“Always steals women.” So Subra mutters high in the Himalayas. Perhaps one of the most unintentionally funny bad movies, The Snow Creature does hold a place in history. It was the first abominable snowman, or yeti, movie made. It’s also incredibly cheaply made with a costume that most twelve-year-olds could’ve fabricated better. As the antepenultimate movie in the “Beast Collection,” I felt obligated to watch it one snowy weekend. Spouting colonialist and sexist values like a Republican, the story is tedious even at eighty minutes. But funny at times also. So a botanist travels to the Himalayas to study plants at 10,000 feet. His fun is interrupted when a yeti kidnaps the head sherpa’s wife, causing the sherpa to take charge and start to hunt the beast.
The American scientist decides to capture the yeti instead so that he’ll have something to give the foundation sponsoring the expedition. Leaving behind a female and baby yeti, both killed, he drugs the snowman until a special refrigerated container can be built—gee whiz, Americans can do anything!—to bring the beast back. And they fly west from Bombay to California, where, when they land the beast is held up in customs (I kid you not). There’s a debate about whether he’s human or animal and while the debate goes on, the creature escapes. The hapless police can’t find a seven-foot tall yeti wandering around Los Angeles at night, harassing the women. Finally they figure he’s using the storm sewers. They trap him but, alas, have to shoot him. At this point they completely lose interest in the corpse and exchange meaningless banter as they drive off.
This movie seems to be what the Trump administration wants America to revert to. Bossing around BIPOC people in their own countries, women being helpless without men to rescue them, and corporations buying what is arguably a human being. Sounds like a playbook to me. Also, it was extremely cheap. What amazed me is that United Artists distributed it. People must’ve been pretty hungry for entertainment back in 1954. Having said that, it is worth watching for a laugh. Now that streaming exists, you can find this free on various services. If you like very wooden acting, and superior Americans having their way in Asia just because they’re, well, Americans, you might find this a passable way to spend a snowy weekend (wait til winter to watch it; it’ll keep). Only a word of advice: be sure to lock up your women before you do, because the beast always steals women.
