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February 2002
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The Fat Spy
(1965)

Directed by Joseph Cates (Phoebe’s father), The Fat Spy proves a tres ‘60s AIP ‘Beach Movie’ knock-off. That’s right, it’s an inferior version of a Frankie & Annette picture. We open with two with-it Young Turks – we can tell because they’re wearing cool turtleneck sweaters, longish hair and longer sideburns. One is strumming a guitar and they start singing about the Evils of Money, Man:

"Now listen, folks, ‘cause I’ll tell you true.
The smell of that bread will make a fool out’a you!
Don’t make your price 14-caret gold,
a whole lotta Life around that ain’t being sold!

People sure act funny, when they get a little muuun-ey!
People sure act straa-a-a-a-ange, they get a little chaaange, Baby…."

Yep, out comes the second guy’s harmonica. (Hey, was this made in the ‘60s?) Somehow I don’t think these guys had to worry about getting 'strange' anytime soon.

We segue to some typical Beach Movie ‘kids’ acting wacky at a resort pool and on a pier. A mock Jan and Dean song plays in the background. Hey, look, the characters are being shown in fast motion! How zany! Soon a typical party of bikini and trunk-clad teens are boating out to an island. You can tell this is more of an ‘outlaw’ production because some of the kids are *gasp* smoking and *gulp* actually making out.

Following the F&A template, the movie now introduces an adult comic foil for the kids. The AIP films featured known comic actors in these parts, like Bob Cummings (at the time a major TV star) or Don Rickles. Here we get Jack E. Leonard. Who’s that? He’s sort of a Don Rickles that never became as famous. Leonard gets to interact with the kids, but there's also an official Fuddy Duddy Adult.  This is Mr. Wellington, here in the guise of Brian Donlevy (!). This was seven years after Donlevy appeared as Prof. Quatermass in the nifty Enemy from Space, and unfortunately pretty representative of the kind of junk he found himself appearing in at the time.

Wellington runs the House of Wellington, a cosmetics firm. His daughter "Junior" is Jayne Mansfield – it’s an all-star cast! In what might be a joke, or not, Jayne is introduced standing behind a bust of George Washington. It’s not really that funny, but I’ll give them credit if that’s what they were after, anyway. If not, perhaps they were trying to obscure the fact that the rest of Ms. Mansfield’s body was catching up with the legendary splendor of her bosom. Anyway, their roles are quickly established as being exactly what you’d expect: Wellington is a Blustering Bluenose, Junior a Dumb Blonde. (Bold choice of roles, Jayne.)

Wellington wants the kids chased off ‘his’ island. He's chagrined to learn that his man in the area, or something, is the incompetent Irving (Jack E. Leonard). Ha, ha...Irving!  It's a funny sort of name, isn't it? Like Melvin. Junior, for her part, has a crush on the rotund and rather older fellow, which I guess is supposed to be humorous or madcap or something of that nature. To our horror, Junior runs into Herman – another funny name! – in the hall, and he proves to be Irving’s twin brother. A double role for Jack E. Leonard! Yikes!

Back to the island. The kids are fruggin’ to a bad Beach Boys-type tune, watched by Irving. Irving does some shtick here, like ‘playing’ his telescope like a flute. Ha. Ha. Then he returns home to answer the phone, which has a purportedly wacky futuristic ring. It’s Herman, giving Leonard the opportunity for a tour de force appearance against himself. Then Wellington calls Herman in to ‘test’ lipsticks by kissing pretty young girls. But Herman doesn’t even seem to notice the pretty girls part. ("Try the blonde," Wellington says, pointing at a redhead.) It’s Comedy! The girls leave and the two start discussing their hated rival, Camille Salamander. Ha! ‘Salamander.’ It’s funny!

Speak of the devil; we cut away to meet Ms. Salamander, who’s assayed by Phyllis Diller. (!!) IT’S AN ALL-STAR CAST!! She’s given a little monologue that indicates that the film’s MacGuffin is the Fountain of Youth (!), the one legend says was found by Ponce De Leon and his wife. (According to this, anyway.) It’s supposedly somewhere to be found on the very island the young partiers have crashed. Then a *cough, cough* East Indian servant appears, complete with white Nehru jacket and turban. His name, inevitably, is Punjab and he’s a follower of Kali. Helll-o!! Punjab calls Camille "Sahib" and she pretends to flog him with the riding crop she carries. By this point I knew exactly how he felt. She then reads the telegram he’s brought. "Teenagers!" she says, looking disgustedly into the camera. "Yuck!" Someone, kill me know.

