, and a deadline -- all this stuff is quite significant.

It also has good sound, sound FX, nice music, cinematography (and I am talking about the very muddy dupe I have) and the story, not without its problems, shows some imagination.

[–] hobnob53 15 years ago

Oh, dear....

I'll have to look at Snowy again to refresh my memory on some of the finer points escalera describes above; but for now a couple of comments....

(5) Maybe the Japanese actors weren't acting when they were shown sleeping...maybe it had something to do with Z-movie fatigue!

(Oh okay, go ahead, call me a cynic.)

(7) Yes, the stock shots of the TWA Constellation exceed even those in Fire Maidens of Outer Space, true masterpieces of grainy filler footage of planes in flight in the mid-50s.

I'll add something of my own: nice flopping of the film so that the same shot of the police car chasing around LA looking for the titular Yeti gives the illusion it's traveling further, farther and faster than it actually did (thereby saving on film stock and gasoline).
Of course, that steering wheel suddenly on the right does look a little too...how should I put it...too Nepalese. (Oh, excuse me...I meant Japanese, of course. All those Japanese high in the Himalayas.)

The furry parka designed as a Yeti outfit was pure genius. Early Yves Saint Laurent, non? 'Course, in those days, he was affectionately nicknamed Yeti Saint Laurent for his renown in costuming abominable snowman actors.

Brilliant camera work in marching the snow creature close up to the camera, then freeze-framing him each time (okay -- one time, but the reptition of this shot was sheer artistry). Plus that same one-dimensional snowfall ever in front of his face each time. Heightens the mystery and, pardon the expression, depth, of the mysterious east. Or north. Northeast. South central northwest east. The Adirondacks. Whatever.

Ah, of course: never to be forgotten -- the world's niftiest phone booth...made all the more poignant by the viewer's knowledge that lurking behind that frosted glass is a poor misunderstood half-animal, half-actor (a tad redundant, but...), shifting from big foot to big foot, just trying to cope with his claustrophobia and homesickness, wanting only to be left free to break out, wreak vengeance, kill uncaring exploitative customs officials, leer rapaciously at underdressed women in dark alleys before strangling them, then seek solace in that place where all lost souls find redemption and regain their faith, the sewers...before the inevitable day of reckoning....
............................

And W. Lee's decision to keep the snow creature's face perpetually obscured so that we could never identify him as an actor in a snowsuit -- just cinematic brilliance, a master stroke of inspiration and respect for the audience. Exceeds even the invisible being in Phantom From Space in characterization and imaginative design.

Yes, this is one book I couldn't put down.... Oh, what? It's a movie? Oh.... Oh.... Oh, uh, well, I couldn't turn it off! Yeah, that's it: I couldn't turn it off. Of course, if I had found the remote....

[–] escalera-2 15 years ago

Are you being sarcastic?

Oh, yeah -- "...and the Oscar goes to.... THE GUY WHO GETS CLOCKED ON THE NOGGIN DURING THE AVALANCHE SEQUENCE AND KEEPS ON TROOPIN' ON!"

Well, fer cryin'out loud, now I'm gonna have to watch this thing again to look for the flopped squad car you brought up.

[–] hobnob53 15 years ago

It's on a hairpin turn. Nighttime. I think the snow creature was driving.

[–] escalera-2 15 years ago

9) For being the FIRST movie about Yeti.

[–] hobnob53 15 years ago

Yes, think of the avalanche of Yeti films it started.

[–] escalera-2 15 years ago

The story must be told!

"The Long Walk" was published in 1956 but tells of the tale that occurred in the 40's. I thought that maybe that book inspired young Myles Wilder but it would not seem to be the case. I suppose the stories of the Abominable Snowman had been going around for a long time. I guess I'll have to sit on my duff and google for answers.

"Cigaret-t-t-t?" --

[–] hobnob53 15 years ago

Wait, tell me the story.... The Long Walk? Is this something to do with trekking after a snowman of the abominable type?

Now...how did the creature get its "native" name?

"So, Doctor, I see you've returned from your camp on Mount Abominable, the fifteenth highest peak of the Himalayas."

"Yes, yes, and I have here all the proof I need for my next expedition."

"Really, Doctor? You mean -- oh, Doctor, you'd better be careful there -- you're right on the edge of that crumbling precipice!"

"Ha-ha! You say this to me, the greatest mountain climber in the world?"

"My apologies, Doctor. I know what a renowned mountaineer and monster chaser you are. All the world remembers your capture of Leni Riefenstahl in the Alps. It certainly wasn't your fault she was kidnapped from the Berlin Zoo and spirited to Berchtesgaden to work as Goebbels's projectionist."

