MAN BEAST (1956)

Trevor Hudson has accompanied his fiancée Connie Hayward on a trek to the Himalayas in search of her brother James who may unwittingly be in need of medical attention. James is on an expedition with Dr. Erickson in an attempt to discover a Yeti (better known then as an Abominable Snowman), a beast that's been seen by others but never captured. They get handsome Steve Cameron to lead them into the mountains where they run across Erickson and his guide Vargas (less handsome than Steve but striking, with albino-like looks). The groups join together, but when they reach camp, the tents have been wrecked and Connie's brother is gone. After some long scenes of rock climbing and short scenes of interpersonal conflict, Connie becomes disillusioned with Trevor and begins to fall for Steve. At one point, we see a Yeti peering over rocks observing the squabbling people, and we (and not the other characters) see Vargas make motions toward the Yeti indicating that he and the monster are friendly. As it turns out, Vargas is half-Yeti himself, and his ultimate plan is to mate Yetis with human women—of course, this means Connie.

This intermittently enjoyable B-film falls down on the action and terror but the characters keep it interesting, especially Vargas who becomes a bad guy you're sorry you have to dislike. Most of the exteriors were shot in what appear to be actual snowy conditions in some California mountains, with stock footage of the Himalayas thrown in here and there. Interiors were shot on cheap sets, and nighttime scenes were filmed in darkened artificial sets, giving these scenes an almost surreal tone. The acting ranges from terrible (Virginia Maynor as Connie acts like she's auditioning for community theater, and whoever let her wear her perky make-up in every scene should have been fired) to OK (Tom Maruzzi as Steve, George Wells Lewis as Erickson) to pretty good (George Skaff as Vargas who is, by default, the most interesting character in the movie). An actor named Rock Madison is listed in the credits, but IMDb says that's a made-up name to make the cast seem bigger. The Yeti costume is not bad, but the Yeti itself is underused. Critics call this the best work of schlockmeister Jerry Warren, best known for the truly awful WILD WORLD OF BATWOMAN. It's short (just over an hour) but still feels padded out with scenes of rock climbing and dialogue that goes nowhere. Still, not a painful October experience, especially if you see the cleaned-up widescreen print from VCI. [DVD]