Arabian Adventure!

Arabian Adventure is not a great movie by any means, but it is a perfectly good one. It attempts to recreate the style of movies from the 1940's such as The Thief of Baghdad, while at the same time making use of some then modern special effects trickery. I remember seeing this movie when it came out way back in 1979. It was produced by John Dark and directed by Kevin Connor, and was the fifth movie these two had teamed up to deliver. Some previous films were The Land that Time Forgot, At the Earth's Core, and The People that Time Forgot. The big draw for me in this movie is the participation of Christopher Lee as the villain Alquazar. He is in top form and the screen bristles when he's on it. Also, on hand his friend Peter Cushing in a small supporting role. 

One thing I remember this movie for is the poster created by Marvel Comics artist Alex Saviuk. It gives us more than a peek at what we'll get in the film. I think it's a dynamite composition. The posters showcase the real highlight of the movies technically which are the flying carpets, which I'm convinced are meant to evoke a Star Wars dogfight feel in the climax of the movie. 

(Emma Samms)

Less impressive to me were the lead actors Oliver Tobias and Emma Samms in her first movie role. They are the obligatory young lovers in this one who are denied their chance at romance by the villain and the hero has to successfully complete a dangerous mission to win her hand. He is assisted by Milo O'Shea who is excellent as the duplicitous henchman. This one has a kid in it too who has a big role, and while as a rule I don't cotton to kid actors, this little fellow was okay. Mickey Rooney shows up in a wonderful role which evokes the Wizard of OZ. 

The movie is a charming distraction. 

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The Abominable Snowman Of The Himalayas!

I don't remember when it was exactly during my boyhood, but some Halloween or other during one of those luscious all-night film fests they used to have I stayed up, clinging to wakefulness and watched this Hammer movie through. It scared the bejeezus out of me then, and still unsettles me a little today. It plays neatly against expectations, setting up a somewhat chatty and somber story about the usual gaggle of Western types (a hunter, a huckster, a scientist, a sensitive) and throws them up on a mountain to find the elusive myth. Whether they will find anything at all is kept at bay for a good long time, and then only in masterfully controlled bits and pieces.

It turns out the Abominable Snowman is real, but he isn't all that "abominable" after all. These are wisemen of the mountains, incredibly long-lived giants with thoughtful eyes and gentle ways who don't harm people directly, but sadly do act as catalysts that cause men to bring harm to themselves. It's that Val Guest chose consciously to hide the creatures, giving only glimpses that makes them such powerful images in my mind. I've seen scuds of bigfoot and yeti movies, but none are so moving or memorable as this one which shows us almost nothing. Guest knew quite well that my mind could conjure a creature far more awesome than anything possible by special effects of the time. He was right.

 

There is a curious commentary on the DVD, offering up both the comments of both Val Guest the director and Nigel Kneale the writer. It seems that these two have squabbled a bit about this movie in the past, or at least done interviews expressing contrary views. The two are interviewed separately but the interviews are run concurrently. This creates some duplication in information, but does offer up some interesting counterpoints as well. Both men seem to respect one another's talent, or express that anyway, but clearly they differed on how this movie should've worked. Guest defends his decision to keep the creatures off camera and Kneale clearly thinks though it was a brave decision it undermines the final effect. Kneale seems in particular to want to say nicer things about the movie than he has perhaps in the past, and is in the unique position to contrast the film version with the BBC TV version first done. He ultimately says that changes in the film version help the story.

One thing I did learn is that the Himalayas shown in the movie are actually the Pyrenees and finally getting to see the movie in widescreen, it's possible to really enjoy the setting completely. Peter Cushing and Forrest Tucker star in this B&W Hammer movie, and they form a neat contrast. Cushing offers a quiet if nimble screen presence while Tucker is bombast personified. The other actors, typical of Hammer films, are solid pros and the movie though a bit stagey in places nonetheless delivers a pointed morality tale of man looking for the unknown, and as most often is the case, finding only the truth about himself.