"Fools! Imbeciles! I warned them! But to get back to this expedition: I have found incontrovertible evidence of the existence of...a snow being!"

"You mean -- "

"Yes! Bits of a cheap parka, and a telephone box calling card. And -- look here -- the tattered remnants of a Japanese-Snow Creature 100 Useful Phrases Guide Book. A must for communicating with the Nepalese and Tibetans!"

"Doctor! This is astounding! Not to mention you've beaten your arch-rivals in the Langton-Tucker Expedition!"

"Clowns! Idiots! I shall be the first to capture this monster for all the world to see. And I shall make it my life's mission to exterminate and stuff it for display immediately. No more zoo 'mistakes'!"

"A thousand congratulations, Doctor. But what you will call it? The Snow Creature? The Abominable Snowman? Half Human? Have you chosen a name for it?"

"Aha! Well, to be honest, not -- "

"Doctor! The crumbling precipice is giving way!"

"-- yet, Ieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee........"

"Doctor!"

"Professor Cushing! Professor Cushing! Was that...?"

"Yes -- yes. I'm afraid it was. We must report to Professor Ankrum that his esteemed colleague, Doctor Carradine, has fallen to his death."

"But -- but, did he say whether he'd found his 'snowman'?"

"Found it? No, Lieutenant Dunbar, he did not find it. But he found something more -- immortality in the world of science. And, up to a point, in mountaineering."

"Yes, but -- did he tell you what this monster was called? Is it The Snow Creature?"

"No, not The Snow Creature"

"Well, is it The Abominable Snowman?"

"No."

"It's -- it's not Half Human, is it? Professor Ankrum says the Ainu here in the Himalayas are hopping mad about that one."

"No -- not Half Human. No, he spoke the name with his very last breath. And that last word will go on to live in infamy among the annals of deadly creatures that slay by the mere utterance of their name."

"Yes! I heard him as he fell! He called it a 'Yet--'"

"Forgive me for clamping my hand over your oxygen mask, Lieutenant. One must take care in naming this being aloud until we are once more safely back in the peace and serenity of Pakistan."

"Mmmphh."

"Oh, excuse me -- there. You may breathe normally once more."

"Thank you, Professor. And...and, I understand. Shall we return to base camp?"

"Indeed, let us go...."

"You know, Professor Cushing, it's eerie...it all happened just as his arch enemy, Doctor Tucker, said!"

"Yes, I know, Lieutenant Dunbar. I can hear Doctor Tucker and Captain Langton taunting Doctor Carradine now. And they have been proven right. That precipice would not have given way at all -- had it not been for the size and weight of Doctor Carradine's favorite hiking boots -- what Doctor Tucker and Captain Langton found so amusing about Doctor Carradine -- that made them so viciously and persistently call him 'big foot'."

"Yes, Professor -- that was callous."

"Indeed it was, Lieutenant. Indeed it was."

"But with Doctor Carradine's naming of this monster at the moment of his death, I'm certain we can say with confidence that we shall never hear that nickname ever again!"

"Well said, Lieutenant Dunbar, well said. And now, when you radio to our headquarters, please tell them to book us on a cargo flight back home. I'm afraid that when he fell Doctor Carradine took the expedition's remaining funds with him in his wallet."

"I'm sure our benefactor, Mr. Wilder, will be more than happy to spend whatever it takes to complete this expedition satisfactorily. You know his reputation for extravagance and perfection in all he does."

"Our one consolation, Lieutenant. And the key to our everlasting fame."

[–] escalera-2 15 years ago

Delightfully purple prose purporting to pronounce the perfecting of a pronoun presuming the prolific persons presented had been pre-recorded for posterity by prescient people to prevent prolonged pondering of the puzzle.

Pass the perfection, pal. Pass the perfection.

[–] hobnob53 15 years ago

Oh, pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-papa!

[–] escalera-2 15 years ago

Ah, yes -- that's the word. They don't write them like that anymore.

Now, it may be because the print I have (50 Sci-fi Classics!) is so poor, the process shots, as I pointed out before, look pretty good. In fact, there were at least two other shots that were done post-production.

Yet another shot of the men walking (the bottom portion of the shot is an optical -- you can just make out the tap dancing)

And a couple of large ice blocks or boulders during the avalanche sequence have been added as well. Those look a little funny (think the climax for Giant from the Unknown) but there was a wise and well placed cut away from the action right away.

You know, there is a skull cap reputedly from a Yeti that's kept in a little carrying case -- THAT LOOKS LIKE A SMALL VERSION OF THE REFRIGERATED BOX USED IN THIS MOVIE!

