Monster Island Theater presents
The Snow Creature (1954)

Director - L. Lee Wilder

The Monster Island Theater Tibetan Recipes...

The Plot
Film Notes
Cast and Production Credits

The Plot

Dr. Frank Parrish, a botanist by profession, leads a scientific expedition into Himalayas to "study plant life that, here-to-fore, had been unknown or inaccessible." Though the botany mission is a failure, the scientist does discover a race of Snow Creatures, the legendary Yeti. His team, in fact, captures one and brings it back to Los Angeles. The result is chilling chaos.

Film Notes

Beyond the Valley of Micro-Minimalism - W. Lee Wilder

If W. Lee Wilder put as little thought and effort into his handbag manufacturing business as he seemingly did into his movie-making, the New York ladies would not have purchased the "pocket-books" that filled his own pockets with cash.

Can filmmaking composed of the barest of plots, mostly unknown actors in characterless roles, mundanely obvious narration, padded stock footage, motionless camerawork "unspecial" make-up and rushed to nowhere endings actually add up to an "Individual Style?"

One would seemingly say, no. On the other hand, the films of W. Lee Wilder are recognizable within moments of their playing time. Does this count for something? Should it count for something?

All right let's be generous and say, yes, and award Mr Wilder the title "Master of Anti-Style."

Somewhere in this Cinema Blizzard You Will Experience

...snow, a botanist who looks like Dana Andrews but isn't, an alcoholic photographer who looks like Water Pidgeon but isn't, happy and unhappy sherpas, Yetis with human women addiction issues, airplanes ascending and descending, maps, mountain walking and climbing, agreeable Chinese customs officials, people smoking or asking other people if they want to smoke, people in tents, lots of stock footage, custom built on-demand Abominable Snowmen refrigeration shipping units, Los Angeles sewers, police cars, an expectant father/police detective, a meat warehouse, a giant teddy bear costume passing for a monster costume...

Cinema of Sewers

The sewers were a popular place to film in the late 40s and early 50s. The Third Man is probably the most significant film with significant sewage views, but the Alameda TV film library has three less prestigious examples of the down and dirty and damp with The Snow Creature, He Walked By Night and The Indestructible Man.

Trivia Like Snowflakes

Cinematographer Floyd Crosby, David Crosby's dad, was behind the camera for another Monster Island Theater episode - The Screaming Skull.

Screenwriter Myles Wilder, son of the W. Lee Wilder, wrote seven films for his father. His other screenwriting work was mostly for TV series.

--Ed Schneider - Alameda TV

Cast

Paul Langton	Dr. Frank Parrish
Leslie Denison	Peter Wells
Teru Shimada	Subra
Robert Kino	Inspector Karma
Robert Hinton	Airline Manager
William Phipps	Lt. Dunbar
Rudolph Anders	Dr. Louis Dupont

Production Credits

Produced by Planet Filmplays
W. Lee Wilder	Producer/Director
Myles Wilder	Screenwriter
Floyd Crosby	Cinematographers
Manuel Compinsky	Original Music
Jodie Copelan	Editor
Frank Paul Sylos	Art Direction
Lee Zavitz	Special Effects