MovieChat Forums > The Snow Creature Discussion > Lock Martin (unconfirmed)

Lock Martin (unconfirmed)

posted 15 years ago by escalera-2
18 replies | jump to latest

There is a question mark after his name with respect to this title.

As a boy I watched Cameron Menzies "Invaders from Mars" over and over on TV and on the school yard my friends and I would play a form or "tag" but it was the Mutants versus the Army, so some of us would imitate the stance of the Martian Invaders, that is, a bit hunched over face forward, legs spread apart and our arms spread away slightly from the body.

It would look like "The Snow Creature" takes on the same stance as the Martian Invader when we get to see him come out form the shadows (over and over again!). Moreover, his legs look like he was wearing the same furry pants as were worn in "Invaders from Mars" by the Mutants.

Lock Martin is named on the IMDb cast list as one of the Mutants in "Invaders from Mars" though uncredited.

I'd guess it was the 7'7" Lock Martin playing the role of "The Snow Creature". Back in the day, who else could you call on? Now, the Mutants did look alike and there were at least three actors playing the parts, but Mr. Martin was the best known and probably had a the better agent that would watch out for parts like these when they became known around Hollywood.

Some will say it doesn't make a difference if he was in this picture or not -- saying it is still a "stinker" -- but I submit this observation for those fans out there who want to fill in the gaps of Mr. Martin's career.

[–] hobnob53 15 years ago

I guess this explains how he escaped in L.A. -- no lock could hold the snowman and no container could hold Lock.

I loved imitating the Martians in Invaders From Mars as a kid -- running around with their arms hanging dead by their sides, bouncing from side to side, those slit green Killers From Space-style ping-pong eyes, green velvet zipper-backed suits, plus you get to carry a tentacled head in a fishbowl around. I liked they way they crouched as they aimed their ray-bazooka too.

Let us not forget Mr. Martin's most immortal role, as Gort in The Day the Earth Stood Still. And he played the guardian of the sultan's wives in the Abbott and Costello film Lost in a Harem.

In his real career he was doorman at Grauman's Chinese Theater.

Clearly his height condemned him to a select few movie roles.

On the other hand, he certainly had a lock on those parts.

[–] escalera-2 15 years ago

I can't imagine what it must have looked like to the casual observer to see a clutch of schooboys loping around like that not knowing what they were doing. What a sight!

The heat ray was a marvel. I guess if you're Martian invader a heat ray is de rigeur.

But would you agree that the Snow Creature's stance was just like the one that the Mutants assumed? Like I said, maybe it was one of the other actors in the green zippered long-johns, but it seems to follow that Lock Martin would be the one to call on. He was like a latter-day Rondo Hatton or, later still, Michael Berryman, Bolaji Badejo, or Richard Kiel. Who you gonna call? "Get that big guy..."

[–] hobnob53 15 years ago

Well, of course...Who they gonna call....?

The Lock man!

Didn't he play the night watchman in The Monster that Challenged the World? You know, the lock keeper?

Or was he the guard in The Shawshank Redemption -- the one who got to yell, "Lockdown!"

Or did he and another W. Lee alum, Peter Graves, unite twenty years later for the pseudo-documentary The Mystery of the Lock Ness Monster?

Didn't he tour for many years in the stage production of Alexander Pope's The Rape of the Lock?

But to answer your question, I actually don't think our titular snow creature's stance was like one of the mutants' in Invaders From Mars. They were kind of stiff and bouncy in a thudding, side-to-side sort of way, whereas t.s.c. was less stiff and definitely not bouncy, and although he did continually shift from foot to foot while locked in his packing crate/phone booth, that was probably to keep himself awake through the rest of the picture. And of course, back home in the Himalayas, all he did was walk toward the camera in a woolly parka, stop (actually freeze-frame), stand there in the dark to disguise the absence of any Yeti costume or make-up, watch the optically-added snow for a bit, then walk backward in a reverse frame shot so he didn't fall over the cliff behind him...what in mountain-climbing we refer to as a plummet from the summit. His walk seemed almost human, or at least like that of an actor. But then he had to be careful in his balance, lugging around this wooden paw cut-out for stamping fake footprints into the snow, the better to fool that meddling David Attenborough.

