The Abominable Snowman (1957)

Interesting facts

The Abominable Snowman is a 1957 British fantasy-horror film directed by Val Guest and starring Forrest Tucker, Peter Cushing, Maureen Connell and Richard Wattis. It was written by Nigel Kneale based on his 1955 BBC television play The Creature, which also starred Cushing. It was produced by Aubrey Baring for Hammer Films.

Filming

The Abominable Snowman was the only film to be produced for Hammer by Aubrey Baring, who was a member of the Barings banking family. Shooting began with a ten-day second unit location shoot at La Mongie in the French Pyrenees between 14 and 24 January 1957. Guest and Baring led a crew that included cinematographer Arthur Grant, camera operator Len Harris and focus puller Harry Oakes.

The film was shot in an anamorphic wide screen format called Regalscope, renamed "Hammerscope" by the company. Val Guest found it an unsatisfactory format to work in, which made getting in close to the actors difficult and required careful framing of scenes.

Principal photography took place between 28 January and 5 March 1957 at Bray and Pinewood studios. The sets for the monastery were constructed at Bray by production designer Bernard Robinson, assisted by art director Ted Marshall and draughtsman Don Mingaye, and required detailed research in books and libraries.

It was Val Guest's view that the Yeti should be kept largely off-screen, bar a few glimpses of hands and arms, leaving the rest to the audience's imagination. By contrast, Nigel Kneale felt that the creatures should be shown in their entirety to get across the message of the script that the Yeti are harmless, gentle creatures.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.