Next a make-out session between, I’m assuming, the film’s teen leads.  This inevitably turns into a bad song montage. I won’t burden you further. Well, OK, there’s the bit filmed with them singing on the steps of the Iwo Jima memorial statue, which made me want to pull my eyes out, but other than that I’ll let it go. Oh, and the lead’s names are ‘Frankie’ and ‘Nanette.’ I’m assuming that’s a joke, but only because it’s nearly got to be, not because of any actual humor the film provides with it. Given the leads’ sizable dearth of acting talent, it’s no wonder the real Frankie and Annette had such job security. Oh, and they have a wacky friend named Dodo, but I’ll spare you that too.

Junior appears on the island via some wacky airplane stock footage. Jayne and Jack engage in some hideously broad mugging at the prospect of reuniting with their opposite number. Then he rides up on a bicycle and gives her flowers. Whatever. Back with the kids, Nanette answers a telephone call from Dodo's overly strict mother. Yuk yuk. The woman's voice is portrayed via a cartoon sound, like adults in the Charlie Brown cartoons. Only here it’s more like what a cartoon mosquito would sound like. As if this wasn’t all zany enough, Nanette promises the woman that they’re all good, clean-minded kids. As she says this three of her peers, two girls and a guy, start making out right behind her. Oh my sides!

Then we cut to see Dodo, floating alone in a small inflatable raft. To our horror, we realize that he’s not just fishing, but that he’s also about to get his own musical number. Cripes, we’re only twenty minutes into this thing and it’s like the fourth lame song! Anyway, the theme of his song is that he’s lonely. I assume this is leading somewhere. Assume, if not really care. In fact, I guess it will, sooner than I thought. For at the end of his number a blonde appears in the water, knocking him from his raft. He clambers back in, and invites her to join him. She agrees, and he helps her into the boat. "Lift up your tail," he says. "YOUR TAIL?!" Yes, she’s a mermaid. To further accent the putatively inherently humorous aspects of this situation, they cut to a cartoon dialog balloon saying "TAIL!!!" Then we cut to the next scene.

Irving and Junior do some shtick. He’s a rose fancier and bred a rose in her honor. But the thorn cuts his finger, affording Leonard the opportunity for some mugging and simpering. This is the sort of movie that’s not directed so much as perpetrated.

We next learn Herman’s romantic history. Astoundingly, this might be the single most horrific portion of the film. He loved a girl, Rapunzel (if she can lower her hair as much as my interest in this picture, she’ll be in fine shape), long ago back in high school. Since then, supposedly, they’ve never seen each other. Then we cut to said Herman, strolling around outside like a man trying out for, shall we say, a rather low position at the Ministry of Silly Walks. 

He enters a big garden, and sees Camille Salamander. Salamander being, in fact, Rapunzel Fingernail, the girl he hasn’t seen in the ensuing decades. They mime a series of really horrifying ‘happy’ reactions at spotting each other. Yikes, this movie sucks. And what’s with this "twenty years!" stuff? These guys are into their fifties, to be conservative. Did they graduate from high school in their early thirties? Which would actually explain a lot. Anyway, we cut back to an elliptical shot of Dodo saying "Your Tail!", then to the cartoon dialog balloon, then to…eeeewww!! It’s Jack E. Leonard and Phyllis Diller making out! That’s it for me, folks. Tell ‘em your old Uncle Ken died with his boots on.