I guess you could say he had a lock -- oh, forget it.

(Closest thing to a Yeti I could find.)

[–] escalera-2 15 years ago

hobnob, you are the True Son of Forrest J. Ackerman!

It's been a few years since I've seen "Invaders from Mars". I'll have to throw it on, just for scientific reasons! I'll compare the freeze framed Snow Creature with the Invading Mutants.

Say! -- isn't that Helena Carter?

[–] hobnob53 15 years ago

Yes, indeed...the late Helena Carter, I'm sorry to say (1923-2000). Which is why Helena Bonham Carter had to use her middle name, following guild rules about taking the same name. (As with: Michael Fox [The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms, Conquest of Space] and Michael J. Fox; or the British actor James Stewart assuming the name Stewart Granger to distinguish himself from the American actor; or The Snow changing his last name from O'Kilimanjaro to Creature, and dropping the final "s", so that he wouldn't be confused with anything Hemingwayesque.)

The DVD of Invaders From Mars contains both the US and UK versions of the film. The UK version has a five-minute scene in the observatory filmed months after production had wrapped, with Jimmy Hunt plainly older and with a completely different haircut, plus -- an entirely different ending! I prefer the American original but both are pretty cool.

Oh, yeah, Helena Carter is stripped nude, bound and forced to sign a seven-year contract to make a sequel a year in the British version, though it was banned outside of Australia, Hong Kong and, of course, St. Helena.

Actually, it was Helena Carter's final film. Also Jimmy Hunt's -- until he made a cameo comeback in the 1986 film...Invaders From Mars! Talk about a career circle.

On the other hand, nobody quit the business after making The Snow Creature, and if any film should have forced someone to quit acting and go into something honest like shepherding or gas-lamp lighting it's TSC. Paul Langton, for one, went on to co-star in It! The Terror From Beyond Space and The Cosmic Man, two of my faves, and did not evince any noticeable shame.

Thank you for that Forry comparison! Much appreciated. Better than likening me to the titular creature hereabouts, which would I presume be a furry comparison.

[–] escalera-2 15 years ago

Remember Natalie Wood's lament saying something about her career being over because she was then doing horror movies ("Meteor" and "Brainstorm")ala Joan Crawford ("Trog!") and Ray Milland ( "The Incredible Two-headed Transplant" -- or maybe it was "The Thing with Two Heads"? --)? Maybe Ms Carter felt the same way after doing "Invaders from Mars". She didn't even have the benefit of an Oscar.

And Barbara Billingsley turns up in "Invaders from Mars" along with Hillary Brooke. We mentioned them both in recent time.

I remember Paul Langton in "It! -- The Terror from Beyond Space" (a most excellent period piece) and remembering him as stealing the hero spotlight from the redoubtable and durable Marshall Thompson in the scene when Mr. Langton was cornered with a busted space helmet and a little blow torch with the titular menace just a few feet away. His little joke about the torch having a money-back guarantee told in the face of such danger raised him head an shoulders above Mr. Thompson and even Duke Wayne in my eyes!

I understand that the British don't like the "it was only a dream"storyline in their flickers, hence the re-wired ending for the Empire's "Invaders from Mars". (I understand that the re-make also features an ending that differs from the US release)

Ask Jack Benny.

[–] hobnob53 15 years ago

Yes, in the British version of The Snow Creature Paul Langton wakes up at the end and realizes he's dreamt the whole thing. Not only that, he finds he's still in his sleeping bag nailed to a vertical rock face on K2 and abandoned without any equipment to get down. Plus he really has to go to the bathroom. I understand the British Board of Film Censors gave that a Y rating, which the producers claimed stood for "yeti film acceptable", but which actually stood for "Y would anybody go to see this?"

