Connie Hayward (Virginia Maynor) is in the Himalayas looking for her brother Jim. With her is Trevor “Hud” Hudson (Lloyd Nelson). Hud is Connie’s wanna be boyfriend but is mostly just whining. Jim is on an expedition with Dr. Eric Erickson (George Wells Lewis). At an outpost they meet Steve Cameron (Tom Maruzzi). Steve tells them that Jim left ten days ago to set up camp for Dr. Erickson’s expedition. Dr. Erickson left the day before to meet up with him. He tells them that the expedition is in search of a local legend called a Yeti or Abominable Snowman. Connie decides that she must follow her brother up the mountain and that it is vital that she finds him.
Steve agrees to be their guide. After hiking up the mountain for days they finally meet up with Dr. Erickson and his guides. Together they continue on until they reach camp. At the camp they find devastation but no people. Not sure what happened, they have no choice up to set up their own camp. The next day their local guides are gone. Eventually Jim’s guide, Varga (George Skaff) shows up at camp. He tells them that he went off to look for tracks and when he got back the camp was in shambles.
Varga pretends to help the hiking party find, not only Jim, but the Yeti as well. Something about him strikes Hud as being phony. Eventually Steve is also suspect of the only person in the expedition that managed to stay alive. The team explores a cave and is attacked by a Yeti. Hud is killed. During the remainder of the trip Varga manages to separate everyone and eventually reveals to Erickson that he is part Yeti. He is on a mission to mate the Yeti race with humans and Connie is the perfect subject to carry his offspring.
“Man Beast” was released in 1956 and was directed and produced by Jerry Warren. It is an American low budget horror movie. It is Warren’s first, and probably his best, film, although I do have a strange fondness for “The Wild World of Batwoman” 1966.
Granted the movie is not great but as far as schlocky Bigfoot style movies of the 50’s it’s not bad. It’s not on-the-edge-of-your-seat intense but it does have a monster. As far as Yetis are concerned, this one mostly just sits in the snow, but at least you can see it.
The film’s cast includes "Rock Madison". There is no such person. Warren added the name to the credits to make the cast appear to be larger than it was.
The monster suit was the same one used as the white gorilla suit for both “The White Gorilla” 1945 and “White Pongo” 1945. Ray Corrigan played the gorillas, but Brianne Murphy is credited as the Yeti. I’m not totally sure that it is the same gorilla suit. The suit may be the same, but the face on the Yeti looks different the face of the white gorillas.
The film also includes stock footage from a never finished documentary.