MAN BEAST

 

Another Tubi discovery--a very, very low budget 1956 film dealing with the Yeti. The producer-director of MAN BEAST was Jerry Warren, best known for churning out mediocre versions of various Mexican genre movies. 

This is another "the poster is far more exciting than anything that happens in the story" flick. Somewhere in the Himalayas, an American named Connie (Asa Maynor, billed as Virginia Maynor) is searching for her brother, who is part of an expedition. Connie and her friends discuss rumors concerning the Yeti, and they have to rely on a native guide named Varga (George Skaff). Varga knows plenty about what happened to Connie's brother, and the Yeti in particular. 

MAN BEAST is only about a little over an hour long, but it feels much longer, due to the fact that most of movie consists of mountain climbing stock footage. (I was not able to discover where this footage came from on the internet, but to my untrained eye, it may have been made up of scenes from one of those German mountain films from the early 1930s.) The characters (and the dialogue) are uninteresting, and it takes forever for a Yeti to actually show up. 

The Yeti costume is actually effective (Wikipedia claims it was an old gorilla suit used in a poverty row film called WHITE PONGO). The Yeti here has a bit of a resemblance to the Wampa in THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK. Unfortunately, Jerry Warren didn't have enough sense to use the Yeti properly--the fellow pops up every so often, but it barely interacts with the cast. The Yeti isn't even around at the climax...and no, it does not carry off the leading lady as is shown on the poster above. The no-name actors are not helped by generic lines and paper-thin characters. 

The one thing that does make the movie memorable is the character of Varga. It is revealed at the climax that Varga is descended from the Yeti, and is sort of a conduit between the creatures and modern civilization. George Skaff as Varga does give off a weird alien vibe, but his backstory, like everything else in this picture, isn't developed enough, and winds up being wasted. 

One thing that has to be mentioned about MAN BEAST. The credits list a lead actor named Rock Madison. The thing is....Rock Madison does not exist! There's a number of stories stating why Jerry Warren came up with the Madison name, but, whatever one you believe, the point is that the lead billing in this film is given to a fake name instead of a human being. 

It's too bad that Jerry Warren didn't use the creativity he put into the billing for MAN BEAST on all the other aspects of the film's production. It's not a "so bad it's good" movie, and you can't make the excuse that the budget was too low. Nothing much happens in MAN BEAST, and even a guy like me could figure out about a dozen ways to improve this story without having to increase the budget. Having little money, no stars, and black & white stock footage does not mean the movie has to be boring--Roger Corman could have taken those elements and made something that would at least hold the viewer's attention.