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Doctor Syn - The Movies!

One of my all-time favorite movies is Dr. Syn alias the Scarecrow.  The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh is the title given to the production when was aired three one-hour episodes on American television. This movie starring Patrick McGoohan in the days after he was a secret agent but before he became a prisoner is a rousing adventure yarn which delighted me as a youngster on The Wonderful World of Disney. The Scarecrow as portrayed by McGoohan actually frightened me and still gives me goosebumps. 

Before the days of VHS and DVD, the way to "own" a film was to buy the novel adaptation and I snapped up the one by Vic Crume for the Disney story. It goes to show how much they changed from Russell Thorndyke's novel that there even needed to be a novel adaptation. The original source for the story wasn't in fact a later Thorndyke novel but a variation of it by William Buchannan. I've never read this version. The gem pictured above is hidden somewhere in the many boxes of books in this house. I despair finding it really, save by accident. 

The story was also adapted into comic book form by Gold Key Comics. They also produced two additional issues with fresh stories. The Scarecrow is given more of a role similar to the novel in this movie and is more of the dashing rogue in the Robin Hood tradition. 

Hammer's 1962 Night Creatures (alternately title Captain Clegg) adapts Thorndyke's original novel (or possibly an earlier film I'll discuss in a moment). 

Hammer was beat out by Disney for rights to the name, but they did a pretty decent job of translating the events of the first novel to the screen. I was underwhelmed by this one when I first saw it, as it's a weaker effort than the classic Disney adaptation, but it is truer to the source material, even though Doctor Syn cannot be called that but is referred to as "Doctor Bliss". He is played rather energetically if more sanely by Peter Cushing. 

The very first adaptation called simply Dr. Syn starring George Arliss from 1937.  It's possible this film served as the inspiration for the later Hammer effort because there are scenes the two share which are not in the novel. Syn is played in this movie by George Arliss, a beloved actor who was approaching seventy. His relative fragility does hurt the movie at times, but overall, he's a worthy if somewhat stiff Syn. The movie underplays Syn's seeming madness and gives the viewer a typically more upbeat ending than does the novel. 

 NOTE: This is a Dojo Revised Classic Post. 

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At The Earth's Core!

At The Earth's Core is a delightful romp of pure science fantasy. The classic tale by Edgar Rice Burroughs is well told in this John Dark produced and Kevin Connor directed effort. It follow's the previous year's offering of ERB wonder called Land The End of Time. But where as the previous movie has sought to reap as much reality as it could from the fantastic elements, this one dives head into a rich lush artificiality.

This movie felt like a modern reinvention of one of the classic ground-breaking Melies movies, particularly The Trip to the Moon. The hooplah as David Innes and Dr. Abner Perry strike out into the depths of the planet. There's no fifteen minute waste of getting to know you, it's a blast from the get-go and soon enough they find themselves in Pellucidar, a land where it is always day and man is merely one of the intelligent species seeking to dominate the environment. The momentum doesn't cease and we meet Dia and other Pellucidarians when David and Abner captured and taken to the city of the Mahars, the flying reptiles who seek to control Pellucidar.

Every scene in this movie was shot on a stage giving the whole affair an heightened artificial feeling, one which works for the elevated manner of the storytelling. With monsters created using the Suit-mation techniques I didn't find a thing in this movie that couldn't be recreated or approximated on the stage. This is a movie that never lets forget it's a fiction and that's just fine.

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Seven Golden Vampires!

The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires is one of those movies I have long wanted to catch. It's the last of Hammer's classic Dracula series because of the appearance of Peter Cushing as Professor Van Helsing who is drawn to the mysterious land of China to battle an ancient threat which it turns out is more familiar than he at first suspected.

This movie is known by several titles, one of which is The 7 Brothers Meet Dracula.The movie was made in 1974 in a partnership between the waning Hammer Films and the Shaw Studios of Hong Kong. As a consequence it has the flavor of both the vintage Hammer horror shows and the then-current popular martial arts films.