Ladies and gentlemen, I submit to you that this movie was based on fact!

[–] hobnob53 15 years ago

I cite this exchange at the conclusion of From the Earth to the Moon (1958):

JV: "The trouble with scientists, Mr. von Metz, is that they only deal with facts."

Von Metz: "Oh? And what do you deal with, Mr. Jules Verne?"

Jules Verne: "Something much more real than facts -- imagination, Mr. von Metz."

Or, as a Republican congressman said during Watergate, "Don't confuse me with the facts! I've got a closed mind. I'm going to stand by my president even if he and I have to be taken out of here and shot!" (Earl Landgrebe, R-Indiana 2.)

50 Sci-Fi Classics is a poor-print refuge (50 movies for what, like, $3?), so a clearer print may lead to all sorts of revelations. Or disappointments!

I still have to go watch this thing again for all the fine points, if I may speak relatively.

Did you find the flopped car?

[–] escalera-2 15 years ago

No, not yet. I threw my muddy print on yesterday but I slept through much of it and I do not fault the film for my weariness. I must say I have enjoyed watching it (Watch, Wince, Repeat) just for little things like that.

I remember watching Assignment: Outer Space (1960) a few times just to find the exploding Ford im Space scene I had read about. It was worth it when I finally saw it.

Yes, 50 Sci-fi Classics has the 50 part right anyway. But, I sure have enjoyed that collection anyway.

Speaking of fine points, the actor who played the ever-thirsty, wife-lovin' Subra had a pretty good career in Movieland. I was glad to find that out as I thought he was a good guy with a very good -- if strange -- sense of humor.

[–] hobnob53 15 years ago

Yes, Teru Shimada, one of Hollywood's resident "Japs" (I use the term deliberately, for that's what his characters were often called). He may be best remembered for playing the SPECTRE flunky Mr. Osato, a wealthy industrialist, in the 1967 James Bond film You Only Live Twice. I also liked him in a second-season episode of the TV series Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea called "And Five of Us Are Left", about a group of survivors from a sunken sub from WWII found by Seaview in the future year of 1973; Shimada played a Japanese prisoner who had remained convinced all those years that Japan had won the war, but who after he learns the truth is eventually talked out of suicide by Admiral Nelson, who quotes haiku to him or something. Not a bad episode, before the series got too absurd.

[–] escalera-2 15 years ago

I have vague recollections of that series and that episode but I do remember it. I very much wanted to like the program but it had a rather weak premise. The original movie was mighty weak, too. As you point out, it got sillier and sillier.

Be that as it may, as I said, I'm glad he did all right (apparently) as I thought he did a fine job of it in Snow Creature. His character showed some class when he came to apologize to Professor Parrish and when that hcaracter let him off the hook it was a nice moment.
-- Gauntlet of Emotions
Besides, he really did want to find his wife and the Prof and his boozer pal didn't even believe him.

Now, I've read that there is a bit too much walking about -- the expedition goes up the hill, goes down the hill -- a flight -- goes down into the sewers walk around some more. (Of course, that was W. Lee Wilder's trademark in his genre pictures. People run about in Phantom from Space looking for the Pahnton here, looking for him there; in Killers from Space Peter Graves runs around Bronson Caves then again at the Power Station. I haven't seen Man Fish in many moons so I can't comment on that entry). Nowadays things blow up inbetween the storyline.

[–] hobnob53 15 years ago

Well, I suppose for a thrifty individual like W. Lee, planting the camera in a stationary position and then showing people running around was a substitute for actual action. Another of his related trademarks was to run the same shot two or three or four or five or six times, trying to prolong the "action". Sometimes, for variation and because even he probably realized the audience would eventually catch on that they were seeing the same scene for the ninth time, he flopped the film and ran the same scene backwards. (Like that police car.) This indicates both coming and going. Cinematic genius worthy of Griffith...in fact, abandoned by Griffith when such techniques became too old hat, around 1904.

I never saw Man Fish. Lots of swimming?

Actually, off topic, I liked the movie Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, which I saw only after the TV show had been on a couple of years. It's filled with holes in its plot and logic but I still find it very enjoyable. The series was pretty good and even adult in its first two seasons, especially the first, but from 3 on they'd run out of ideas and fell back on Irwin Allen's tried-and-true (or so he felt) gold- and silver-painted aliens, sparkly explosions, people disappearing accompanied by that sproing-oing-oing-oing! sound, and assorted cheap sea monsters, with mainly interchangeable storylines.

