During the 1960s, the Italians proceeded to make impressive strides in their historic cinematic output. The old-master auteurs such as Fellini, Antonioni, De Sica, Visconti and Pasolini continued to put out quality product (to put it mildly, in the case of the first two), while up-and-comers such as Mario Bava and Sergio Leone helped to jump-start the nascent genres of Italian Gothic horror, the giallo film, and the so-called "spaghetti Western." The Italian comedies continued to flourish, as did the country's truly one-of-a-kind "sword and sandal" films. But there was one area in which the Italians, try as they might, just couldn't seem to make much of an impressive dent, it seems to me, and that was in the arena of sci-fi. Case in point: the 1967 film "The Snow Devils." Despite its ambitious story line, a top-tier actor in front of the camera and a respected director in charge of the production, the film, to my not-so-great surprise, fails to deliver in most departments. And yet, like all those inferior Italian sci-fi films of the period, cheesy as they are, this one remains good fun, somehow, nevertheless. My beloved "Psychotronic Encyclopedia," which usually has a high tolerance for this sort of dreckish fare, deems the film "very boring," but I somehow managed to be entertained by it. Certainly not anyone's idea of quality cinematic fare, the picture, cheesy as it is (I still have not decided whether it is more asiago, fontina or robiola in nature!), is yet one that you might comfortably settle down to watch with your favorite 8-year-old nephew sitting beside you. In the film, we learn that the weather station near Mt. Kangchenjunga, in the Himalayas, has somehow been destroyed, and all its inhabitants killed. Sent to investigate is granite-jawed hunky dude Rod Jackson (played by Giacomo Rossi-Stuart, who many will recall from Bava's classic film of the previous year, "Kill, Baby, Kill), commander of the orbiting Gamma 1 space station, which itself is part of the UDSCO (United Democracies Space Command). Along with his second in command, Capt. Frank Pulasky (Goffredo Unger, who both looks and functions here like Scott Grimes' Lt. Gordon Malloy character in the new and hilarious TV program "The Orville"), and Lisa Nielson, whose fiance had gone missing after the Kangchenjunga disaster (and played by the lovely Ombretta Colli, here, unfortunately, sporting a hairdo of singular atrociousness), as well as a good dozen mountain porters, Jackson treks to the region of the weather station, near which a "high-energy proton field" has been detected that is, alarmingly, altering the very climate of the Earth. The polar ice caps have started melting, followed by the inevitable worldwide flooding. Ultimately, the team discovers the cause of the disasters: Blue-skinned, white-furred aliens from the planet Aytia, whose century-long presence in the mountains has been the source of the local yeti legend, are changing the Earth's temperature to adapt it to their own uses! Jackson and Co. manage to wipe out the aliens' installation, only to later discover a more shocking truth: An entire outpost of the cyanotic-looking aliens has been established on the Jovian moon Callisto, from which they plan to continue their attacks on our planet! And so, Jackson and his allies suit up and blast off for Jupiter, to attempt one do-or-die battle in outer space.... "The Snow Devils" starts off promisingly, and I must say that its first half--especially the scenes in which we see our brave team hiking through the Himalayas--is fairly well done. The film's theme song, by composer Angelo Francesco Lavagnino, is also striking; almost like a cross between a spaghetti Western tune written by Ennio Morricone and some psychedelic rock effort. But the picture falters in its second half, and the special effects that are utilized to showcase our team in space are of a truly embarrassing nature; almost on an Ed Wood level of awfulness. Trust me, you will be howling at the meteor swarm that our heroes pass through, a swarm that looks like some sparklers thrown at the camera lens. Director Antonio Margheriti, who had previously impressed me via his Gothic horrors "Castle of Blood" and "The Long Hair of Death," both starring the great "Queen of Horror" Barbara Steele, and who had already helmed such sci-fi outings as "Battle of the Worlds," "War of the Planets" and "Wild Wild Planet," does his usual competent job here, but he is ultimately let down by the cheapjack nature of the production. Special FX surely are not everything in a motion picture endeavor, but when they are as laughably bad as these are here, they can unfortunately torpedo a viewer's suspension of disbelief. "The Snow Devils" is surely not the worst way to spend 90 minutes, but as I say, it is surely an exercise in cheese. The Italians, by the way, would do a LOT better a few years later, with their classic sci-fi outing "The Green Slime." That one is surely an exercise in camp and cheese as well, but at least the FX are better, and it also features the great Luciana Paluzzi, who is undoubtedly a special effect in her own right....

The legend of the Himalayas abominable snowman gets some verification in this Italian made science fiction film Snow Devils. Earth's climate is changing and there have been more sightings of the shy and legendary creatures than usual. Some other scientific phenomena have recorded from the 'Roof of the World' than normal.What to do but find out as earth's expedition goes to the world's highest mountains and finds some rather large hairy aliens who are directing some climate control equipment that are making the polar ice caps melt causing record flooding. When there's enough water out there, why we freeze things again making the climate just right for us snow dwellers from another solar system.After dealing with the Himalayan advance expedition, the same group of intrepid astronauts go into space to deal with the alien base which is located on Callisto one of Jupiter's moons. You got to see how they do it as the futuristic world is saved.I'm sure right now among climate change deniers there's a plan to market Snow Devils to a new generation as this says that any phenomena that scientists have recorded in this film is the real reason for climate change. This film is going over big in the EPA of the Trump Administration.I've sometimes wondered, but never for very long whether if one is fluent in Italian whether these films might make more sense in the original language. I kind of doubt it though.The subject has been better dealt with in much better films.