It could be argued that the movie, despite its robust and attractive title fails to satisfy either of the genres it seeks to please. There's not enough vintage horror for the Hammer fans and not enough classic fighting for the Shaw regulars. The movie does seem to wander around a bit and despite some interesting settings it doesn't seem much interested in establishing creepy mood.

The plot is pretty simple. An acolyte of Dracula, a Taosit monk named Kah seeks out the vampire and is possessed by him. He then goes home to China and establishes his vampire rule with the help of seven vampire who have ravaged the villages around them for many years. The Seven Brothers (and one sister) seek out Van Helsing for advice and with his son and a right lovely English dame in tow they travel to the distant villages to face the threat.

It's one of those that won't make sense if you shine too bright a light upon it, so it's best to simply ride along with the adventure as the Brothers and Van Helsing's gang take on the vampires and their ghoulish army in a series of battles which seem destined to destroy them all. This movie is notable in that it is the only Hammer flick of the classic era which features Dracula but doesn't star Christopher Lee in the role.

It was less of a movie than I expected, but it was an entertaining romp nonetheless.

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More Horror Four You!

The Screaming Skull is the outlier in a four movie collection I picked up a few weeks ago. It is the only movie here not about vampires in some way, and sadly it's also the weakest movie of the bunch. But it does have a fantastic poster. This movie is a low-budget affair, set almost exclusively at a pretty fancy house (Huntington Hartford Estate) the movie blunders along as we follow a woman who suffers from the dread that she might well be mad and her husband is there too. She is haunted seemingly by the ghost of his dead first wife who appears to manifest as a skull which whimsically appears and disappears and even rolls along from time to time. It's pretty weak tea overall with little surprise and some painful acting from the lead actress especially.  The producer instructs viewers to get insurance in case they are frightened to death by the movie, but I see little danger of that.

Much better is The Vampire, a saucy attempt to translate the classic vampire tale to the suburbs and modern America. A local doctor takes a pill he shouldn't and it makes him into a maniac who craves blood and who infects his victims with a deadly virus. The police stumble along behind and researchers from out of town fail to understand what is going on until many folks have to die. It's a pretty good parable for drug addiction and the acting in this one is top notch with lots of familiar faces around to populate what is a surprisingly effective movie.

The Bat People is another story. A doctor gets bitten by a bat in a local tourist cavern and slowly becomes a bat person. Or does he? The question is an open one for much of this movie with ambles along at a snail's pace for much of its duration. Stan Winston is on hand to offer up some meager special effects in a show which has some credible acting and some horrible narrative construction. The title implies more than one and this tepid movie delivers on that promise eventually.

The Vampire Lovers is the movie which motivated me to pick up this collection. This notorious Hammer movie is the first of the Karnstein Trilogy which adapt the story "Carmilla" The upshot on this one is that to keep the audience they were steadily losing, Hammer decided to spice up its classic cleavage and blood formula with actual full on nudity. Ingid Pitt is well famous for playing a vampire here who seeks especially female victims as the lesbian angle here is on full display. All quite beautiful are Madeline Smith and Kate O'Mara. Peter Cushing shows up at the beginning and the end to help end the threat, but mostly we are witness to the vampire's predations on two separate households. Truth told, it's a pretty languid movie which takes time for its erotic scenes as well as every other thing to flesh out the running time. A quicker pace would help this one a lot. Still it was a disappointment after all I'd heard for years and years.

As with any of these collections the price matters and this one was small dollars indeed, well worth the gamble. There is good and bad here, but the good is worth the cost of admission.

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Hammer Times - The Mummy!

The Mummy from 1959 continued the Hammer tradition of picking among Universal classics and deriving their own flavorful variation. Pairing the dynamite team of Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee together again, this one is going to be good just on that score. These two definitely were able to combine for an effect which was greater than the sum of their parts, a synthesis which added up to entertainment.

