This blog was begun Thursday night April 16th, and completed the following day :
Tonight we trekked high into the Himalayas in search of "The Snow Creature"(1954), a Yeti who has run off with Teru Shimada's wife. But this hasn't happened yet so lemme start at the beginning: A botanist (Paul Langton) and his hard drinking photographer (Leslie Denison) set off on an expedition to locate exotic plants that are rumored to grow in the Himalayan highlands. With several Sherpas in tow, including their English speaking guide Subra (Shimada) they ascend to the plateau level and prepare to make camp. But that night, a runner arrives with an urgent message for Subra - his wife has been abducted by the Yeti, taken from their home in the village below.
Subra wakes Dr. Langton to tell him the news, but Langton laughs it off : "Oh.....you mean 'The Abominable Snowman'? I've heard all the legends and I don't believe it. Sorry, Subra".
"But Doctor.......wife is missing! Even if no Yeti, we must find. But Yeti take! Neighbor see! We must find"!
By now, the photographer has also awakened. He takes another belt of Scotch and offers one to Subra. "Here you go, old chap. This will help you to come to your senses". Then he and the Doctor share another chuckle. "These Sherpas are very superstitious. His wife is probably stepping out on him. To save face, he blames the Yeti". Ha ha ha, funny stuff..... right? Subra doesn't think so. After the two white men fall back to sleep, he sneaks into their tent and unloads their rifles. In the morning, when the Doctor orders the expedition to resume, the Sherpas refuse. Subra has pulled a Mr. Sulu and has mutinied (Sulu was always mutinying on "Star Trek" - every other episode, it seemed).
Subra speaks up : "I try to tell you, Doctor. Yeti take my wife. You don't listen, so I have no choice. I take ammunition, guns no good anymore. You want to get off mountain, you need me, so Subra in charge now. We go higher, look for Yeti".
The Doc and his partner have to comply, so now they are in the rear with the gear as Subra calls the shots. At nightfall, alone in their tent, the Doc will try to sneak an SOS call on his short wave radio, but Subra is all over that, too - a real Johnny On The Spot. "Aha! Subra catch you! Now I shoot radio (kablam!); radio no good anymore". Ahhh, but that's what Subra thinks. Actually, the radio might still work after all, because The Doc has a brilliant idea, having to do with a bottle of Scotch.
How he repairs the radio is never explained (did he use the bottle or the Scotch itself?) but in any event it made me think of The Professor on "Gilligan's Island", and had they continued with this subplot, it would've made the film a lot more interesting (the SOS call, the conflict between Subra and the Doctor, perhaps a rescue attempt, all with the Yeti still to come). Instead, director W. Lee Wilder (brother of Billy!) abandons the whole thing. The radio is never spoken of again (why go to all the trouble to repair it?) and the search for the Yeti continues. Finally, Subra spots some tracks, leading to a cave in Bronson Canyon. "See here, Doctor. Big footprints. Is Yeti! He go inside cave".
The Doc's not quite convinced, but he's getting there. Within minutes, the team will stumble upon the Yeti's den, removing all doubt of his existence. Just when it looks like the men are gonna get their butts kicked, the Yeti is knocked unconscious by an impromptu cave-in. This give the Sherpas and the Doc - all on the side now - a chance to tie him up and take him back to the village, where Doc Langton makes plans to transport the Big Guy back to Los Angeles. The disappearance of Subra's wife is never again mentioned (hmmm, maybe the Doc was right).
Well, they stick the Yeti in a refrigerator. It resembles a phone booth with a temperature control, the only cool lookin' piece of sci-fi hardware in the movie. Soon the Doc and the Yeti are back in L.A., the photographer having gone home to London to make a bundle with the tabloids. "How dare he sell those pictures"!, Langton grumbles. "This is science, not a sideshow"! But this avenue is never explored either. If we'd had one of those screenwriters who are capable of cramming multiple threads into a short format picture, we'd have had a complex plot. Instead, while Los Angeles immigration bureaucrats argue over the Yeti's status ("we can't admit him til we know if he's beast or man" ; "He's both"! - the Doc), the creature escapes, and for the final twenty minutes you've got a predictible Yeti-on-the-run caper, which will ultimately lead to a police search of the downtown sewer system.
Man oh man.........Wilder had every opportunity to take this movie in any number of interesting directions, and it wouldn't have cost him a cent more than he already had to work with. Most of the movie is dialogue anyway. All they needed to do was write and intercut some scenes dealing with the subplots, maybe discuss the history of Yeti mythology also. But they got lazy, so we've ended up with half a good movie once again. I don't know if it's entirely Wilder's fault; he made the imaginative "Phantom From Space", which we saw and enjoyed a couple weeks ago.
Ahh, yes........but he had Bill Raynor helping him with that one. You remember Bill, our neighbor in Reseda when I was a kid. Bill was a good writer of sci-fi, too bad he didn't work on this script. As it stands, I'm gonna be extremely generous and give "The Snow Creature" Two Regular Thumbs Up (the print is soft, but that's no one's fault). At some point, we'll watch and compare it to another more famous Yeti film, "The Abominable Snowman", which if I remember correctly scared the bejeezus out of me when I was a kid. Stay tuned. //////
It is now Friday evening and I shall go for my CSUN walk. Tonight I will attempt to find us a more thought provoking film, perhaps another from Bert I. Gordon. "The Attack of the Puppet People", anyone? ;);)
See you tonight at the Usual Time.
Tons of love! xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
No comments:
Post a Comment