Welcome back to Dark Corners Streaming.
In 1954 the Daily Mail sponsored an expedition to the Himalayas to search for evidence of the Yeti
and it was this that inspired Quatermass creator, Nigel Kneale to write his television play, The Creature,
starring Peter Cushing and depicting a fictional expedition.
Hammer studios purchased the film rights and 1957’s The Abominable Snowman became only the second film ever made on the subject,
with Cushing and few other actors reprising their roles,
though the second lead character of Tom Friend, originally played by Stanley Baker
was taken by US actor Forrest Tucker.
‘We’re going to find that creature they call the Yeti.’
Made in between the genre defining Curse of Frankenstein and Dracula,
this is a very different type of film to those for which Hammer would become known
and is available to watch on Hammer’s own YouTube channel.
Director Val Guest, who had already directed Quatermass and its sequel for the studio,
shot location footage in the Pyrenees using stand-ins and the blending of this with studio footage,
shot on Bernard Robinson’s atmospheric sets is surprisingly effective.
You’re aware of the illusion but it’s one you’re willing to buy into.
Still, Kneale himself said
‘I knew there was no point in me depending on wonderful effects because there wouldn’t be any… it depended more on conviction.’
'Here it is the last vestige of species hiding away where nothing else can live. Waiting in misery and despair for final extinction.'
Peter Cushing based a career around making us buy into the impossible
and that ability is vital here but ultimately this is a character story,
based around the conflict between Cushing’s scientist, John Rollason and Tucker’s more commercially minded Friend,
‘So that’s what this is; a hunting party?’
and the actors have a great antagonistic chemistry that animates the film.
But it doesn’t short change on the thriller aspects either.
The build of tension is textbook,
laying a breadcrumb trail on our way to the creature of the title
'Look at the cage it's all twisted.'
While also keeping us guessing about its nature and what might happen next
and at times it is as eerie as any more traditional horror film.
#Yeti Howl#
That said, this is about the hunt more than the capture,
and more about the people and what drives them than about the creature,
making this as close to Moby Dick as it is to King Kong.
Unlike, surely every other take on yeti, this is not really about the Abominable Snowman itself,
Kneale is concerned with the men and with humanity as a whole.
‘It isn’t what’s out there that’s dangerous as much as what’s in us.’
The Hammer film it most resembles is perhaps 1967’s Quatermass and the Pit,
Kneale’s last script for the studio and another in which philosophy sits comfortably side by side with science fiction.
‘What is this man searching for?’
As a thoughtful look at ourselves and how we conduct ourselves as a species,
this could not be more timely, and it is told through a first rate character duel and a tense thriller.
‘There’s more of them’
‘They know’
Hammer made few films like this but they deserve to be as celebrated as their gothic horrors.
'Well I hope you're right.'
Thanks for watching.
The Abominable Snowman is atypical for Hammer but are you a fan and where do you place it alongside their better known films?
Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.