The story is pretty familiar. Our mummy Kharis is the recognizable priest who commits sacrilege for love and gets punished by being mummified (sort of) and entombed alive to forever guard a great treasure. That treasure is found by the Banning party and the Mummy is brought to life to seek vengeance. That comes when the elder Banning is made mad and his son is made lame for life. (The limp in this mummy movie is possessed by the hero not the monster). Years pass and things seem to be quiet but all the time a cult has raised the Mummy and plan to use him to seek revenge on those who desecrated the tomb. All this latter action takes place in England, so instead of sands and sun, we get moors and bogs and gloom. That's dandy really. There's much activity, but in the end of course after many deaths, the hero claims the girl and the Mummy gets the shaft.

This one is really really consistent throughout. That's at once good and bad, since the story rarely rises above a simmer. Christopher Lee looks amazing as the Mummy and we slowly see him crumble bit by bit through the movie as his actions take their toll. There's not a thing wrong with this movie, but it's never as exciting as I think it ought to be and while the atmosphere is top notch, it's rarely scary. Quality stuff, solid movie, but not a thrill by any means.

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Hammer Times - The Horror Of Dracula!

1958's Horror of Dracula is one of my favorite Hammer films.  This is the one which gave us the great Christopher Lee as Bram Stoker's immortal Count. The movie got the green light after the success of The Curse of Frankenstein the previous year, though the path to the theaters for this classic remake was a twisting one indeed. Along with Lee, we have Peter Cushing as Professor Van Helsing and the whole shebang is directed by Terence Fisher using a script by Jimmy Sangster.

The story is at once familiar but different enough to hold the interest throughout. I've always been particularly taken by the first half hour which focuses on Jonathan Harker (John Van Eyssen) as he visits the castle of Dracula posing as a librarian. It's in these scenes only that Dracula (Christopher Lee) ever speaks and we are allowed to see the polished nobleman who contrasts with the bloodthirsty fiend of the rest of the flick. The story is wise to shift as it does to Professor Van Helsing (Peter Cushing) as he follows up on Harker who had been working in league with him. I prefer a Harker who knows what he's getting into, it worked well. Now the balance of the movie shifts to the home of Arthur and Mina Holmwood (Peter Gough and Melissa Stribling) and we see the corruption of Harker's love Lucy Holmwood (Carol Marsh). The story is nicely compact and has a great pace.

Lee's Dracula is laced with a casual brutality that can still be shocking even today. The way he casually tosses a body into a grave, the manner in which he coldly looms over his prey are pretty chilling. In contrast  Cushing gives us a Van Helsing with some decent characteristics, he's polite but determined. The finale is a pretty good one.

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Hammer Times - The Curse Of Frankenstein!

The Curse of Frankenstein came out the year I was born (1957 to be exact) and marked the beginning really of Hammer Studio's long association with the lurid horror revivals they are most famous for. It put together Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee for the first time and delivered a powerful and potent horror movie which has had lasting effectiveness nearly sixty years later.

The movie has been well appreciated by others over the decades, but I have to confess its total effectiveness eluded me a bit until my most recent viewing. I've always preferred the vintage 1930's Universal monster flicks to Hammer's more visceral renditions (and still do) but the punch of Hammer's approach by giving the stories a more lurid presentation does add some oomph to the familiar yarns.

Terence Fisher's direction is effective and he gets a lot of story done in a short time. The novel's elements are reshaped nicely to add a focus to the story necessary for a movie, evoking the novel's epistolary reflective quality while at the same time being somewhat more unified in its narrative. Victor Frankenstein is a madman throughout the show but his madness only begins to show itself brazenly in the last half of the story. It's this cool insanity, buried under a mask of handsome gentility that Cushing presents so effectively. His Frankenstein is downright charming, but a brutal sociopath (psychopath?) all the time.

Christopher Lee portrays the first of his many monsters for Hammer and buried underneath some truly ugly make up it's difficult to get much from him. It's in the posture that the Creature communicates. The movie is truly well-crafted (as most Hammer efforts were) and I am always struck on each viewing how much is communicated but how little is actually shown. The murders of an old man and a little boy are shown but not shown and neither are they lingered upon, making the acts even more terrible in some inscrutable way.