No, poor Ray Milland starred in The Thing with Two Heads, with Roosevelt Grier. Bruce Dern starred in The Incredible 2-Headed Transplant. All we need to add is The Manster and we'd have a one-off two-headed three-pack. 4-ever.

Anyhoo, I won't give away the finis of Invaders From Mars so as not to spoil the non-dream fun. It just seems a little odd to our Americanized sensibilities. I mean, what if we had a version of the bad Titanic where Leonardo DeCaprio dies in the ice water (Hey! I got another ICE reference in!!), then suddenly wakes up and finds himself safe and warm in his stateroom? Of course, we could make it aboard the Lusitania, but you get the, shall we say, drift.

If you don't have It! The Terror... yet, get it on the double-feature DVD with another goodie (and it is good), The Monster That Challenged the World. Last time I was in your old home state, CA, four years ago, I was in Palm Desert and drove around the Salton Sea just to see where TMTCTW took place (though most of it was plainly filmed on the coast). As for ITTFBS, well, one way or another, they do seem intent on getting to Earth.

Say, maybe the Yeti are simply Martians who've landed on our planet and found the Himalayas the most congenial climate for them to reside in -- you know, ice, cold, thin air? Wow! Maybe we could write a plot about an alien menace that lands on mountain tops because those are the places most conducive to their life forms...and, and they could make psychic contact with people...and, oh get this, force their victims to commit murders and, and...wait, wait, they could look like great big crawling noses!...no, no, hold it...great big crawling...ears! no, no that's no good, ummm...mouths!...great big crawling mouths!...mmm, maybe not...anyway, don't worry, we'll come up with a facial part that would look cool crawling. God, am I a genius or am I a genius?? Feel free to answer in the affirmative. Meanwhile, I'll keep an eye out for an appropriate facial feature for my "Crawling-Something" movie.

[–] escalera-2 15 years ago

As Ricky Ricardo might say, "I think you might got something there."

Say the Snow Creature makes his own way to civilization to deliver a message of peace. He hitches a ride on an ice berg. He gets hungry along the way so he gets to he hooks up a few lines and drops them to catch fish. Overjoyed at the prospect of chowing down on some nice carp, he begins to check the line of hooks pulling them up from the icy waters. Distracted Snow Creature doesn't hear the party boat headed in his direction and allows his berg to sideswipe the boat. Reluctantly letting loose of catch he runs to the port side to see what that bang was. Aboard the party boat people are checking out the damage when they catch sight of him and are terrified! Snow Creature figures the jig is up. The boat sinks but there are survivors. Those suvivors have a tale to tell.

The newspapers take up it up and splash it on the front pages with headlines screaming about:

"THE TROLLING BERG TERROR!"

You're a genius, hobnob. Not a great genius, just a regular genius.
King of the world, man, King of the world!

[–] hobnob53 15 years ago

Or, we could do the Swedish-Spanish co-production, incorporating the latter tongue's love of the sea, the noted persona whose seal we'd go wild to have upon the film, and the requisite Scandinavian egalitarian impulse that would deem the Yeti merely another form of homo sapiens and call it

THE TROLLING MAR BERG MAN.

You will now excuse me whilst I join Paul Langton for a leap into the snowy sewers.

I waited a day to answer your posts because yesterday I got TSC in that expensive [sic] DVD I mentioned. As I suspected, it's a Canadian disc, available in both English and French. In fact, the Canadians are so paranoid about insulting their restive French compatriots that they list the edition francaise first on the menu, relegating the real language to second choice. It worked, of course: once the Parti Quebecoise realized The Snow Creature was being offered primarily in dubbed French, they lost their main platform plank and were laughed off the political stage. The fake title is L'Homme abominable des nieges, but aside from the menu option I haven't watched that version yet. The print is surprisingly clean but the picture isn't too sharp (I was referring to the quality of the print, not the intelligence of the film's protagonists), but even so it may be the best copy of the movie I've seen yet, and it's completely complete, with even the oft-cut "Released by United Artists" post-end-credit intact.

Hey! I bet there's a couple of little kids bouncing into their living room in Saint-Roche-de-Richelieu tonight, dressed for bedtime but begging their father to let them watch the wonderful movie from the magical land to the south they just got.

