Snowbeast (1977)

          Bigfoot was so ubiquitous in mid-’70s pop culture, you can’t blame the guy for wanting to take a vacation. So instead of thumping around the forests of the Pacific Northwest, as he did in countless movies and TV shows during this period, the Artist Sometimes Known as Sasquatch spends Snowbeast chilling at a ski resort. Made for TV and running a brisk 86 minutes, this low-budget thriller boasts a coherent script by Joseph Stefano (who, in better times, wrote Psycho for Alfred Hitchcock), and features a handful of competent actors who keep things lively. Robert Logan, star of the Wilderness Family movies, plays Tony, the manager of a Colorado ski resort owned by his tough grandmother, Carrie (Sylvia Sidney). When a terrified skier reports an attack by a mysterious creature on a ski slope, Carrie (in true Jaws rip-off fashion) demands the incident be kept quiet so panic doesn’t derail the resort’s upcoming winter carnival. Tony starts to investigate the attack, but he’s distracted by the arrival of one-time Olympic skiing champ Gar (Bo Svenson) and Gar’s wife, investigative reporter Ellen (Yvette Mimieux). Cue the psychodrama!

          It turns out Tony once dated Ellen, and Gar has been gun-shy about skiing since his Olympic success. So, in addition to the usual business of a monster attack every 10 minutes or so and semi-suspenseful scenes of Our Heroes snowmobiling around the woods and looking for Bigfoot, Snowbeast features the type of contrived character interplay one usually finds in Irwin Allen disaster movies. The sheer number or events in Stefano’s script sorta makes up for the film’s lack of genuine terror, and even though Snowbeastfeels padded—a sequence of Mimieux snooping around the woods goes on far too long—Snowbeast basically delivers the B-movie goods by introducing archetypal characters and then keeping the audience guessing about who will survive. The monster stuff is disappointing, of course, but director Herb Wallerstein wisely limits our glimpses of the titular critter to flashes of claws and feet, plus one or two split-second peeks at the creature’s hairy face. This is cheesy stuff, without question, but by the low standards of ’70s Bigfoot cinema, Snowbeast is fairly entertaining.

Snowbeast: FUNKY

The Magician (1973)

          In between his longer-running series The Courtship of Eddie’s Father and The Incredible Hulk, beloved TV star Bill Bixby spent one season playing an illusionist who dabbles as a philanthropic detective, using his unique skills to help innocent people out of tricky situations. Although the series didn’t last very long, it engendered a loyal fan base because of its comic-book style, and, indeed, the series’ feature-length pilot plays out like a superhero story. While performing his magic show one night in a big-city hotel ballroom, Anthony Dorian (Bixby) notices a distraught woman in the audience. Then, when a mystery man staggers to her table and dies, Tony offers assistance. It turns out the woman, Nora Cougan (Kim Hunter), is upset because she can’t confirm whether her daughter died in a recent plane accident.

          Jazzed by the chance to solve a mystery, Tony stashes Nora at the home of his super-rich friend Max Pomeroy (Keene Curtis), and then embarks on a search for clues. Although penned by no less a figure than Joseph Stefano, the screenwriter of Psycho(1960), the pilot’s narrative gets murky pretty quickly, so after a while it’s hard to remember exactly what Tony’s looking for and/or why violent people seem so determined to stand in his way. (There’s a bomb, a conspiracy, a kidnapped girl, and so forth.) This being a TV pilot, however, the storyline is less important than establishing a vibe. Bixby portrays the lead character as a suave type who’s always ready with a slick magic trick or a smooth line, so his performance is appealing; furthermore, Bixby mimics sleight of hand with polished flair since he was a lifelong amateur illusionist.

          However, even though the movie’s requisite gimmicks are fun (Tony lives aboard a customized jet and drives a bitchin’ white Porsche), the supporting characters are woefully underdeveloped. Still, director Marvin Chomsky, who helmed numerous episodes of the comic-book-styled ’60s adventure show The Wild Wild West, keeps things brisk, and the cast features reliable players including Elizabeth Ashley and Barry Sullivan. Completing the package, the pilot movie introduces the series’ jazzy credits sequence, which blends animated transitions with live-action clips. This is slight stuff, but it’s easy to see why NBC thought fans would tune in for more week after week. (FYI, the lead character’s surname was changed from “Dorian” to “Blake” once the series got going.)

The Magician: FUNKY