I love that the Creature is only seen by three people (who survive to the end of the movie and Frankenstein only just) which captures the mystery of the classic novel much better really than the classic series from Universal did. The Creature is a product of Frankenstein's mind truly and we are left even to ourselves to doubt slightly the story he delivers to the priest.

Nicely done.

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Doctor Syn - A Smuggler Tale Of The Romney Marsh!

Doctor Syn: A Smuggler Tale of the Romney Marsh by Russell Thorndike is a book I've wanted to read forever and a day and finally I picked up one from Amazon and dashed off with it to my nook to finally at long last find the source for the great Disney production which attracted me to the character so many decades ago.

What he have in this 1915 novel is a character which is rather unlike the open and rather friendly Disney character who operates with cleverness and zeal to care for the poor people of Romney Marsh by using authority as a parson and his charisma as a bandit called The Scarecrow to protect them from oppression. The Doctor Syn of this story is a wild and spooky character who is respected by his flock but also somewhat frightened by him as he is wont to do wild things which beggar description.

When British soldier appear on the scene to rein in smuggling in the area it brings about a crisis as they bring along a strange man who can identify a presumably dead pirate named Clegg, a pirate who was famously hanged some years before. Syn we discover has some connection to Clegg and while the mystery isn't all that deep, the discovery of the truth unfolds leisurely though out the tale.

There are some great characters in the story such as Mipps, stout-hearted and charming coffin maker who has more than a few secrets. Imogene, a barmaid who herself might have connections to the old pirate Clegg. And much of the tale is told from the perspective of Jerry Jerk, a young boy who loathes his schoolmaster Rash and daydreams of becoming a hangman so he can have the teacher dangling from the end of his rope. Young master Jerk is a Huckleberry Finn type of boy who is filled with raucous thoughts of violence but is armed with a no nonsense attitude which makes him a sturdy ally for many.

On many levels this is a weird and violent yarn with secrets which lurk behind the think wooden walls of the small village which is often haunted by spooks who ride across the marsh in the dark of night. There's a neat creepiness to the story, but also a zany misdirection as it never seems to go where you imagine it should as attention is paid first to one character then another.

This is the first and also the last of the Syn novels. Many prequels were written some years later by Thorndike. Some time I need to get hold of them and check them out, if the writing is anywhere nearly as good as it is in this one.

After reading the novel I dug out my copy of Hammer's Night Creatures which adapts the story pretty thoroughly. Hammer was beat out by Disney for rights to the name, but did a pretty decent job of translating the events of the first novel to the screen. I was underwhelmed by this one when I first saw it, as it's a weaker effort than the classic Disney adaptation, but it is truer to the source material, even though Doctor Syn cannot be called that but is referred to as "Doctor Bliss". He is played rather energetically if more sanely by Peter Cushing.

And the very first adaptation called simply Dr.Syn starring George Arliss from 1937 I have ordered and on the way.  It seems a close adaptation of the novel too can be found here . In fact it seems likely the source for the movie by Hammer. 

I'll have to dig out the Disney version next. It's been several years since I savored this  outstanding classic entertainment with Patrick McGoohan as the mysterious Scarecrow.

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Dr.Who And The Daleks!

Dr.Who and The Daleks is the 1965 movie which for all intents and purposes sits outside the vast canon of stories which inform the ever-growing Dr.Who universe. Apparently created as an attempt to cash in on the enormous faddish success of The Daleks, the arch-enemies of the Doctor, this story, such as it is, revolves around a future Earth on which a great war has raged leaving behind only a high-tech city of Daleks and some roaming hippie peacniks called the "Thals".