"Papa, Papa! S'il vous plait! Can we watch The Snow Creature, ou L'Homme abominable des nieges?"

"Mais oui!"

"Okay, may we watch The Snow Creature?"

[–] escalera-2 15 years ago

Could be the beginning of a new War between the North and the South.

So, is this version any longer than 71 minutes? i-kar33 is still hanging.
Don't leave the man hanging, man.

[–] hobnob53 15 years ago

Nah, the Canadians have already beaten us twice. Three times, if you count issuing a better DVD of The Snow Creature. Four times, if you count sending us Wayne and Schuster.

72 minutes is the running time listed on the DVD cover, which is how long it ran, but of course as a Canadian disc that may be using the metric system. But I saw nothing new, nor have I ever seen anything missing except, as noted, occasionally the United Artists credit, which is intact on this disc. But good point, I'll go over to i-kar's thread and so advise him. Wasn't that one of the natives in Flight to Mars?

[–] escalera-2 15 years ago

Thanks for helping the man out. I can't imagine a longer version, but who knows?

"Wayne and Shuster"? Wow! -- I haven't heard of that team in many moons!

[–] hobnob53 15 years ago

Thank you for reminding me -- it's "Shuster" without the C, which stood for "Canadian", which rhymes with Acadian, which they already sent to us in Louisiana. Huh. I never realized Wayne and Shuster were from New Orleans. That explains their jazzy delivery.

Actually, I think Shuster just died a couple of years ago...probably more than a couple, time flies these days. Thank you, Ed Sullivan.

Say, Ed used to invite some of the cast from an upcoming movie to re-create scenes from the film as a promo (for which I'm sure he received the old payola). He did this I recall seeing (decades after the fact) with The Court Martial of Billy Mitchell, with guests Gary Cooper and Rod Steiger, and I think he also did this for the film version of Mister Roberts, and there must have been others. Think there's any chance W. Lee paid to have a reenactment of the scene with the snow creature being rolled into Customs at the predecessor aerodrome to LAX? That was the most dramatic exchange in the movie, and all t.s.c. had to do was shift from foot to foot and kill a guard eventually.

[–] escalera-2 15 years ago

"...and tonight, ladies and gentlemen, right here in our audience is a star of the silver screen, Mr. Lock Martin (spins around)!Lock! Where are you? There he is! Lock, would you come up and say a few words. Come on everybody, let's hear it for Lock Martin! (applauds)"

"Hello, Ed."

"Now, Lock... is that your real name? Lock?"

"Yes it is, Ed. It's short for Lockford."

"I didn't think there was anything short about you, Lock!" (laughter from the audience)

"Now, Lock, your latest epic is titled "The Snow Creature". Can you tell us about it?"

"Well, Ed, there's not much to say. I worked on it for just two days."

"Now, that's just fine. We'll be looking forward to seeing you in it. Let's hear it for Mr. Lock Martin!"

"Tonight we'll enjoy... You can sit down now, Lock. Go ahead. What? You are sitting down... all right. Tonight right after the Ritz Brothers and Topo Gigio... Lock, could you scootch down a little? You're in my light. That's it. That's better. Yes, right here on our stage... "

[–] hobnob53 15 years ago

THAT is fantastic! Googly-heads especially!

Only one thing...The Ritz Brothers?? How about poor old Wayne & Shuster?? (Yes, it's Molson's.)

"Thank you, thank you ladies and gentlemen. Tonight, right here on our stage, please give a warm welcome, because he needs warming up, to Mr. Paul Langton."

(applause)

"So, congratulations on The Snow Creature, Paul. What's next for you?"

"Well, Ed, I'm very excited about two scripts I just received, It! The Terror From Beyond Space and The Cosmic Man. I'm looking forward to the week's work!"

"And I know it'll help with April's car payment, eh Paul? Well, we all realize how busy you are, so many thanks for dropping by tonight, and if you run you just have time to make it back to the Majestic Theater to take tickets. Paul Langton, ladies and gentlemen!"