OK, let’s get going here. Quickly:

• Herman proves his love by *gack* singing Camilla a song. It’s full of ‘comic’ lyrics like "When you were three you smiled/and you frightened Dr. Spock/At six you were unmasked/because your face could stop a clock/and all the neighbors made a scene/to have you put in quarantine/You haven’t changed a bit."
• Watching all this is a jealous Punjab, who makes growling gorilla noises.
• Oh, and the ‘fountain of youth’ might not be liquid. How clever. Anyway, Herman is planning to betray Wellington, obtain the Fountain of Youth, and claim Camille.
• Junior sings a ‘comic’ love song to Irving. For what it’s worth, Jayne Mansfield sings better than Jack Leonard or Phyllis Diller.
• Jayne plays a scene in a towel. It ain’t helping. Believe me.
• Irving infiltrates the crowd of teens by appearing in a "Fink University" sweatshirt. Ha ha. See, the joke is that they accept him as a teen despite the fact that he’s clearly in his ‘50s. Well, it’s not a joke, really. It’s…when Science finds out, we’ll let you know.
• Junior watches this through binoculars. "I’m scared, Daddy" she reports to Wellington. No wonder, because the above frivolity leads into the film’s 84^th bad musical number. This is a dance sequence set to a tune called "Everyone Do the Turtle." This involves Irving and all the teens frugging away at the sort of torpid pace the entire film’s been shot in.  (Because turtles are slow...get it?) 
• The teens are looking for a Spanish Galleon. (Whatever.) Frankie and Nanette seem to have an ulterior motive for doing so.
• We see Camille vacuuming her hair. Because, you know, it’s ‘funny.’
• "Can I do my song now?" Nanette asks. Unfortunately, she doesn’t ask me. You stinkin’ bastards.
• Tired of waiting, Junior forces Irving into her plane with a shotgun so that they can go to a minister and be married. Or something. I don’t know, my head hurts. Stock footage of a plane doing barrel rolls is used to ‘humorous’ effect.
• Wellington, armed with a snub-nosed revolver (?), sets off for the island on a yacht. He sits out alone on the foredeck, gazing stalwartly into the future.
• Dodo ends up on the beach, singing a song – what else -- to his missing mermaid. Afterwards the mermaid’s voice is heard, imploring him to wade into the water and join her out at sea. Dodo does so, presumably drowning in the process. Finally, a happy ending.
• Harvey sneaks Camille into the Wellington corporate headquarters, where he expects the company’s computer to provide the answer to the Fountain of Youth’s location.
• The kids find a sign where the Spanish Galleon should be. The ship, it says, is now an attraction at the local Coral Gardens.
• The two guys from the beginning of the movie come back for another song. Sadly, like pretty much all the music here it’s neither good nor bad enough to be interesting; it’s just listless.  It's the kind of film where you find yourself wishing Arch Hall Jr., would show up with his guitar and show 'em how it's done.
• The teens get back into their boat to head to the Coral Gardens. This is portrayed via the same footage they used when they were heading to the island earlier. Waste not, want not, I guess.
• Donlevy has a scene just sitting on the foredeck of the yacht as somebody does bad voice-over imitations of Humphrey Bogart, John Wayne (I think) and James Cagney.
• Look! Stock footage dolphins!
• Finding the galleon to be a permanent part of the exhibit, the teens all dejectedly leave. Only Frankie and Nanette stay behind, arm in arm.
• The Fountain of Youth, the computer reveals, is in fact a twin-headed black rose.
• This is found by Irving, who, remember, is a rose fancier. He, of course, has no idea what he’s stumbled across.  He takes half of it and sticks it in his jacket lapel.
• Jayne is tied up by Herman and Camille in some sort of ‘comically’ lame deathtrap. Punjab shows up and frees her. Why? How the hell would I know?! It’s just that kind of picture.
• By the way, it’s obviously that Frankie and Nanette have some sort of ‘big’ secret. Unfortunately, they also have another romantic song duet.
• Herman and Camille find the second rose, the one Irving left behind. They begin devouring it. I thought the idea was to duplicate its properties and sell them through Camille’s cosmetics company, but anyway.
• Recognizing the rose, Junior asks Irving where he found it. "Right over there," he points. "You see where those two little kids are?" They head over and ha ha the two little kids are Herman and Camilla. Didn’t see that one coming, eh? Oh. You did. Never mind. They’re wearing diapers but speak in the adult actors’ voices. Because it’s ‘funny.’
• There’s still the last rose, and a ‘twist’ ending involving Frankie and Nanette. I can’t believe you haven’t figured it out, but I’ll leave it unsaid anyway. "Boy, this is some picture," Irving exclaims to the camera as the big twist is revealed. Which is almost actually funny, and hence easily the most humorous bit of the film. Especially compared to the end crawl that hints at a sequel, one which, thankfully, never came about.

