Man Beast (1956)

User Rating:

2.4/10   

Director:

Jerry Warren

Writer:

B. Arthur Cassidy (writer)

Release Date:

5 December 1956 (USA)

Genre:

Horror | Sci-Fi

Tagline:

Hair-raising excitement in the icy lair of man-like creatures roaming the roof of the world!

Plot:

Connie Hayward mounts an expedition into the Himalayan Mountains looking for her brother, who has not...

Plot Keywords:

Yeti | Abominable Snowman | Anthropologist | Rescue Party | Sasquatch

Cast

Rock Madison	...	No one [Pressbook Name: Lon Raynon. See Rock Madison bio for more details]
Asa Maynor	...	Connie Hayward (as Virginia Maynor)
George Skaff	...	Varga
Tom Maruzzi	...	Steve Cameron
Lloyd Nelson	...	Trevor Hudson (as Lloyd Cameron)
George Wells Lewis	...	Dr. Eric Erickson
Jack Haffner	...	Kheon
Wong Sing	...	Trader

Runtime:

67 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

USA:Unrated

Filming Locations:

Bishop, California, USA

Company:

Jerry Warren Productions Inc.

Goofs:

Continuity: Five expedition members (Connie, Varga, Steve, Hud and Dr. Erickson) set out at night with flares to search for the Yeti, but a couple of shots of the members out on the mountain show six persons in the group, not five. Also, in those shots, the members are tied to one another with rope, but in close-ups immediately following, none of them has any rope tied to them.

Quotes:

Trevor Hudson: No... it's not the climbing it's... the Yeti! I have a feeling!

Movie Connections:

Featured in Petrified Beast from the Frozen Zone (1990)

Inferior To The Brit Yeti

It is almost impossible to discuss the 1956 yeti movie "Man Beast" without making comparisons to the British film "The Abominable Snowman," which came out the following year. While the latter film features the stars Peter Cushing and Forrest Tucker, "Man Beast" boasts the "talents" of Virginia Maynor (who acts atrociously and doesn't even provide the requisite eye candy) and action lead Tom Maruzzi. And while the Brit film boasts a literate script and interesting characters...well, let's just say that the American film again comes off second best. But perhaps the most telling difference of all is that whereas "Snowman" only teases us with occasional glimpses of the yetis, seemingly adhering to Val Lewton's unspoken credo that the viewer's imagination can supply far more terror than anything shown on a screen, "Man Beast" shoves the yetis in our faces again and again. Fortunately, for red-blooded monster fans, this is not altogether a bad thing. The snowmen do look pretty scary here, especially in the film's finest scene, in which the yetis attack our heroes for the first time, in a dark cave. This scene is filmed largely in silence, and in somewhat slow motion, and is pretty darn nightmarish. As reported in the fine book "Sleaze Creatures," stock footage and filming in the hills of Bishop, CA do a decent job of simulating the Himalayan locale. Still, at least half of the film's compact 63-minute running time consists of scenic shots of our band plodding through the snow. Bottom line: This is a fun hour at the movies, inferior to the Brit version as it may be. Oh--the DVD here is nice and clean looking, but scratchy in spots, and with no extras to speak of.