[I'm sorry. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. As S.J. Perleman said, "Good writers borrow. Great writers steal." I borrowed.]

[–] escalera-2 15 years ago

"The Flying Wallendas" would have been a better choice.

Well, I guess that's all of our "A" material. "Invaders from Mars" (1953) it is.

Good-bye (for now), Snow Creature. It's been fun.

[–] hobnob53 15 years ago

Hi e-2,

Just thought I'd come back here briefly to alert you that Amazon suddenly has the best abominable snowman movie ever back in stock, a film I've mentioned someplace before: titled, obscurely enough, The Abominable Snowman (1957).

It was an Anchor Bay release but was discontinued and pulled from the market a few years ago. (And Anchor Bay itself has disappeared as a label, though its title rights have been assumed by another company.) Just by chance, I discovered that some of these older, discontinued AB titles are now back, including TAS, at $10 less than its formerly pricey $29.99 (it's now about $19.99).

I just got an additional copy today and the disc is the same as the one I bought years ago.

This movie has a somewhat odd releasing history. The AB disc is the original British film, full length at 91 minutes, and widescreen. It bears a Warner Bros. logo. But the version kicking around now on cable was released by 20th Century Fox (hence, it's on the Fox Movie Channel). It appears to be the edited American version, at 85 minutes, which was released theatrically by 20th in the US. (WB had a releasing deal with Hammer Films, so I assume that's why the full-length film comes via that studio.) The American release was more prosaically titled The Abominable Snowman of the Himalayas...as I said a while back, no doubt to alleviate audience confusion between this snowman and all the other mountain ranges' snowmen.

The film is more intellectual than monstruous, no overtly rampaging Yetis in phone booths or sewers. Peter Cushing co-stars as a botanist in the Himalayas looking for curative herbs but who's secretly been lured into joining an expedition led by loud-mouth exploitation artist Forrest Tucker, against the wishes of his wife and assistant. They go in search of the mythical creature, to the evident distaste of the local Lama, and, well, they find lots of problems and a disturbing -- and deadly -- mystery.

If you're looking for a thought-provoking, offbeat approach to this theme, try this movie. I can't guarantee how long it'll remain around -- probably not long -- so you might want to go on to Amazon and see if you can grab a copy quickly. It was written by one of Britain's finest writers, of sci-fi but also of "straight" material, Nigel Kneale (who wrote the Quatermass teleplays and films and co-wrote the screen adaptations of things such as The Entertainer), and this is a typical sort of fantasy film from him. The director was Val Guest, who helmed the first two Quatermass films (The Quatermass Xperiment/The Creeping Unknown, Quatermass 2/Enemy From Space), as well as The Day the Earth Caught Fire, for which he won the British Film Academy Award in 1961. He also directed When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth, but mostly non-sci-fi films.

I really think you might like this movie if you haven't seen it, but it might be best to move quickly if you would like to get it. By the way, two other long out-of-print Anchor Bay Hammer films that have also just come back onto the market are Quatermass 2, with Brian Donlevy, and an even bigger personal favorite of mine, X The Unknown, with Dean Jagger -- both excellent, here in their original British versions. I only wish the MGM Midnite Movies label, which owns the rights to the original Quatermass film, The Quatermass Xperiment, would get its act together and release it on DVD; they had had it out on VHS, and it too is another winner.

Just thought I'd pass the news on! Talk to you soon, my friend.

hob

[–] escalera-2 15 years ago

As always, it is a treat to hear from you. Thanks for the information. I'll look for it.

I had seen The Abominable Snowman on TV a long time ago but remember very little about it. It was on afternoon TV and perhpas, for me, it needed the edge of night to hold my attention. On your recomendation I'll surely get a hold of a copy as soon as I can.

Again, I hope you have placed all the information you have listed on this entry onto that title's Board. Good stuff that.

Incidentally -- I also liked X -- The Unknown and the Quatermass films.

I'll check out The Abominable Snowman IMDb page, too.