Well, hey, a Big Foot starring Bo Svenson, Clint Walker and Yvette Mimieux? What could possibly go wrong here?

At least they don’t waste our time. We get a Big Foot POV shot, with a big white furry mitt in it, about a minute into the proceedings. Oops, wait, they do waste our time, as we watch two women skiing. Heidi, the sensible brunette, senses something eerie, while her cute blonde friend Jennifer laughs at her fears. People always come in matched sets like that, have you noticed? Hearing a roar, Heidi takes off, leaving Jennifer to get Big Footed. Which, since she just sat there on her skies as she was being attacked by a rampaging POV shot, I pretty much figured she had coming.

There’s a Winter Carnival being held at the packed Rill Lodge, run by Carrie Rill and her grandson Tony. (Carrie is played by Sylvia Sidney, Geena Davis and Alec Baldwin’s chain-smoking afterlife social worker in Beetlejuice.) I’m assuming these are local fat-cats who will be the film’s designated Evil Capitalists, while the Winter Carnival will be the thing they refuse to shut down to save lives. You know, like the beaches of Amity in Jaws. Every movie like this has something along those lines. Can a speech such as "Close down the Winter Carnival? Are you mad?! Do you realize how much the people in this community rely on that for their livelihoods?!" be far off?

A worker named Bucky has grabbed Tony’s attention. Heading out onto the mountain, they end up at a way station where they find Heidi. Heidi is borderline hysterical, however, and refuses to go back out to help search for her missing friend. Tony has her taken down to the lodge, while he sets out with some workers to comb the surrounding woods. After a search, Tony finds Jennifer’s bloody togs. To his shock, he then hears a mighty roar from off in the trees.

Next Svenson and Mimieux pop up as Gar and Ellen Seberg. Gar’s background is provided by a convenient Expository Autograph Seeker:

EAS: "Can we have your autograph, Mr. Seberg? You gave my father one at the ‘68 Winter Olympics. But then when you won that gold medal he sold it!"

Now, presumably Seberg would know which set of Olympics he appeared in, but thanks for cluing us in the audience in. Although telling a guy that your old man sold off his autograph for a bit of change doesn’t seem like the best approach when requesting one for yourself. The kids go off, happy with their acquisitions. "Nice to feel wanted somewhere," he says pointedly to his wife. Uh, oh, trouble in paradise. Well, nothing a little saving-from-a-monster action won’t cure, I’m thinking.

The Sebergs see Tony, but he waves and keeps on going. Not knowing about Jennifer, Gar worries that Tony knows he’s planning to ask for a job and was avoiding him. (Because the last thing a Ski Lodge wants is to have a recent Olympic Gold Skiing Medallist on the staff, I guess.) Ellen, meanwhile, believes that Gar would do better to look for work outside the ski business. Because, again, having an Olympic Gold Medal in Skiing would help you least in that field. Or something. Gar is insecure, though. "This is all I know how to do," he inevitably responds. Characters like him always only know one thing. That’s how they’re written.

Meanwhile, Tony is telling Carrie of his belief that there’s a Big Foot the loose. "This wasn’t an animal," he exclaims. "And it wasn’t human either." Carrie, of course, is in favor of covering the whole thing up. "We need this carnival," she argues. "It keeps the tourists coming here all year round. The whole town needs it." Wow, where do they get their ideas? Against his better judgment, Tony gives in. They’ll mark the attack area off as an avalanche danger.

Just to keep you up to speed, we have two dysfunctional character dynamics going on here. Gar is hesitant about a future that now longer includes skiing, while his wife grows weary of his indecision. He, in turn, resents her impatience and her own successful professional life as a reporter. Meanwhile, Carrie is the dominant one in her relationship with her grandson, and he’s frustrated by his inability to take control of his own life.

Now, I want to be fair. These are fairly broad and unsophisticated character types. Even so, the screenwriter, Joseph Stefano, only has an hour and a half to work with. Therefore he can’t be much faulted for not spending more time in a monster movie developing his cast. While the quick strokes on display here aren’t going to win any originality awards, they are serviceable. Moreover, Stefano at least knows how to write characters that don’t sound like morons. And the producers were wise enough to hire a bunch of old pros to fill these characters out. This never hurts, especially if the director here can actually get actor Svenson to not give one of his trademark phoning-it-in performances. Only time will tell.