But to get there we first must meet "Dr.Who" (Peter Cushing), who in fact is called just that by Ian (Roy Castle) the boyfriend of Barbara (Jennie Linden) who along with Susan (Roberta Tovey) are the granddaughters of the doting but grumpy Dr.Who. No mention in this story of Time Lords nor that the Doctor is anything other than an eccentric old inventor who it turns out has built a Tardis (the name is not explained in any way that I noticed) which looks like a telephone box (again not explained) and which transports the quartet forward into time.

There they find the city of the Daleks, fecklessly explore it and fall victim to the rolling terrors who come in an array of bright colors. But they escape eventually after seeming to trick the Daleks, but then fall back into their clutches when a vital Tardis part is forgotten. At about this time we meet the Thals.

The Thals are a listless bunch of nomads, all sporting shiny blond hair and tired eyes. I guess they are supposed to evoke the Eloi of H.G.Wells' great novel The Time Machine, but I get more allusion to drop-out culture from them. They eventually join forces with Dr.Who and his "team" and battle the Daleks.

It's all pretty tiresome before it finally ends. There are missions and obstacles but none of it really seems to make much tactical sense and luck more than anything seems to win the day.

The story was adapted by Dell Comics and to get a look at that check this out.

This is not a very good Dr.Who story needless to say, but beyond that it's a rather tedious sci-fi effort across the board. There are a few intriguing sets and the Daleks do loom dangerously in a few scenes, but mostly the characters have to behave stupidly pretty continuously for the story to progress. It's hard to root for such boneheads, even if one of them is Peter Cushing.

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She Again!

Late last spring I finally got around to reading H.Rider Haggard's epic novel She and at that same time got hold of the 1935 movie adaptation. Go here to read what I thought of those if you'd like. But recently Turner Classics put on the other famous version of She, this starring the stunning Ursula Andress in the...ahem...titular role.

Take a gander.

It's difficult to overstate how beautiful Andress is in this movie, she's just fabulous, worthy of all the praise I've seen heaped on this flick. Her oddly stiff acting style actually enhances the alien nature of Ayesha who having lived for thousands of years can be a bit odd to say the least. And her exotic beauty does indeed connote something at once alluring and dangerous and intoxicating. You can understand why some guy might jump into a fire for her.

But if it were only her in this flick it would be a boring lot indeed, as staring at a pretty face however attractive gets dull eventually. The Hammer gang is along for this wild ride through deserts and mountains into the long-forgotten and distance lost city Ayesha rules. We have stalwarts Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee on hand as always, the classic tag team of 60's weird horror giving their usual bravura performances. Cushing's rendition of Holley is actually less restrained than many of his presentations and a welcome change from his usually internal and intellectual characters. Holley here is loyal bounder. Bernard Cribbins is on hand as the loyal Job and does a crackerjack job in a thankless but necessary role. Lee is the counter-villain in this one plotting against our heroes and Ayesha and he gives his usual oily venomous performance.

Cribbins, Cushing, Andress, and Richardson

The surprise for me was how good John Richardson was as Leo. He's not an actor who has impressed me in the past, but he does a pretty good job playing a man overwhelmed by the events which have swallowed up and largely demolished his ego and his life. Rosenda Monteros is wonderful as the girl Ustane who loves Leo and challenges Ayesha. Her fate is a real stunner in a flick that turns in on itself neatly with an ending which does justice to the time invested.

I liked this one much more than I expected. I feared it would be dreary, with Andress being deadly dull. It's not, and she's certainly not. I can see why people hold this version in such high regard. It's a good one.

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BBC Sherlock Holmes!

I found this set of vintage BBC shows on DVD just by fluke the other day at the local Target. I'm a bit of a fool for Peter Cushing, a charming actor of the old style, and I'm a bit of a hound for anything remotely touching on the classic Sherlock Holmes novel The Hound of the Baskervilles, so this was a must have.
This was Cushing's second go at the role, so I craved to compare it to the classic Hammer version.

The collection is only the surviving episodes of the second season of the BBC run. Apparently the rest have been lost leaving only five stories and six episodes. It's a shame because they're tastefully done, solid adaptations on par in style if not production values with the Jeremy Brett adaptations a decade later.

