Not content to let Italian producer Dino De Laurentiis corner the entire giant-monster market with 1976’s King Kong, his fellow countrymen ripped off his blockbuster with, among other titles, Yeti: Giant of the 20th Century, directed by Gianfranco Parolini (aka Frank Kramer, helmer of the Sabata trilogy). But really, the two films are vastly different; in Yeti, the big guy climbs down a skyscraper. See? Nothing alike!
A giant of a different sort, the rotund captain of industry Morgan Hunnicut (Plot of Fear‘s Edoardo Faieta, aka Eddie Faye), calls upon an old friend, the professor Henry Wassermann (John Stacy, The Headless Ghost), to assist in a “humane expedition” in Northern Canada. (Despite always wearing a cap swiped from one of Santa’s elves, Wassermann enjoys great credibility in the field.)
This expedition involves the thawing and subsequent reanimation of an ancient abominable snowman encased in ice, discovered by Hunnicut’s grade-school grandson, Herbie (Jim Sullivan, the prototype for young Fred Savage), who has been mute ever since he lost his voice in a plane crash that claimed the lives of his parents. Under the prof’s supervision, Hunnicut’s team assaults the cryptozoological Popsicle with flamethrowers to reveal the body underneath, five times taller than you or I, and preserved in “a perfect state” for all these years. Just how many years wavers from scene to scene, from “millions” to “a billion” to “1 million,” with all estimates coming from the same source, and all running square in the face of the film’s 20th-century subtitle.
For some reason, the yeti (Mimmo Crao, Sergio Martino’s Sex with a Smile) has to be revived while within a TARDIS-like contraption hanging from chains to a helicopter in flight. This works, but down on the ground, the hirsute sasquatch gets freaked out by camera flashes, triggering the unavoidable rampage; before you know it, the blood of extras is on his hairy palms. He licks them.
Also unavoidable: He becomes smitten with Hunnicutt’s hot granddaughter, the teenaged Jane (Antonella Interlenghi, aka Phoenix Grant, Lucio Fulci’s City of the Living Dead), so he scoops her and little bro Herbie up and carries them to a private spot among nature. Along the way, Jane accidentally touches the yeti’s breast, which gets the creature so excited, his nipple inflates. The creature’s resulting grin is so wide, it looks as if he inhaled a hit of Smilex. Aroused or not, he resembles Dan Haggerty with mange (see Exhibit A).
Speaking of aroused, Jane becomes just that when the yeti combs her hair with a giant fish skeleton likely still wet from being stripped of stinky meat seconds earlier. One could argue that the public is aroused as well, once it hears of this Bigfoot’s existence; Hunnicut Enterprises enjoys doubled sales, thanks to full-fledged yeti mania through everything from yeti gasoline to ladies’ “Kiss Me Yeti” T-shirts, whose fronts are adorned with the monster’s handprints purposely at boob-grabbing level.
Because the yeti’s initial dealings with camera-snapping humans went so well (read: not), the greedy Hunnicut plots the publicity stunt to end all publicity stunts, evidently forgetting it also will end the lives of several innocent people. But, hey, a buck’s a buck! And Parolini and his fellow producers spent as few of those as possible, judging from nearly two hours of evidence. Replete with miniature models and what sounds like two songs on repeat, Giant is chintzia — pretty sure that’s Italian for “chintzy.” —Rod Lott