L'Abominable Homme des neiges

Certainly, the original Japanese filming is masterful, and the conversations between the three Americans could have been less stilted, but the cut-up is fine and the more the story unfolds the more you realize that the narration actually works very well. To enjoy this movie, just try not to be offended on behalf of legendary filmmakers and enjoy a good, atmospheric story told in an interesting way.

The opening titles credit the direction of this very obscure film (originally released in Japan in 1955 as 'Monster Snowman') to someone called Kenneth G. Crane; but then promptly declare it a Toho production. The names of the original cast & crew actually appear at the end, informing us that it was really the work of our old friend Ishiro Honda between Godzilla films.

Originally clocking in at 98 minutes. Since this version is only 70 minutes long - including scenes with John Carradine as Dr. John Rayburn chain-smoking as he informs a couple of guys in big suits that a scrap of human-seeming hair the Yeti left behind means he was probably the Missing Link (after which Morris Ankrum briefly drops by to perform an autopsy on a Yeti cadaver) - only about half the original film can have made it into this American version; and not a word of Japanese is heard throughout the entire film.

What remains anticipates the Dyatlav Pass incident of 1959; but that already makes it sound more interesting than it actually is. The original is hard to see since Toho shelved the film following protests from the Ainu (the native residents of the northernmost Japanese island) at the way they were portrayed in it; but if these are the highlights that doesn't bode well. The original photography and decor - especially of the village were the locals worship the Yeti as a god - are quite interesting; but the yeti itself - which resembles a cross between the Moon Monster in 'Doctor X' and the Cowardly Lion in 'The Wizard of Oz' - isn't onscreen for very long. So the missing footage is probabably exposition and expedition.

The legendary Toho Studios unleashed another sinisterly soul-slashing cinematic sensation in the far-flung, fear-bitten, diabolically deep-frozen 1950s fear-fest Half-Human! An avalanche of hirsute mountain-sized horror haunts some weekend skiers who have the grave misfortune of transgressing the subzero territory of some Half-Human horror beyond their ken! No abomination is too grisly for this howlingly maniacal alpine assassin! This 9ft tall, 1800 living pounds of crushing bone-shattering horror is TOO much monster for any puny human to handle!!! Beloved horror icon John Carradine narrates 'The Abominable Snowman' in his own inimitable spine-chilling fashion. And not since the lurid legend of the Peking Man has there EVER been such a perfidiously perambulating horror as witnessed in 'Half-Human'!

Could the missing link in this malevolent chain of eerie events be...'The Abominable Snowman'???. So, don't monkey about!!! Get your B-Movie bicuspids deep into a thick hairy slice of blissful Big Foot-Stomping Mayhem! Snowman has ever seen such towering, tooth-chattering terror as this glacier-dwelling, blood-thirsty behemoth! While the text is leaden and largely expository in nature, this curiously engaging midnight movie nonetheless engenders a great pathos for the plight of the beleaguered yeti and his no less hirsute, button-cute progeny! The quality analogue effects remain quite delightful to behold and the man-tormented cryptid has a weird animal magnetism sorely lacking in CGI-rendered beasties!

Not bad programmer, but lousy, cheap. It is however entertaining, full of stock shots, footage stuff, with an off voice to explain situations. I expected far worse, I confess. Some good suspense and in a way it can hold comparison with Val Guest's THE ABOMINABLE SNOWMAN, produced by Hammer films, comparison in terms not quality of course, but I repeat entertainment. I guess it is because of the fast paced and short length of this film. No useless talkative sequences, more excetly not that much, just the necessary. Good acting for this kind of movie.

It is a very unfortunate thing that Toho has decided to pull _Jû jin yuki otoko_ from its catalog based on Ainu lobbyists. Had Akira Ifukube scored the film, rather than Masaru Sato, he might have said something against it because he lived among the Ainu and knew the culture presented in this film bears little resemblance to the Ainu.

Instead, we are left with this badly edited mess because an American producer got his hands on it, and inserted scenes with American actors that give away the story before we can actually be shown it. Ostensibly this footage was shot to increase Americans' interest in the Japanese production. Instead it brings the action screeching to a halt and we are given glimpses of what is obviously a much better film, with one of the most convincing yet-teh costumes of all time. The older one has a very lifelike face that is showing signs of balding.

Because of Toho's quarantine on the original film, one has to sit through a lot of drek to have any film at all, since the 98 minute film runs 63 minutes in this version, even after all the boring footage was added. The sound quality is poor as well, and all (or most) of Masaru Sato's score as been replaced with library music. It's too short to fast-forward through all the nonsense and too dull to sit through it.

The only redeeming element of the film are the exquisite Japanese scenes that we hear John Carradine talking over. This film is utterly ruined, thereby demonstrating Gresham's law. The good version is unavailable, and only the bad version can be seen.