Man Beast (1956)

Connie Hayward mounts an expedition into the Himalayan Mountains looking for her brother, who has not returned from a previous trek trying to locate the Yeti, or "Abominable Snowman". ... See full summary »

Director:

Jerry Warren

Writer:

B. Arthur Cassidy

Stars:

Rock Madison, Asa Maynor, George Skaff

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Rock Madison	...	(credit only)
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

Storyline

Connie Hayward mounts an expedition into the Himalayan Mountains looking for her brother, who has not returned from a previous trek trying to locate the Yeti, or "Abominable Snowman". Arriving at her brother's last-known camp Connie and her companions find only a strange old guide, Varga. They are soon attacked by gigantic Snowmen but are not half as surprised as when Vargas reveals his secret origin and the plans he has for Connie.

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Plot Keywords:

abominable snowman | yeti | monster movie | bigfoot | mountain climbing | 

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Taglines:

Sub-human monsters go on a rampaging blood-binge !

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Genres:

Horror | Sci-Fi

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Certificate:

Unrated

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

5 December 1956 (USA)

Filming Locations:

Bishop, California, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Jerry Warren Productions Inc.

Technical Specs

Runtime:

67 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Black and White

Did You Know?

Goofs

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.

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Quotes

Steve Cameron: You mean you don't know the purpopse of Dr. Erickson's expedition?
Connie Hayward: Only that he's been preparing it for years.
Steve Cameron: Well, his purpose is to capture one of the abominable snowmen, that's what the natives call the yeti. A kind of people, covered with hair, supposedly living above the 21,000 foot level.
Trevor Hudson: Covered with hair?
Connie Hayward: What do you mean, 'a kind of people'?
Steve Cameron: Nobody seems to know whether they're... man or beast.

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Connections

Featured in Is It Real?: Ape-man (2006)

User Reviews

A Surprise of Sorts

******SPOILERS****** Much better then you would expect movie about the Yeti of the Himalayans despite the movies low-budget qualities.

"Man Beast" even though it's a bargain-basement production has a very interesting story that you won't see in any of the movies made over the years about the elusive Yeti. Connie Hayward, Asa Maynor, and her friend Trevor Hudson, Llyod Nelson, get to the base of the Himalayan Mountain range just after an expedition by Dr. Eric Ericson left to find Connie's brother James. Connie's brother got lost up in the mountains cold snowy ridges and passes about ten days earlier.

Finding local mountain climber Steve Cameron, Tom Maruzzi, to lead them to the Ericson group they link up with Ericson a few days later and together go on to find Connie's brother and the members of his expedition. Reaching James' camp they find it deserted and fear the worst.

Dr. Ericson has a native guide with him who knows the mountains better then anyone else alive Varga, George Skaff. Varga is the only person that the local natives would feel safe with in that desolate environment. That's why the persons in the expedition feel confident with Varga being with them. But what they don't know is that Varga has other ideas to why he's there and it isn't to help them it's to help himself and the Yeti's.

Interesting film with a very unique take on the subject matter, the Yeti, with some surprising angles to it. Varga turns out to be a collage educated and civilized hybrid-type Yeti who can easily pass for a human being. Varga plans to have the members of the expedition killed by him and his fellow Yeti's to prevent them from infringing on their territory and was also responsible for the death of Connie's brother James and the members of his group.

There's something disturbing about the movie that I noticed right away. Even though Varga was the villain and got a villains reward at the end of the film it was really the members of the expedition who should have been the heavies in the movie. They encroached and invaded the Yeti's home not visa versa and nothing would have happened to them if they just left the Yeti's alone. The Yeti's were only defending their homes not invading the homes of others.

Even though "Man Beast" was a very low-budget film it did very well with what it had and the stock footage of the Mighty Himalayans was skillfully spliced into the movie. Even the Yeti's in the movie were scary though all that they did was pop up and wave their arms threateningly sometimes holding clubs but doing very little with them to the members of the expedition.

George Skaff as the secretly disguised and deranged Yeti was by far the best actor in the movie. Once he came on the scene Skaff was just too much of a hard act to follow by anyone in the cast.