Antonio Margheriti's THE SNOW DEVILS was probably the first of his GAMMA ONE QUADROLIGY films to be made though the last released in English and remains the most unique of the four movies ... though it may not necessarily be the most impressive of the efforts. My favorite is PLANET ON THE PROWL (or WAR BETWEEN THE PLANETS), with its emphasis on military jargon and space action. SNOW DEVILS is for the most part an Earth-bound adventure but is another example of Margheriti's fascination with hostilities existing not so much between the races inhabiting the cosmos, but battles between the actual stellar bodies themselves.Some of the GAMMA ONE films are amongst the best pre-"2001: A Space Odyssey" science fiction from the 1960s but all are essentially potboilers with ready-made elements that are reused from film to film in the same way that Spaghetti Westerns were made. In spite of the release dates assigned by the IMDb (no offense!) the films were all made *simultaneously* in 1964 using the same sets, stock casts, musical cues, technical crew and basic story premise ideas. This has resulted in some confusion not only of the dates of execution/release, but in precisely which order they should be viewed when considered as a "series". After all, any story arc needs a beginning and an ending, you can't have four narrative arcs in a single story line existing simultaneously simply because it's impractical to watch four movies at the same time. You'd need four TV sets either stacked up 2 on top of each other or arranged around you in a square, with the viewer seated in a revolving chair. The question would then be which screen do you look at for any given moment? which aptly illustrates the absurdity of the idea.So where in the series do you start? My answer is with THE SNOW DEVILS, since it is the most unique of the four examples that exist in English (the other three being PLANET ON THE PROWL, WILD WILD PLANET and THE DEADLY DIAFONOIDS, amongst other alternate titles for each of them). My thesis on why begins with the look of the film: It does not have the polished sheen of the other three films and is literally the most "down to earth" and thusly lowest budgeted of the three. It's musical score by Angelo Francesco Lavagnino (who provided the scores for all four films) is the most unique & memorable: The scores for the other three films are more interchangeable and in fact recycled from movie to movie, though the energetic theme for SNOW DEVILS is only heard in SNOW DEVILS. We never hear that memorable refrain again in any of the three other movies, though some of the more incidental musical fills do pop up again (as well as the proto-Loungey pop song used during a lighter moment at a summer resort during the beginning of the film).The space technology props are also more spare & "klunky" looking, picking up what may have been left over from 1962's BATTLE OF THE WORLDS and suggesting that Margheriti's skills in production design evolved as the series progressed (with PLANET ON THE PROWL being the most "realistic" looking, the goofy spacewalk scenes notwithstanding). SNOW DEVILS also has somewhat different costuming than the later efforts, suggesting to me at least that Margheriti's wardrobe department copped whatever pre-existing costumes they could get their hands on that looked futuristic, resulting in a kind of mismatched hodgepodge where the other three films are more unified in how the characters dressed. Star Giacomo Rossi Stuart's hair also changes between SNOW DEVILS and PLANET ON THE PROWL (he does not appear in the other 2 films). Here he is more of a coiffed blond though by PROWL it got darker & redder and had a more military look to the styling. Here he looks like he just wandered onto the set from romantic comedy where his hair was dyed blond. His Commander Rod Jackson is also somewhat less gruff & formal than in PROWL, where his barking of orders & dressing down of pretty female subordinate officers is one of the film's guilty pleasures. Jack Stuart would have made a fantastic air force officer.One other aspect of the film that suggests to me that it was the first one executed is that of all the four GAMMA ONE movies, this is the one to which time has been the least kind. The Snow Devil monsters themselves come off as somewhat less than intimidating, the set design has more in common with classic Flash Gordon than Stanley Kubrick, and the emphasis on Earth bound set & location work makes the film feel more like a throwback to the 1950s than a vision of things to come. But since there is no specific documentation of just which order Margheriti himself had in mind when making them any such conjecture is mere speculation. I've asked his son, producer/director Edoardo Margheriti, for advice on this and his own reply was somewhat ambiguous, confirming that all four were made at the same time but that there is no specific order in which they are to be viewed since they all had different release dates in different regions or as different language versions. Just because this one was released later than the others does not mean it was finished last, nor does this mean that the others were completed after it. And since they were essentially disposable B-grade movies usually shown on a double bill with something else like it the release schedule was arbitrary based on the needs of the distributors.Confused? GOOD. I have been puzzling over this conundrum of which order in which to view the GAMMA ONE films for about four years now and am delighted to pass the brain-twister on. Figure this one out with a formula proof to back it up and I will buy you an orange.7/10

The budgets of WILD WILD PLANET(1965) and WAR OF THE PLANETS(1966) ran out in this follow up to those films, using props and situations created in them. This one is earthbound and lacks the terrificly gaudy miniature future-scapes of the last two outings. And lacks the stars(Tony Russel, who actually has screen *presence* in the previous two).Has a terrific opening score that playable several times, but the whole thing seems terribly set-bound, and small sets at that. But overall recalls to us a time of film-making long gone.Fun stuff.