Abominable Snowmen - Legend Come To Life!

Today most folks call him "Bigfoot". But back in the day, the elusive hairy giants which roamed the planet were called "The Abominable Snowmen" or "ABSM" for short. Ivan T. Sanderson's book Abominable Snowmen: Legend Come to Life hails from that time, specifically 1961 when the book was first published. I've always rather preferred "Abominable Snowman" to other names such as the aforementioned "Bigfoot" or the somewhat more esoteric "Sasquatch" or "Yeti", just because it has such drama in it. The name comes from a corruption of the Sherpa name for the creature that supposedly lives in the exotic climes of the Himalayas. But Sanderson uses the term "ABSM" as a category for any and all of the legendary and elusive shaggy giants across the globe. 

And it is across the very globe itself that Sanderson guides us. He begins the book with some basics and then sets up some parameters regarding geography and natural habitats which might best be gleaned for evidence of such mythical beasts. Then he takes the reader carefully and resolutely around the world from Canada to the United States to Mexico to South America and then on to Africa and across Asia ending the tour in the Himalayas. Specific tribal legends are examined, and specific reports of encounters are both referenced and quoted with many substantial passages from original sources. He sets this book up as a seemingly serious study of a truly mysterious animal or quasi-human or whatever. 

Sanderson was in some instances anyway a legit scientist. He carried out expeditions in the decades before WWII into some remote areas investigating and capturing animals of all kinds. For a time, he was even in the "animal business" until a natural disaster destroyed his stock and his business. He was a "Fortean", a devotee of Charles Fort, a fellow who was at once a scientist and fascinated by weird things. Sanderson seems to have been much the same. His novel divides the myriad ASBMs across the globe into four categories, each ranging in size from giant to small with an array of habits. Sanderson is considered a "grandfather" of sorts for the pseudo-science of "Cryptozoology" which looks not only for ABSMs but also for other legendary beasts across the world. 

I was surprised to find that Sanderson was theistic and evoked the absolute truth of a Christian God more than a few times during his lengthy discussion. (This is not a criticism, just a surprise coming from a devout "Fortean".) And that's the main deficiency of his book, it's too long. Sanderson has a measured logical tone and plows through details and stories with a relentless energy. But when we get to the end of four hundred and fifty pages, he offers up this bon mot "I have not by any means said all that I could say." Actually, he's said it more than a few times and we still have at least four appendices to go when this line crops up. 

My position on the Abominable Snowman is that the alure of its actual existence adds quite a bit of zest to a world which often lacks mystery. When someone says the "believe in Bigfoot" it's a statement about how they choose to encounter the world around them, with hopefully an open mind and heart. I'm less and less convinced of the evidence of the ABSM myself, but at this writing I still choose to believe. It's more fun that way. And reading Sanderson's tome was a way to engage that fun in a harmless and erudite way. 

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The Abominable Snowman Of The Himalayas!

I don't remember when it was exactly during my boyhood, but some Halloween or other during one of those luscious all-night film fests they used to have I stayed up, clinging to wakefulness and watched this Hammer movie through. It scared the bejeezus out of me then, and still unsettles me a little today. It plays neatly against expectations, setting up a somewhat chatty and somber story about the usual gaggle of Western types (a hunter, a huckster, a scientist, a sensitive) and throws them up on a mountain to find the elusive myth. Whether they will find anything at all is kept at bay for a good long time, and then only in masterfully controlled bits and pieces.

It turns out the Abominable Snowman is real, but he isn't all that "abominable" after all. These are wisemen of the mountains, incredibly long-lived giants with thoughtful eyes and gentle ways who don't harm people directly, but sadly do act as catalysts that cause men to bring harm to themselves. It's that Val Guest chose consciously to hide the creatures, giving only glimpses that makes them such powerful images in my mind. I've seen scuds of bigfoot and yeti movies, but none are so moving or memorable as this one which shows us almost nothing. Guest knew quite well that my mind could conjure a creature far more awesome than anything possible by special effects of the time. He was right.

