The film follows the exploits of British scientist Dr. John Rollason who joins an American expedition, led by glory-seeker Tom Friend, to search the Himalayas for the legendary Yeti.

Dr. John Rollason, his wife, Helen, and their assistant Peter Fox, are guests of the Lama of the monastery of Rong-buk while on a botanical expedition to the Himalayas.

A second group, led by Tom Friend accompanied by trapper Ed Shelley, photographer Andrew McNee and Sherpa guide Kusang, arrives at the monastery to search for the legendary Yeti or Abominable Snowman.

Whereas Rollason is motivated by scientific curiosity to learn more about the creature, Friend seeks fame and fortune and wants to capture a live Yeti and present it to the world's press.

When a Yeti is seen up-close by Kusang, he cries that he has "Seen what man must not see..." and flees down the mountain at double-speed back to the monastery, from where Helen and Fox decide to mount a rescue mission.

Writer Nigel Kneale and television director/producer Rudolph Cartier had collaborated on several BBC dramas, including The Quatermass Experiment (1953) and Nineteen Eighty-Four (1954), an adaptation of the George Orwell novel.

[5] He was influenced by numerous reports of the Yeti that had appeared in the news at the time, including discoveries of footprints by explorer Eric Shipton in 1951 and by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay on the first complete ascent of Mount Everest in 1953.

[7] The play starred Stanley Baker as Tom Friend and Peter Cushing as John Rollason with Arnold Marlé as the Lama, Eric Pohlmann as trapper Pierre Brosset, Simon Lack as photographer Andrew McPhee and Wolfe Morris as Nima Kusang.

[9] Similarly, Philip Hope-Wallace of The Listener found it “a Boy's Fiction standard with a conversational cut and thrust to the dialogue which sounded as dry and powdery as the snows of the film inserts”.

[13] According to Kneale, Hammer wanted a title more literal than The Creature, which played on the ambiguity as to whether the real monster of the piece was the Yeti or its human pursuers, and settled on The Abominable Snowman.

[16] Kneale was able to modify the ending of the story by using the characters of Mrs Rollason and Peter Fox to develop a subplot in which they mount a rescue mission for the expedition.

[18] Although Kneale is the only credited screenwriter, Guest performed his own rewrite of the script in advance of the production, removing a lot of dialogue he felt to be unnecessary.

[7] For The Abominable Snowman, Lippert approached Forrest Tucker, who had previously appeared for Hammer in Break in the Circle (1954), also directed by Val Guest.

[19] The Abominable Snowman was the first of three horror films Tucker made in Britain around this time; the other two being The Strange World of Planet X (1958) and The Trollenberg Terror (1958).

[25] Most of the filming was done in the vicinity of the observatory at the summit of Pic du Midi de Bigorre, reached by cable car from La Mongie.

[27] Val Guest found it an unsatisfactory format to work in, which made getting in close to the actors difficult and required careful framing of scenes.

[7] The sets for the monastery were constructed at Bray by production designer Bernard Robinson, assisted by art director Ted Marshall and draughtsman Don Mingaye, and required detailed research in books and libraries.

[36] Matching the footage shot in the Pyrenees with the scenes filmed in Pinewood represented a major challenge for Guest and his editor Bill Lenny.

[37] It was Val Guest's view that the Yeti should be kept largely off-screen, bar a few glimpses of hands and arms, leaving the rest to the audience's imagination.

[39] The Abominable Snowman was released on 26 August 1957, with an 'A' Certificate from the British Board of Film Censors, as part of a double bill with Untamed Youth, starring Mamie Van Doren.

[43] Similarly, John Baxter felt that "in recreating a peak in the Himalayas, the set designer had more control over the film than the director, and despite some tense action the story drags".

"[47] In addition to standalone releases, the film can be found as part of the 3-DVD box set Superstars of Horror: Volume 1: Peter Cushing (Umbrella Entertainment, 2005).