.jpg "THE ABOMINABLE SNOWMAN (1957)") |
| THE ABOMINABLE SNOWMAN (1957) |
Who?
Director: Val Guest
Producer: Aubrey Baring
Screenplay: Nigel Kneale
Cast: Forrest Tucker, Peter Cushing, Maureen Cannell, Richard Wattis, Robert Brown, Michael Brill, Wolfe Morris, Arnold Marle, Anthony Chin
How?
In 1955 the BBC screened Nigel Kneale's drama The Creature, starring Peter Cushing. Hammer, as ever, were quick to snap up the rights - as they had done previously with Kneale's Quatermass serials. Val Guest was the obvious choice to direct, given his success in directing the Quatermass films. Kneale adapted his teleplay (although Guest rewrote it further), and Cushing was brought back, fresh from shooting The Curse of Frankenstein, to reprise his television role, as were Arnold Marle and Wolfe Morris. As was often the case an American actor was cast to appease the US distributer - in this case Forrest Tucker, who had previously worked with Hammer on Break in the Circle (1954). Shooting took place on location in the French Pyrenees (using doubles for the actors) and at Bray and Pinewood Studios, in black-and-white using a widescreen process which wonderfully captures the mountain landscape.
What?
John Rollason (Cushing) is an English botanist studying in a remote Himalayan monastery, accompanied by his wife Helen (Connell) and assistant (Wattis). Although due to shortly depart Rollason is secretly aware that an expedition will soon be arriving at the monastery to search for the Yeti - an expedition he plans on joining. By some mysterious power the monastery's Lama (Marle) is also aware of their imminent arrival. And arrive they presently do, led by the brash Ed Shelley (Tucker). Despite protestations from Helen and the Lama Cushing joins the expedition. The party slowly make their way up into the high mountains, but following an accident they make camp, and as the weather closes in they realise they are not alone. Eventually a crazed member departs the camp only to fall to his death, quickly followed by the desertion of the sherpa. When those remaining shoot a massive creature, they soon realise that its companions are out for revenge and decide to use the body and an ice-cave as a trap. But as the mysterious creatures close in, who will survive, and what will be left of them!
So?
Cards on the table - I love The Abominable Snowman, so it's difficult to be objective when reviewing it now. Reasons? Well, its atmospheric black-and-white cinematography, amazing location shots, a restrained but effective Cushing performance, good supporting cast, the sense of claustrophobia and impending doom...like I said, I just love it. Snowman is one of Hammer's forgotten gems. Released just after Quatermass II and The Curse of Frankenstein it perhaps got lost in the crowd, but for all that Snowman holds its own. It was Val Guest's third time directing a Nigel Kneale story and the combination just seems to 'work'. But, unusually for Guest, Snowman does not have quite the breakneck pace that we perhaps associate with other of his works. Instead, Guest controls the story well, drawing out the tension and sense of doom to its maximum, both in the period leading up to the expedition and during it. And in the vast open space of the Himalayas he manages to create an atmosphere of pure claustrophobia as darkness falls, the blizzard descends...and something is out there.
Aiding Guest immensely in this creation of atmosphere is the cinematography of Hammer regular Arthur Grant. In a world of snow and rock the use of black-and-white only aids in conveying the bleakness and otherness of the world into which we are conveyed. Shot in anamorphic widescreen the mountains and snowscapes take on a majestic grandeur, seeming to swallow up the characters. Even though much was shot on interior sets designed by Bernard Robinson they never stand out as obviously so, but through masterful editing blend pretty seamlessly with the location footage to create a coherent and convincing whole. Into such a setting the characters portrayed by Cushing and Tucker are well matched - one the quiet, thoughtful and moral scientist, the other the brash, overconfident, single-minded showman. Conned, perhaps not so unwillingly, into believing the expedition is purely scientific we gradually preceive the growing tension between the two as Cushing realises Tucker is in it for the money and fame. And it is in this growing conflict that we perceive Kneales's ecological thread running throughout the film - the conflict between the care and nurture of the denizens of earth, and their exploitation for greed and profit.
The other cast members provide strong support as the story whirls around these two conflicting characters, particularly Marle's Lama , all-knowing but revealing little. Phil Leakey's makeup effects are used with restraint, which only adds to their efficacy in hinting at the creatures. But it is a mistake to go into Snowman expecting a 'monster movie'. Yes, there are 'monsters' but everything is conveyed through sound, shadow, brief glimpses and, above all, through the fear and paranoia of the protagonists. What is left unseen can be all the more frightening, and Guest applies this to maintain and accentuate the feeling of dread and sheer creepiness. Until, that is, the denouement. Some have felt it was a mistake to show what it does - that it perhaps lessens the mystique of the creatures. However, if Guest was to convey something of their nature then such a revelation was perhaps necessary, even though it may now illicit chuckles from CGI hardened filmgoers. For the rest of us, Snowman remains a little gem; an eerie piece of work that also manages to carry a serious and, for the time, innovative message - though not too obviously on its sleeve. Give The Abominable Snowman a chance and it won't disappoint.
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