The Abominable Snowman (and farewell Commander USA)

Commander USA was a man of his times

The host: Commander USA:

When the FCC opened up the UHF band to television in the 1960s, the potential channels in a given market went from 14 to over 80! Now in practical terms that usually meant three broadcast networks were supplemented by a PBS station or two and a few low-budget local operations in most markets, but that still more than doubled the amount of broadcast hours, which in turn resulted in the doors being flung open for any oddball with a dream to host their own TV show. Amongst the talk shows and cooking programs was a wave of horror movie hosts like Svengoolie, and Ghoulardi.

The trend died out after several years, but then in the 1980s with the explosion of cable television, the number of channels expanded into the hundreds, and suddenly a second wave of campy B-movie hosts and shows, some of which survive to this day (Elvira, Mystery Science Theater 3000, etc.), while others are almost forgotten. 

One of the hosts from this era was Commander USA, host of Commander USA's Groovie Movies and unofficial mascot of the USA cable channel. Commander USA (real name Jim Hendricks) was a superhero that entered the room smoking a cigar and hanging up a trench coat before introducing B-movies, kind of like a cross between Mr. Rogers, Space Ghost, and Columbo. If Hendricks came off more like a NYC taxi driver than a superhero, that's because driving a cab was his day job.

While some of Commander USA's contemporaries like Joe Bob Briggs, and fellow USA alum Rhonda Shear had some more success (possibly due to appearing in primetime instead of weekend afternoons like Hendricks), the show was surprisingly long-lived, airing more than 200 episodes in its five seasons. But aside from the mandatory appearance on Law & Order: SVU (of course), Hendricks pretty much went back to being a New York cabbie after the show was canceled in 1989, having outlasted most of the other horror movie hosts, and even USA's venerable Night Flight. And hat pretty much closed the book on the horror hosts of the 1980s.

Jim Hendricks passed away in March of 2018.

The Film: The Abominable Snowman of the Himalayas

The Abominable Snowman poster

While shows like TNT's Monstervision, and USA's Night Flight, Up All Night, and Commander USA's Groovie Movies were great in that, in most cases they were the only way to find these obscure sci-fi, fantasy, and horror films deemed too niche for the Blockbuster video shelves, they were usually not the best presentations of the features - just the only accessible ones. By necessity there's commercial interruptions - why else would we need a horror host to tell us to stay tuned? But there was often little thought given to print quality, nearly everything was in pan-and-scan, and still you got distorted aspect ratios.

Which brings us to the 1957 Hammer horror film, The Abominable Snowman. Bearing a striking resemblance to the 1955 Japanese film Ju jin yuki otoko (Half Human), it was made between The Curse of Frankenstein and Dracula, when Hammer was at the top of its game. The impressive sets, and lavish use of the widescreen "Hammerscope" process to capture the grand vistas of the Pyrennees (substituting for he Himalayas) was completely lost on TV.

I'd highly encourage you to seek out a quality letterboxed version of this film, and here's why:

The Good:

• Peter Cushing in his first (of more than 20) Hammer films
• Best film to come out of the Yeti craze of the 1950s (yes, there was a Yeti craze)
• The aforementioned cinematography of the Pyrennees Mountains

The Bad:

• The science starts out good but gets a little too pseudoscience-ey in the second half
• Slow pacing in the beginning
• Maureen Connell in a parka is as close as we get to a Hammer babe this time

Stuff to watch for:

• Anthony Chinn (Mohan from Raiders of the Lost Ark) in a small part

The Verdict: *** of *****