 

There is a curious commentary on the DVD, offering up both the comments of both Val Guest the director and Nigel Kneale the writer. It seems that these two have squabbled a bit about this movie in the past, or at least done interviews expressing contrary views. The two are interviewed separately but the interviews are run concurrently. This creates some duplication in information, but does offer up some interesting counterpoints as well. Both men seem to respect one another's talent, or express that anyway, but clearly they differed on how this movie should've worked. Guest defends his decision to keep the creatures off camera and Kneale clearly thinks though it was a brave decision it undermines the final effect. Kneale seems in particular to want to say nicer things about the movie than he has perhaps in the past, and is in the unique position to contrast the film version with the BBC TV version first done. He ultimately says that changes in the film version help the story.

One thing I did learn is that the Himalayas shown in the movie are actually the Pyrenees and finally getting to see the movie in widescreen, it's possible to really enjoy the setting completely. Peter Cushing and Forrest Tucker star in this B&W Hammer movie, and they form a neat contrast. Cushing offers a quiet if nimble screen presence while Tucker is bombast personified. The other actors, typical of Hammer films, are solid pros and the movie though a bit stagey in places nonetheless delivers a pointed morality tale of man looking for the unknown, and as most often is the case, finding only the truth about himself.

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Half Human But All Monster!

I've long wanted to see one of Toho's oldest monster movies, a black and white flicker from 1955 called Half Human. This is the first fantasy movie Ishiro Honda made after the success of Godzilla, and I've always wondered what it must be like. The movie was adapted to Western screens in 1957 with John Carradine and Morris Ankrum among a few others supplying a talky frame for the action shot by Honda. Toho's original clocks in at over ninety minutes and the adaptation trims at least thirty minutes off that. It's not ineffective as monster movies go, but it's not the movie that Honda and others made for Japanese audiences. 

In the original we follow the travails of an assembly of students. Some of their number go missing on a ski outing and turn up dead while a third remains missing. Giant footprints in the snow and strange hair on a nail are the only clues. This mystery takes up the first thirty minutes or so of the movie and it's what mostly got cut out for U.S. audiences. When spring comes, an expedition goes to look for the missing man and also perhaps the creature who might be responsible. A carnival operator gets wind of this and mounts his own trip following the students now led by a respected scientist. There is an encounter where the Snowman comes into the camp and is chased out by our hero. He runs into the carnival camp and is beat up and left for dead. He's found by a beautiful girl and taken to her village which is made up of isolated people of low caste. There is lots of turmoil but eventually we see the creature's gentle nature before the carnival crew find him and all hell breaks loose. When a young creature is killed the "snowman" gets well and truly "abominable".

Now the English-language version takes this story, strips out most of the beginning mystery and jumps right into the antics following the creature's first appearance on screen invading the student camp. John Carradine waxes on with actually a pretty decently done narration which takes the place of all of the dialogue from the original. There is one scene shift in the Carradine portions of the movie and that is to head down to the morgue where Morris Ankrum is doing an autopsy on the body of the child creature. So Carradine's listeners have absolute proof of the "Abominable Snowman's " existence right there on the table. (I think Toho actually sent the suit of the small creature to America for these shots.)

Now for the controversy. The reason I cannot buy a copy of the original Japanese version of Half Human is the presence of the "Burakamin". This is what remains of a low caste society in Japan made up of people who did jobs deemed unworthy for filthy somehow. These folks were looked down upon and it's the notion that this bigoted notion informs the film in regard to the villagers that keeps Toho from making it available for home viewing. It's not at all unlike what Disney has decided to do in regard to Song of the South, a movie adapting Uncle Remus stories to the screen., Having now finally seen the movie, I think releasing the movie with provisos would be fine. The critique seems a bit overblown. Whatever poor decisions were made in 1955, they can be well left in the past. 

I'd love to have a copy of Half Human, but I'll settle now for just getting to see it. If you'd like to see the movie, then go to this link for the original Japanese version and this link for the Westernized Carradine version. Thanks to the Internet Archive for making these rarities available. 

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Snow Creature! Half Man! Half Monster!

Found 1954's The Snow Creature in a cheap collection buried in a bin at a local discount store. It was one of those packages in which it's hard to see what's really in it, but since it was a mere three bucks, I though the damage was pretty insignificant. Even if I hated everything, there were monster movies I hadn't seen. The real draw was this one though. 

