Snowbeast!

Given the meteorological state of affairs in the Northeast, it seemed a fitting day to give props to the 1977 made-for-television movie Snowbeast. Well, not too many props. It’s not such a good movie!

Snowbeast is a perfect crossroads of two important seventies preoccupations: skiing and bigfoot. In the film western star Clint Walker is a law enforcement officer in a Colorado resort area that has been suffering a rash of bloody killings. In time, the clues lead him to suspect a certain cryptozoological critter. Typecast as ski bums are Bo Svenson and Yvette Mimieux. The real star of the film is the titular sasquatch, and he is a tempermental and shy fellow. The first time I watched the film I felt so cheated by his lack of screen time that when he finally made his appearance (see the above image), I froze the screen and stared at it for five minutes just so that I could feel I was getting my money’s worth. And since I paid a dollar for it, you can see what I’m getting at. Surprisingly, the screenplay was written by Joseph Stefano, the man who scripted Alfred Hitchcock’sPsycho. It is not to be confused with the 2011 film of the same name.

Don’t miss my new book: Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube, just released by Bear Manor Media, also available from amazon.com etc etc etc

For more on  show biz history, consult No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous, available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and wherever nutty books are sold.