By the way, somebody here must like tall, lanky types. Both Svenson and Walker must stand at least 6’ 6"; while the guy playing Tony is within an inch of that. And, oops, another plot point. Apparently Tony has a long-standing crush on Ellen. Gar picks this moment to ask for a job, and Tony gives him one. No wonder Ellen thinks he’s a bit of a wuss. Here a guy makes moony-eyes at your wife and the next second you ask him for a job.

Against Tony’s orders, Bucky goes up to the mountain to search for the still officially 'missing' Jennifer. He eats up some screentime skiing around before taking the inevitable tumble. While trying not to slip down a grade he’s beset by the Big Foot glove and exits the picture. Then the Big Foot POV shots start ranging farther a field. On a local ranch, a father finds his young son in a near state of shock. Investigating inside the barn, he finds Jennifer’s mutilated body. Since this is a TV movie from the ‘70s, all we see is a bloody arm. And I must admit, I found this restraint kind of charming.

Tony sees Sheriff Paraday (Walker) and calls for him to wait up while he parks his truck. However, the Sheriff gets a call about Jennifer and heads off before Tony can catch up with him. Then Tony has lunch with Ellen. Character scenes being cheaper than monster stuff, ya know. One thing we learn is that Gar hasn’t donned skis since winning the gold. I imagine we’ll see him in them by the end of the movie, though.

Eventually Tony asks Gar, an expert marksman from way back, to meet him at the lodge’s pool. This is the sort of scene written into the movie purely to take advantage of a nice piece of scenery or whatnot. Here’s it a real, heated outdoor pool, surrounded by a snowy landscape. It’s such an interesting location that they probably felt they had to shoe it into the picture somewhere. Anyway, Tony tells Gar about the monster. He wants Gar to hunt it down and kill it. Gar is hesitant, even angry, having never heard of a Big Foot attacking anyone. The news about Jennifer gives him pause, though.

Ellen gets wind of something happening out at the ranch  Being a reporter, she covertly skis over for a look. Up in the hills she sees Big Foot tracks and begins following them. (Yeah, good idea.) Meanwhile, the Sheriff has asked Tony to come by. He thinks Tony might be able to identify Jennifer’s body, since she was a guest at the lodge. Tony admits he might recognize her when he sees her face. This leads to an awkward pause. "She doesn’t have one," the Sheriff quietly replies. Now that’s dialog!

Here there follows a little too much stuff meaning to suggest the possibility that Big Foot is real, by which I mean 'real' in the real world. This gets a little tiresome, although it should be remembered that Snowbeast was made when there was a big fad in "monsters or myths" type stuff. From Chariots of the Gods to In Search Of…, the ‘70s were a boom time for this sort of silliness. The scene ends with the Sheriff, Gar and Tony planning to meet up in the morning and hunt the creature down. Meanwhile, Ellen has gone too far into the woods in following the tracks and decides to turn back.

That night the Winter Carnival proceedings begin at the local high school. Little do they know, bum bum bum, that a Big Foot POV shot is approaching the building. The Big Foot smashes through a side window, starting a panic. As this occurs the monster attacks and kills a woman out in the parking lot. Carrie is hurt in the crush and taken off in an ambulance.

Gar returns home. Ellen’s still gone, but he finds his ski case laid out. Following flashbacks to his Olympic triumphs, Gar is next shown outside, hitting the slopes. Well, I think we all saw that coming. At this point it’s a little unclear whether he realizes that Ellen is missing yet. (He did, and he’s out looking for her, we eventually learn.) Meanwhile, we see that she’s in a barn, presumably the same one that Jennifer’s body was found in. Waking, she sees something, and it turns out to be Gar. Actually, I found it a nice touch that they didn’t milk the whole ‘missing wife’ bit any further.

