The Abominable Snowman

Bluesky

In 1954, Lancashire schoolteacher and keen climber John Angelo Jackson led an exhibition sponsored by the Daily Mail from Everest to Kanchenjunga. The newspaper hoped that he would catch sight of a yeti. He did not, but he did find unusual footprints, human-like but 18 inches long. Although it was theorised that these were simply human footprints enlarged by a specific process of weathering, they thrilled the excitable British public and lodged in the mind of Quatermass writer Nigel Kneale, who went on to write a play on the subject, The Creature. No quite on the same page as the Mail’s intrepid human heroes versus monster coverage, this wasn’t a hit, but it did come to the attention of hammer Studios, and so The Abominable Snowman began its journey to the big screen.

Kneale possessed a talent for finding new angles on old subjects, and this was no exception. Though the film was not a big hit in its day, it stands up much better after almost seven decades than many of those that were. Its anti-colonial, culturally sensitive perspective feels distinctly modern, and Val Guest’s direction has ensured that it remains tense viewing. Where a location-shot work might have distracted from the plot with beautiful, expansive views, Guest works around the limits of a studio production by keeping the camera close as his characters are bound in by rough weather. Key scenes are played out indoors, often in cramped huts, or in tight rocky spaces with vision restricted by blizzard or fog. This adds to the sense of danger when characters find themselves at odds, as well as creating a situation in which the yeti, no matter how large, might realistically be just a few metres away and yet unseen.

The story follows an expedition led by Tom Friend (Forrest Tucker), which Dr John Rollason (Peter Cushing), a botanist staying with the Lama at Rong-ruk Monastery, is persuaded to join, despite having supposedly given up climbing due to an accident. Their guide is Kusang – a Sherpa played by the Ukrainian Jewish Wolfe Morris – and it soon emerges that each of these men has a very different attitude to their quarry. To Kusang, it is a sacred creature which it is taboo to look upon. To Friend (as to a Times-funded exhibition also mounted in 1954) it is a prize to be captured for exhibition, a prime money-making opportunity. Rollason, meanwhile, is full of scientific curiosity – cynical at first, but ready to give way to a sense of wonder and, perhaps, to a deeper understanding.

A proper appreciation of the film depends on the understanding that it is not really a monster movie, at least in terms of formula (though Rollason does suggest at one point that man might be the real monster). Guest keeps the yeti largely out of sight, prompting viewers to use their imagination and so delivering something that is creepy and unnerving rather than being based on shock. Appropriately enough for the setting, he makes a lot of the threat presented by the landscape itself, by the weather and the potential for avalanche. Meanwhile, Friend’s volatility leaves us uncertain as to how far he would go for his prize.

There is a fair bit of philosophical discussion and, in early scenes, reflection on the religion and customs of Himalayan people. Whilst Friend expresses a lot of unattractive sentiments, his is not the voice of the film. Rollason, however, does not get a free pass. At Cushing’s suggestion, he has a wife (Maureen Connell) not present in the play – a woman who clearly understand the addictive quality of mountaineering and what ultimately happens to those who succumb to it. Altogether a complex and thoughtful film, The Abominable Snowman still packs in a fair few thrills and a sense of dread which is rare in present day horror. It’s a superior example of Fifties genre work, and worthy of a fresh appraisal.

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