Yeti Giant of the 20th Century (1977)

Yeti Giant of the 20th Century is a Canadian-Italian co-production and it’s very very obviously a King Kong rip-off. That’s A-OK by me. I love Italian rip-offs of Hollywood blockbusters.

This time it’s not a giant ape on a remote island but a yeti frozen for a million years in the ice in northern Canada. Now I know what you’re thinking. That’s a long way from the Himalayas. But what if yetis were found across the whole globe at one time?

Billionaire tycoon Morgan Hunnicut (Edoardo Faieta) has funded the expedition to retrieve the yeti. His pal, palaeontologist Professor Wassermann (John Stacy), thinks the yeti can be revived. And he’s right!

Hunnicut’s teenaged granddaughter Jane (Antonella Interlenghi) and her kid brother are on hand when the yeti is brought back from the north. Jane thinks the yeti is really sweet. OK, he’s thirty feet tall but she’s sure he’s just as gentle and friendly as her puppy dog Indio.

The yeti really is friendly but he’s easily frightened and when he’s frightened he can cuse mass destruction.

Hunnicut’s plan is to use the yeti as a publicity stunt for his business empire. What he doesn’t know is that there is a traitor in his company, a guy actually working for a competitor that wants the yeti put out of the way.

Of course the bad guy manages to engineer a situation in which the yeti seems to have killed some people so soon the Canadian cops are hunting down the poor yeti.

Jane is determined to save her gentle gigantic snap-frozen friend. Much mayhem ensues.

So it’s all pretty close to the original King Kong.

This was clearly a low-budget effort but when Italians make a movie such as this you know that even if the special effects are cheap they’ll be fun. Italians in those days couldn’t make a dull movie if they tried.

There are some cool visual moments. The yeti locked in what looks like a giant red telephone box suspended from a helicopter is pretty cool.

Hunnicut isn’t really a villain. He wants to make money out of the yeti but he really does also want to help Professor Wassermann’s legitimate scientific research. And Hunnicut has no desire to see the yeti harmed. He has no desire to see anyone get hurt.

The acting in general is OK. There’s a nicely slimy villain.

Antonella Interlenghi as Jane is no Fay Wray (or Jessica Lange) but she’s likeable and cute.

I like Mimmo Crao as lot as the yeti. The makeup effects allow us to see his facial expressions and he does a fine job of conveying the yeti’s animal-like nature - a gentle timid creature but very easily spooked and inclined to lash out in fear. This movie needs a sympathetic monster and the yeti is very sympathetic indeed.

The major weakness is the lack of a really spectacular show-stopping visual set-piece.

The ending marks a significant departure from King Kong. It’s perhaps not entirely satisfactory but I think it works.

Yeti Giant of the 20th Century is sentimental but it’s good-natured and enjoyable and has some pleasing goofiness. This is a pure beer and popcorn movie. Recommended.

Yeti Giant of the 20th Century looks terrific on Blu-Ray.