The two talk things out, build a fire and spend the night. (This would be less confusing if we knew for sure that Ellen ended up here on her own, and wasn’t brought there by the Big Foot.) However, as they prepare to leave Gar knocks into a ladder and a body and what might be supposed to be its head – yuck – come tumbling out of the hayloft. Meanwhile, the beastie itself come a knockin’ at the door. I tell ya, when it rains it pours. Things look grim until Tony and the Sheriff coming riding up on snowmobiles. The monster runs off and is spotted by the Sheriff and his deputy, who follow in pursuit. Tony spots Gar and Ellen, meanwhile, and rides over to give them a hand.

Now, I know my Jaws clichés and can smell 'em coming a mile off. So when word arrives that the Sheriff has bagged the critter, I knew a "Little Shark" scene was coming. That’s the bit where somebody catches something the public is told is the killer animal, with only the heroes suspecting that it’s not what’s been responsible for all the recent deaths. In Jaws, obviously, this was the shark the fishermen caught that was big but which Hooper realized didn’t have a bite radius matching the autopsy results. Sure enough, the Sheriff rides up dragging a bear carcass behind his snow mobile. The townspeople are relieved, but Tony, Gar and Ellen look on ominously.

Gar and Ellen confront the Sheriff. He wants to let things lie, yet is clearly nervous that things are still afoot. They talk him into taking just them up into the mountains to find and kill the creature. Tony also pops up and counts himself in. Soon the party is up on the mountain, patrolling around on snowmobiles. Unfortunately, a mountain is a big place, and as they search the Big Foot finds and knocks around their parked RV. The party returns to find the vehicle mildly damaged, but the Sheriff suggests that they stay put. He figures the monster will return at some point, and the others agree.

They stay the night, keeping two of on watch at any time. Morning breaks, and nothing has happened. However, and this is one of the film’s few sort of genuinely silly moments, it turns out that the truck is parked beneath a section of slope containing a stockpile of logs. This isn’t filmed all that well, and doesn’t stand as the film’s best moment, but the Big Foot kicks the pile and sends the logs cascading down on them. Three of them are outside as this occurs and manage to avoid the logs. The Sheriff, however, is injured and trapped in the RV. The others are forced to flee as the Big Foot approaches and the Sheriff is whacked. 

This all could have been filmed better. For instance, the two people on watch, Tony and Ellen, had been carrying rifles before this happened. It’s possible for us to surmise that the guns were placed down when Gar brought them out some coffee and then destroyed in the log attack. Still, it’s the film’s job to show us stuff like that, not ours to fill in the blank spots.

Not wanting to be caught out in the open, the threesome end up back, that’s right, at that same old barn. Once there they regroup and decide they have to go back to the camper and reclaim their skies and their weapons. (Too bad none of these knuckleheads had brought a holstered sidearm with them.) Tony volunteers to go, but wonder of wonders, they decide it’s safer for all of them to stay together. That’s pretty smart, at least for these things, although you’d think they’d at least arm themselves with pointed sticks or something. Also, shouldn’t they be a little more freaked out about leaving the Sheriff behind to suffer a horrible death?

They make it back to the camper. Unfortunately, the guns they had were under the RV, but they are able to dig their skies out. (What happened to their snowmobiles?) Tony finds a heavy revolver and manages to wound the freashly approaching Big Foot. He then tosses the gun to Gar, who lights out after the thing to finish it off. At least he’s smart enough to check how many bullets he has left. Ellen and Tony, meanwhile, scrounge around for the spare rifles.

I don’t think there’re any real surprises to be found right here at the end – for instance, Gar’s revolver unsurprisingly fires more rounds than it should – but there’s also no real reason to spell out the very end of the movie.

This is hardly brilliant filmmaking or anything. Yet the script is decent, the characters are actually adults, no one is obnoxiously stupid, and the cast knows what it’s doing. Moreover, they’re bright enough to never give us a very good look at their Big Foot suit.  And the advantage of making a Big Foot/Yeti movie is that if yours doesn't totally suck, it's automatically one of the best ones ever.