One reason I disliked the American characters in TSC is that they were so contemptuous of Subaru or whatever his name was. Plus the totally incongruous ending, laughing it up after killing an abominable snowman! Like there were dozens of them in zoos, or standing around outside the climbers' camps just waiting to be shipped off to LA.

[–] escalera-2 15 years ago

Yes, I also thought they were a bit too flip about it all. The dames that got assaulted by the Snow Creature probably didn't report for duty at Clifton's Cafeteria the next day. It should have had more of an ending like the begining of Son of Kong where we find Armstrong broke and badgered by the general populace after King Kong's opening night fiasco.

As I intimated, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea -- the TV series, was a TV show I really wanted to like when it was on it's first run. And I did because, even as you say, for a while it seemed to want to be taken seriously, but before too long it resorted to pulling a Wilder and would repeat a lot of stock shots of the Seaview cruising underwater or breaching the surface and Kowalski flying off the handle.

I have the movie version ensconced in my VHS collection of submarine favorites (Das Boot, Walt Disney's 20,ooo Leagues Under the Sea, The Hunt for Red October, K-19 -- The Widowmaker, U-571, The Wrath of Khan... etc) and I'll throw it on every once in a while. It has something like 15 minutes worth of plot padded out by crazy scenes like Barbara Eden doing the Twist on a tabletop, Walter Pidgeon pulling in a pay check, Peter Lorre smoking up a storm and waltzing around with a rubber shark (it is amusing to imagine that tank room and its occupants when the Seaview breaks the surface. Eee-ha!), handing Admiral Nelson some papers and being cranky ("Another submarine movie! I'm being typecast!")

Come with me!
come with me
On a Voyage
to the Bottom
of the Sea...

[–] hobnob53 15 years ago

Yeah, who would've sued Paul Langton? The City of Los Angeles, for time and expense in hunting down TSC? The family of the woman TSC killed? (Or her pimp, for damages to his business?)

Ha ha ha ha ha ha -- we just shot a snowman. Yes, bizarre. Pathos wasn't W. Lee's strong suit.

Saw you've been over on the VTTBOTS board so I'll trip over there for any related commentary. However, submarine movies...The Wrath of Khan? What sub? Something Kirk had for lunch?

By the way, look at the VTTBOTS goofs -- someone had the same thought you did about what happens to the contents of that shark tank during steep surfacings and dives! (Not me, sorry to say.)

[–] escalera-2 15 years ago

I hadn't read all the postings on Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea but I'm sure I wasn't the firs or the only one who imagined that rubber shark bouncing off the walls.

It seems I've overlooked Son of The Snow Creature in 50 Sci-fi Classics -- a little number called Snow Beast with Clint Walker and Yvette Mimieux.

[–] hobnob53 15 years ago

I think Snow Beast was made-for-TV: ergo, not a true movie (and, hence, no boldface, only italics)! For shame in bringing it up -- here, of all places!!

However, I have been forgetting one, and the fact that I've neglected to mention it just shows how frozen the Yeti sector of my mind has become: Man Beast (1956), with Rock Madison. What makes my negligence unfathomable is that I just ordered it from Amazon Marketplace!!!

Je suis un jerque, as they say on the Canadian disc.

[–] escalera-2 15 years ago

Here, now! Don't be so hard on yourself. It's only Rock. Wouldn't you take it for granite?

[–] hobnob53 15 years ago

No, but I sure must have been stoned to order it.

[–] escalera-2 15 years ago

Saw Snow Beast (1977) last night.

If you haven't seen that picture I'll give you a plot synopsis: Bo, Yvette and Clint on a very slippery slope, headed downhill...real fast.

In terms of originality, Snow Creature stands hairy head and shoulders over Snow Beast.

[–] hobnob53 15 years ago

I think I saw a piece of it many avalanches ago...some but not much recollection. However, Yvette was always something, although I don't think she'd have found an excuse to dive into a bikini as she did in most of her made-for-TV movies in those days. Alas.

I haven't yet(i) gotten my copy of Man Beast -- this is another one I saw as a kid in the 60s on I believe channel 11 in NYC, but not since, and my basic recollection is even fuzzier, more parka-y, than of Snow Beast or any of these other movies. I had no interest for a long time in even bothering with it but when I saw it had gone out of print I rushed to scoop up a copy, which I now breathlessly (thin atmosphere way up here, you know) await. It was made by the most execrable director in human history, Jerry Warren*, so it ought to be much worse than even what little I remember. After I receive and view and get ill from it, I'll alert you with a mini-evisceration/review.