It's the same plot pretty much as King Kong, Gorgo, and several other monster flicks. An expedition runs across a dangerous monster/creature and struggles to capture it in order to bring it to civilization where it promptly escapes and causes some measure of damage. In the case of this "Monster", the damage is pretty minimal. The creature, a ragtag costume which is mostly hidden in the shadows of the night, caves and later the sewers is stunningly bad. We see the same scene over and over as the actor portraying the beast moves forward and back. 

That said, there are some redeeming factors in this earliest Yeti movie. The Sherpas are somewhat more fully realized characters with motivations beyond being servants to all-knowing white explorers. Also, there is a brief discussion of what the creature might be, and how human it could be considered. But all that goes out the window when it breaks loose and wanders around inflicting a lot of panic and some mayhem and murder. The scenes in the sewers reminded me of the finale of Them! sort of. 

I cannot really recommend this seventy-year-old artifact, it's pretty weak, but for any fan of vintage monster movies, this one is a nifty primordial example of what would develop in the 50's. But if you're game, the movie is easily accessible on YouTube! 

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Martii!

This is going to be a full and varied month at the Dojo. As you can tell the Silver Surfer will be making his presence known, but you'll have to wait until the end of the month for my full review of Norrin Radd's earliest misadventures. I haven't read a new Surfer story in ages, but back in the heyday he was one of Marvel's richest characters. 

The ongoing look at the adventures of the Ghost Who Walks will also continue. I am reviewing his Charlton comics appearances as well as the Avon novel series. Both were reprinted by Hermes Press some years ago and have been languishing waiting for me to get to them. I am enjoying it mightily. 

Likewise, my ongoing reading of the OZ novels by Frank L. Baum. I will assert here and now that the books are not what I was expecting. I've read raves about these American classics all my life and I'm beginning to get a sense of what everyone is on about. 

I'm going to squeeze in at least one trip to Astro City this month as well. These books have been fantastic to read again, making so much more sense than reading them periodically. There is a richness in the world imagined by Busiek and Anderson and Ross which is greater than the sum of its many well-crafted parts. 

Crime will rear its ugly head as well here as we take a spin down the Road to Perdition, the amazing graphic novel by Max Allan Collins. There are more than a few twists and turns in that odyssey for the characters and the readers as well. 

Neal Adams was arguably the most influential artist of his generation or for that matter a few generations since his influence as a mentor and the studio Continuity Associates was a breeding ground for many younger pros. He created some of the most iconic comics in my reading experience and I'd like to take a look at some of those over the course of this year. This month the focus is on Deadman. 

And I want to spend a little time with the Abominable Snowman. Admittedly I want to do that from the comfort and relative safety of my easy chair in my warm and comfy home, but nonetheless the legend of the ABSM as he's designated is as alluring as any in the modern world. 

All this and perhaps even more this month at the Dojo. Take a moment or two and drop by amigos. 

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Yeti Giant Of The 20th Century!

What happens when you find a shaggy giant in a glacier and decide to defrost his million year old ass? Well the movie Yeti - Giant of the 20th Century supplies an answer to that question and after seeing this Italian exploitation effort, I'd say the answer is hair products.  I sort of think of this movie as Fabio meets King Kong -- let me explain.

This movie is a fracas to be sure with not a cliche left unturned. We have a lovely young woman who entrances an enormous beast from the past with her flowing hair. I'd imagine there were quite a few fans off screen in this flick as hair was gracefully flowing as girl and Yeti exchanged knowing glances. She'd widened her eyes in a teasing fashion and purse her lips and he expand his giant eyes and roar like a horny rogue elephant.

Of course the Yeti goes on a rampage or two during the movie and my favorite moment is when subduing some bad guys the Yeti catches one between his toes and snaps his neck. It's at once funny and spooky. But mostly the Yeti tumbles around naked with only a somewhat sparse covering of fur or hair or whatever. Why we can't see his little Yeti is unclear, but thank goodness for that blessing. My second favorite moment in the movie is when a stupid and his dog (a Lassie lookalike) find one another after one thinks the other is dead. The director actually does the their running to embrace in classic romance slow motion -- weird.

This ain't a good movie, my copy was fuzzy and washed out, but it is filled with weirdly entertaining ludicrous moments and that's not nothing for a movie this bad.

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