• Bo Svenson certainly doesn’t need an introduction here, having already graced our site with this splendid work in Wizards of the Lost Kingdom and Gold of the Amazon Women. Yvette Mimieux will remain familiar to genre fans for her appearance as Weena in The Time Machine. Other notable credits for her include Jackson County Jail, The Black Hole and Devil Dog: The Hound from Hell. Big Clint Walker, meanwhile, played tall, lanky macho types in films ranging from Night of the Grizzly to The Dirty Dozen. Basically, he’s the brunette Bo Svenson. Let me put it this way: In 1979, Svenson starred in the TV movie Gold of the Amazon Women. In 1979, Walker starred in the TV movie Mysterious Island of Beautiful Women. 1974 was a particularly good year for Mr. Walker – well, from my standpoint, anyway -- as he top-lined such TV films as Scream of the Wolf and the seminal Killdozer.
• Snowbeast was co-written by Joseph Stefano, the creator of the original The Outer Limits program and the screenwriter for Hitchcock’s Psycho. In other words, Snowbeast might not be considered his best work. The other writer was Roger Patterson, who reported that he had actually seen the real Big Foot. This resulted in his only other movie credit, as the director/star of 1967’s documentary Big Foot. 
• This was director Herb Wallerstein’s only movie-length project, all his other work being TV episodes. Sci-fi shows were a specialty, ranging from Wild, Wild West to The Six Million Dollar Man to Wonder Woman. He also did a lot of sitcoms, including The Brady Bunch and Happy Days. His most famous work was probably the three Classic Star Trek episodes he helmed, including "Whom Gods Destroy."

 

Why do I keep seeing the logo for Phoenician Entertainment on my rental DVDs? I must be doing something wrong.

We open one a carload of scientists driving onto a Department of Defense base in the Mohave. (Considering the slickness of the pavement, the Mohave must get quite a lot more rain than I’d had thought.) The driver acts sort of nervous, so we have a pretty good idea where this is going. Sure enough, the two other ‘scientists’ in his car are journalists. He shows them a room with about five or six rattlesnakes in it. These are the result, he informs them, of – bum, bum, bum! – gene splicing experiments. "This is what they meant for our people," one ‘journalist’ says to the other, and we realize that they are *gasp* Foreign Agents. They kill a bunch of folks before being shot down by the guards, but it’s too late. The building goes up in an explosion that must have been featured in half a dozen other Phoenician films. Comically, the snakes live through the massive conflagration and make their escape.

We cut to that sort of off-road desert garage that seldom bodes well in this sort of thing. Bob, the proprietor, is working on a truck when a tremor occurs. Meanwhile, his dog is off running around, and decides to approach a rattlesnake. Aren’t dogs usually a little smarter than that? The dog gets bit and runs off. Bob messes with the dog, taking a lot of tongue in the process, and drives off. Meanwhile, an Ominous Zoom Shot shows us two bite marks on the dog’s face. Bob is soon direly affected, and starts weaving his truck around on the road. The local Sheriff sees him and finally gets him to pull over – I’m assuming he keeps driving as long as he does so as to eat up a little running time – whereupon he finds Bob gasping and spurting blood from his nose and mouth.

Cut to the local hospital. Sadly, our star here is Trent Williams as the head doctor. Who did he piss off to end up in this sort of junk? Here it’s obvious we’re meeting our main cast members, given the extremely clunky expositional dialog on display:

Nurse Josie: "Is it all right if I take off Saturday? I need to shop for my wedding dress. You know I’m getting married in three weeks."

Yes, it’s very naturalistic to have to remind co-workers that you’re getting wed in less than a month. By the way, what kind of woman hasn’t chosen her wedding dress (or, we learn, have sent out her invitations) three weeks before the wedding?

Anyway, things go pretty much exactly as you’d expect from here, especially if you’ve seen any Phoenician product before. For instance, estranged girlfriends/wives who coincidentally have a job that pulls them easily into plot are standard. Look at the following, it’s pretty funny:

Treat is separated from his wife Christine. She now lives in Bethesda, where she just happens to be the civilian (?) head of the Department of Defense’s Virology Research Center. Here she works for General Manchik, who along with General Sparks just happen to have been behind the whole Super Snake thing. (Which were being developed as weapons for use in Desert Storm [!!]. Considering how long that lasted, I wonder how they even got the project up and running.) Meanwhile, as Christine was a native of the same small town now endangered, she has a sister still living there, who has a kid that can act as the film’s Official Endangered Tot. That’s a lot of strings to tie to one character.