*Jerry Warren made, among other "things", The Incredible Petrified World and the unfathomable, impenetrable, incomprehensible, inexplicable, generally daft and undeniably stupid Americanized revamp of a pretty good Swedish-American sci-fi picture from 1958, originally titled Rymdinvasion i Lapland (Space Invasion of Lappland), which was initially to have been released in the US as Terror in the Midnight Sun. But somehow plans for that fell through and Jerry Warren, who often picked up other people's foreign films and rewrote, recut and misdirected them into something altogether different and awful, got his grubby mitts on this and refashioned it into an illogical mush of garbled nonsense nobody can understand or explain (even changing "Sweden" to "Switzerland" even though they still talk about the Arctic, reindeer and Lapps!), called it Invasion of the Animal People (1962), and included among other new footage pointless and irrelevant inserts with John Carradine. Fortunately, the good original version, now under its intended Terror title, is available from Something Weird video in an excellent transfer...together with, on the flip side as we used to say, Animal People -- just so you can't say you missed anything. Anyway, I think Man Beast is a tiny notch above IOTAP, which is admittedly like saying Goering was a tiny notch above Hitler. We shall see.

[–] escalera-2 15 years ago

Terror in the Midnight Sun -- did you previously mention that title? I remember reading the name. Is that the one with the over-inflated brunette female on the artwork?

I saw Invasion of the Animal People but my subconcious is trying to spare me and has successfully blocked out any real memory of it.

Yvette Mimieux is endearing as always in Snow Beast but as the story stumbles along we see her character waffle quite, a bit going from the arms of her husband (Bo Svensen) and some other guy (Name Unknown), so she may as well have gotten chewed up by the titular beast. I think she took the gig because she got to ski a little in Colorado in the role.

The man in the suit could have been played by Billy Barty since you hardly ever get any sense of the beast's scale. Lock Martin need not apply. But, from the few peeks we're given of it, we can see that the suit was a little better than the rug samples pasted onto Mr. Martin (Unconfirmed) in Snow Creature.

[–] hobnob53 15 years ago

Yeah, as I was writing that screed I thought I'd been there before. You're thinking of the right title and cover. But the brunette in the film is, for once, actually more naked in the movie than on the screen. As I must have said before (wherever it was), worth a look.

I've actually been unable to sit through Invasion of the Animal People...and that's something, for me to be unable to sit down and watch a movie -- especially one that I think is like 55 minutes long. It is truly awful and stupid. I skipped around within it, but I suppose must watch it for real one day, fortified with a bottle of Absolut or, perhaps more appropriately, its rip-off, Svedka. In honor of its nation of origin, naturally. (Oh, I forgot -- Warren changed it to Switzerland because that's the only Sw- country he knew. I guess it'll have to be a cup of Nestle's hot chocolate instead. Damn you, Jerry Warren!!!)

Of course, Yvette would've been chewed on by a titular beast. You see.... Oh, sorry.

I still await Man Beast. Judging by its cover -- something I know you're never supposed to do with abominable snowman movies -- the man-beast looks rather non-descript, just a big, hairy, gnarly monster. Wish I remembered something of consequence about it. Oh, what am I saying -- silly me! I forgot -- imagine me, using the word "consequence" in connection with "Jerry Warren", you know, except for what his actors used to tell him, like, "Jerry, if this check bounces, there'll be consequences!" Anyway, all will soon -- all too soon -- re-enter my life. I await my fate as well as the DVD.

Great name for an actor in a movie where they're climbing a mountain, though...Rock! I guess "James" didn't conjure up such a rugged image.

[–] hobnob53 15 years ago

Hi! I finaly got Man Beast -- it was sent to the seller by mistake, that was a damaged disc, so he made other arrangements, got me a new disc, kept me apprised of what he was doing, and ended up taking off the shipping charges and 25% of the purchase price because of the delay and my patience with his problems -- now wasn't that a nice thing to do? I'm going to write him a very good recommendation on Amazon.

Anyway, I just posted some comments on the hitherto one-post MB site, so if you're interested, please visit. Ahead of time I'll tell you that, much to my surprise, I found it a fairly enjoyable, not-too-bad film at all. Rock Madison was a brick!

Don't want to overstate all this, but I liked it better than our friend The Snow Creature. Sorry, I -- No! Keep away! Keep away from me! Get back! Back I say! Back in the phone booth! No! No! I -- Ahhhhhh! [zzzzpppp] Number, please...Number, please...Sir?...Hello?

[–] escalera-2 15 years ago

Revenge of the Snow Creature!

On my way to Man-Beast. Where'd that Sherpa go? Oh, Rochester!