Cushing is ideal as Holmes and Nigel Stock is an admirable Watson. He's a still a bit of a buffoon but it is muted compared to Nigel Bruce in the classic Rathbone movies from the 40's.

The Hound adaptation is especially good in two parts, with great casting. In fact the acting is the best thing about these stories, solid characters with memorable muggs and distinctive voices. There are even nuances here and there that point to aspects of the characters not necessarily evident in the original Doyle stories. Most notably the women really seem to enjoy the embraces, even those they're not supposed to. It's a change that points to a more full-bodied England than we see in the stories or the early films. It's a peek behind the Victorian ideals so to speak.

There's ample smoking in this one, and both Stock and Cushing hold their own in a world swirling in pipe smoke. It seems this made Cushing nauseous but it's impossible to detect.

These are really great. Aside from the Hound story, the collection has The Sign of Four, A Study in Scarlet, The Blue Carbuncle, and The Boscombe Valley Mystery. What happened to the other episodes is not discussed, but presumably they were just lost at some point and time.

Here's a site that focuses on Peter Cushing's Sherlock Homes parts with special attention for this series.

The DVD also has an A&E Biography on Sherlock Holmes and Arthur Conan Doyle which uses cuts from the Granada adaptations. It's an odd blend of reality and fiction which did add to my knowledge of "The Great Detective".

This collection is highly recommended.

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The Abominable Snowman!

I've at long last gotten a copy of this Hammer classic. And with all the snow we've gotten in the last few days, I can't imagine a more ironic time for it to arrive.

I don't remember when it was exactly during my boyhood, but some Halloween or other during one of those luscious all-night film fests they used to have I stayed up, clinging to wakefulness and watched this Hammer movie through. It scared the bejeezus out of me then, and still unsettles me a little today. It plays neatly against expectations, setting up a somewhat chatty and somber story about the usual gaggle of Western types (a hunter, a huckster, a scientist, a sensitive) and throws them up on a mountain to find the elusive myth. Whether they will find anything at all is kept at bay for a good long time, and then only in masterfully controlled bits and pieces.

It turns out the Abominable Snowman is real, but isn't all that "abominable" at all. These are wisemen of the mountains, incredibly long-lived giants with thoughtful eyes and gentle ways who don't harm people directly, but sadly do act as catalysts that cause men to bring harm to themselves. It's that Val Guest chose consciously to hide the creatures, giving only glimpses that makes them such powerful images in my mind. I've seen scuds of bigfoot and yeti movies, but none are so moving or memorable as this one which shows us almost nothing. Guest knew quite well that my mind could conjure a creature far more awesome than anything possible by special effects of the time. He was right.

There is a curious commentary on the dvd I got, offering up the comments of both Val Guest the director and Nigel Kneale the writer. It seems that these two have squabble a bit about this movie in the past, or at least done interviews expressing contrary views. The two are interviewed separately but the interviews are run concurrently. This creates some duplication in information, but does offer up some interesting counterpoint. Both men seem to respect one another's talent, or express that anyway, but clearly they differed on how this movie should've worked. Guest defends his decision to keep the creatures off camera and Kneale clearly thinks though it was a brave decision it undermines the final effect. Kneale seems in particular to want to say nicer things about the movie than he has perhaps in the past, and is in the unique position to contrast the film version with the BBC TV version first done. He ultimately says that changes in the film version help the story.

One thing I did learn is that the Himalayas shown in the movie are actually the Pyrenees and finally getting to see the movie in widescreen, it's possible to really enjoy the setting completely.

Peter Cushing and Forrest Tucker star in this B&W Hammer movie, and they form a neat contrast. Cushing offers a quiet if nimble screen presence while Tucker is bombast personified. The other actors, typical of Hammer films, are solid pros and the movie though a bit stagey in places nonetheless delivers a pointed morality tale of man looking for the unknown, and as most often is the case, finding only the truth about himself.

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