So Manchik and Sparks, the Obligatory Murderous Military Types – although Sparks is the genuinely crazy one -- move to get a cover-up going. Meanwhile, recent seismic activity has the snakes on the move. One guy gets bit and then sneaks out the hospital, despite being obviously ill, to go to work. His job being fry cook (!), which allows him to infect numerous other people, including the was-to-be-a-bride nurse.

The film’s about good – for this sort of thing – and bad in equal measure. The biggest advantage is that the running time is kept to a brisk hour and a half. Another ten or fifteen minutes and the movie might have really started wearing out it’s welcome. The other bright spot is the acting. Unlike many of these things, pretty much everyone here turns in nicely naturalistic work. It certainly helps that the lead actor is Treat Williams as opposed to, say, Dolph Lundgren.

And, considering that Fred Olen Ray (!) helmed the film, it’s pretty well directed. I’m not saying that it’s much more than adequate.  Yet compared to his early "One Shot" Beaudine caliber movies like Alien Dead and The Tomb, I was somewhat impressed. The style is generally clean and quick, and shows that Ray can actually do a decent job when he was a little money, time and acting talent at his command. You also have to like the fact that he puts cameos in for his wife and more notably his baby son Max. Max is quite the ham, a trait he probably picked up from his father, and pretty much stares directly into the camera whenever he’s able.

Another moment that made me laugh was during the opening credits, when we are promised a "Special Appearance by Andrew Stevens". Hey, when is an appearance by Andrew Stevens not special?

Bad things? Uh, OK. First, the whole "Evil Military" thing has been done to death. It’s just so perfunctory. At least they tried to make Manchik a little less stereotypically EEE-vil though. Second, I don’t know, but larding these conspiracy plots onto the ‘animals attack’ genre is getting long in the tooth also. Aren’t horrible killer snakes enough to drive your movie?

A lot of the characters, although luckily not all, act like complete idiots. Fry Cook Guy sneaks off from the hospital after being bit by a rattler, despite being quite evidently sick. Moreover, his boss doesn’t send him home, despite the fact that everyone can see him coughing onto the food. (Another funny bit was when somebody enters the place the very next morning after Fry Cook Guy dies and the Boss is still all grins and avuncular small talk. There’s a guy who lets his smile be his umbrella!) Even Christine, who otherwise acts pretty intelligently, hides that fact that she’s been accidentally infected with the virus.

Speaking of, the virus is one of the film’s ongoing logical sore points. As a bio-weapon is makes no sense. Sure the snakes are bite crazy -- although that's only because of the quakes, since they escaped ten years ago and haven't been a problem since -- but once infected people quickly die. This keeps the virus from being transmitted to many other victims.  Moreover, in order to spread the infection there must be blood or saliva contact. Not exactly the most efficient transmittal mechanism. Finally, Treat comes up with an antidote within a few hours of capturing a snake and examining it’s milked venom. 

This last bit particularly is clearly rushed, because the movie is at the transition point from when the snakes are the menace to General Sharp’s assuming that role. See, through subterfuge he’s gotten authorization to eliminate the entire town. Needless to say, he not only fails at this but, in a rather poorly edited scene, ends up Being Ironically Destroyed by His Own Creations.

Another problem is Phoenician’s policy of cutting in disaster footage from other movies in order to make their films look more ‘epic.’ Here there’s the horribly obvious miniature work for the lab blowing up in the beginning of the movie. This one explosion sequence I’m sure I’ve seen more than once, and I’ve only seen a fraction of the company’s output. Then later there’re a couple of truly extraneous helicopter/car chase scenes with blatantly mismatched footage going into the hopper.

Also, what was with all the set-up of snakes being all the hell over the place in house of Christine’s sister and nephew? Yes, the woman does eventually get bit, but like two days after we see seemingly dozens of rattlers hiding behind every door.

Another reason to rent the film, if you’re the kind that rents stuff like this, is that Ray provides a nicely genial commentary track. I especially like the fact that he himself keeps pointing out various boners, like a raging gun battle that somehow fails to break the huge window directly behind two of the participants. He knows we’re not taking the film much more seriously than he is, and just kind of chats to us. There are also some nice tidbits on the pleasures and perils of directing low-budget films.

Summary: If you’re a compulsive killer snake movie watcher, as I am, here’s one you can at least watch without tearing out your eyeballs. And, yes, King Cobra, I’m talking about you.

-by Ken Begg