horror film
Horror is a film genre that seeks to elicit fear or disgust in its audience for entertainment purposes.
Horror films often explore dark subject matter and may deal with transgressive topics or themes. Broad elements include monsters, apoca ...
directed and produced by
Jerry Warren
Jerry Warren (March 10, 1925 – August 21, 1988) was an American film director, producer, editor, screenwriter, cinematographer, and actor. Warren grew up wanting to get into the film business in Los Angeles, California. He appeared in s ...
. It was Warren's first directorial effort and the first film distributed by his Associated Producers, Inc. The film is about a young woman who persuades some mountain climbers to trek up to the
Himalayas
The Himalayas, or Himalaya (; ; ), is a mountain range in Asia, separating the plains of the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau. The range has some of the planet's highest peaks, including the very highest, Mount Everest. Over 100 ...
to attempt to find her missing brother, who hasn't been heard from since he went there on an earlier expedition to find the
The film was shown as early as April 1956, and opened in Los Angeles on December 5, 1956. The film was distributed in the United States as a double feature with '' Prehistoric Women''.
Plot
Connie Hayward (Virginia Maynor) and Trevor Hudson (Lloyd Nelson) travel to the Himalayas with a guide named Steve (Tom Maruzzi) to locate Connie's missing brother, who disappeared in that region while on an earlier expedition looking for the Abominable Snowman. Together with the help of a Dr. Erickson (George Wells Lewis), they manage to locate her brother's camp, but it is abandoned, except for a mysterious native guide named Varga (George Skaff) who attempts to befriend them.
The group is attacked by the snowmen, with the treacherous Varga working against them behind the scenes. Hudson falls off a cliff while being chased by a yeti, and Dr. Erickson is lured into a cave by Varga, who then shoots him dead. When most of the party is dead, Varga reveals to Connie that he is actually a fifth-generation descendant of the Yeti, who for decades have been kidnapping human women and forcing them to breed with the male snowmen in an attempt to eventually wipe out the yeti strain from their DNA. He plots to kidnap Connie and mate with her, so that their progeny will be another step closer to being human.
Steve comes to Connie's rescue, and manages to knock Varga unconscious. Steve and Connie attempt to escape down the mountain, but Varga follows them down a rope to insure they do not make it. The rope slips loose from its mooring, Varga falls to his death, and Connie and Steve (now in love) make their way back to civilization.
Cast
* Tom Maruzzi as Steve Cameron
* Virginia Maynor (aka Asa Maynor) as Connie Hayward
* George Skaff as Varga
* George Wells as Dr. Erickson
* Lloyd Nelson (aka Lloyd Cameron) as Trevor Hudson
* Jack Haffner
* Brianne Murphy as the Yeti
* Wong Sing
Listed among the cast was a "Rock Madison", which was a fictitious name made up by Jerry Warren to make the cast appear to be larger than it was.
Production
Warren grew up wanting to get into the film business in Los Angeles. He appeared in small parts in a few 1940s films such as ''
Ghost Catchers
''Ghost Catchers'' is a 1944 American comedy horror film. Ole Olson and Chic Johnson are nightclub owners, helping their neighbors rid an old house of ghosts. Their club's headwaiter Jerry (Leo Carrillo) is really a gangster trying to scare off th ...
'', ''
Anchors Aweigh
"Anchors Aweigh" is the fight song of the United States Naval Academy and unofficial march song of the United States Navy. It was composed in 1906 by Charles A. Zimmermann with lyrics by Alfred Hart Miles. When he composed "Anchors Aweigh", Zim ...
'' and '' Unconquered''. After meeting with producers, he took on his first film as a director and producer with ''Man Beast''. Discussing his choice of topic, Warren later explained that the
White Pongo
''White Pongo'', also known as ''Adventure Unlimited'' in the United Kingdom, is a 1945 American film directed by Sam Newfield released by Producers Releasing Corporation.
Plot summary
In the jungles of the Belgian Congo, a group of natives a ...
'' into his Man-Beast. When asked about the budget for the film, Warren described it as "about one-half of what the normal low-budget picture cost in those days. This was very, ''very'' low-budget."
Although a "Rock Madison" was given top billing in the credits for playing the part of "Lon Raynon," there is no such character anywhere in the film. Modern sources state that "Rock Madison" was just a fake name made up by Jerry Warren to make his cast seem larger. Older sources used to state that Rock Madison may have been the man in the Yeti costume, but Warren's ex-wife
Brianne Murphy
Geraldine Brianne Murphy (1 April 1933 – 20 August 2003) was a British cinematographer. She was the first female director of photography for a major studio film and the first female who became a member of the American Society of Cinematograph ...
said years later in an interview that she played the man-beast herself. She said Warren met her in Hollywood around this time and offered her a $50-a-week job handling props, makeup, hair, wardrobe, script and stills on "Man Beast." She said she wore the furry Snowman costume in a couple of scenes, but she was too short for the suffocating rubber suit.
Brianne Murphy also stated she had no idea who the credited screenwriter "B. Arthur Cassidy" was either, saying it may have been Jerry Warren himself under an alias. Warren wrote some of his films' screenplays under the pen name "Jacques Lecoutier" (which he sometimes misspelled in the credits).
Murphy and Warren were wed right after finishing ''Man Beast'' in 1956, and went on a honeymoon in Las Vegas, where Warren wrote the screenplay for ''Teenage Zombies'' in less than a week.
Release
''Man Beast'' was shown as early as April 1956, and opened in Los Angeles on December 5, 1956. The film was distributed in California by Favorite Films of California and by states rights release elsewhere. Warren tried to get it distributed as a single feature so he wouldn't have to share the box office receipts, but his film was relegated to a second-billed feature on a flat fee that generated little capital for him. In the future, he tried to put out two films at once on double bills, so he could take the entire box office share for himself.
Home media
The film was released for the first time on
DVD
The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kin ...
by Rhino Home Video on July 30, 2002. It was later released on DVD by VCI Video on December 10, 2013 as a part of its "Jerry Warren Collection", along with deleted scenes and a Katherine Victor audio interview as extras.
Reception
In contemporary reviews, ''
Variety
Variety may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats
* Variety (radio)
* Variety show, in theater and television
Films
* ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont
* ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...
'' referred to the film as "exploitable, but just fair entertainment wise." ''Motion Picture Exhibitor'' declared it "hardly more than filler for the lower half"
In ''
Leonard Maltin
Leonard Michael Maltin (born December 18, 1950) is an American film critic and film historian, as well as an author of several mainstream books on cinema, focusing on nostalgic, celebratory narratives. He is perhaps best known for his book of fil ...
's
Movie Guide
''Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide'' was a book-format collection of movie capsule reviews that began in 1969, was updated biannually after 1978, and then annually after 1986. The final edition was published in September 2014. It was originally calle ...
'', it was rated ''BOMB'', his lowest rating.
Fred Olen Ray
Fred Olen Ray (born September 10, 1954) is an American film producer, director, and screenwriter of more than 200 low-to-medium-budget feature films in many genres, including Horror film, horror, science fiction, action film, action/adventure f ...
wrote, "''Man-Beast'' leaves quite a bit to be desired. It is slow, plodding and incredibly boring. Even the sight of the dreaded Man Beast himself does not pull this one out."