The Giant Claw

This movie is literally the funniest, most absurd movie I have ever seen, and that includes "Plan 9 from Outer Space". The monster, the amazing flying puppet is not to be believed unless you see it for yourself. My favorite scene is when Mara Corday and Jeff Morrow see the bird (can it even be called a bird?) for the first time in the slide show. Ms. Corday gasps in horror at the closeup of the bird's ridiculous beak....God she was probably gasping at the thought of what could happen to her career when this turkey was released in theaters... I know the producers were trying to save money on the special effects but dear God, I believe first grader's could've made a more scary, realistic looking creature. But don't let these comments keep you from seeing and loving this movie, I have it on video and whenever I need a good laugh and lift my spirits I put in "The Giant Claw" and for some unknown reason my gloom is lifted and all is right with the world.

One of the finest and campiest science fiction films of the Fifties was The Giant Claw. For once a monster's existence is not based on atomic radiation.

I have a soft spot for The Giant Claw, the claw in fact belonged to a space buzzard. Now how this big bird (and he looked something like Big Bird from Sesame Street) flew through airless space to nest here on earth is not explained, but it has arrived and the bird's here to lay some eggs. It picks a spot up in the Canadian northwest to do so.

But flying at supersonic speeds the whole planet is a feeding ground for it. And mankind can't get at it because it has an invisible anti-matter shield. Anything we shoot at it just bounces off and doesn't touch it. Of course the bird drops it shield long enough to ingest its meal which could be as much as a whole airplane in one gulp. The space buzzard's got the appetite of a buzzard and the feedings habits of same.

It's up to scientists Jeff Morrow and Mara Corday to bring the big guy down and of course they do since we're all still here. But it's how they do it that's the story.

This particular monster is one of the funniest ever put on the big screen. Anyone over the age of seven will laugh themselves silly looking at Big Bird. But that's the film's charm.

Yet another of those decidedly creaky but fun Z - Grade sci fi flicks from the golden days of late night television.

In one of the Pentagon scenes military chief Robert Shayne sums up the seriousness of the situation when he glumly informs Jeff Morrow and Mara Corday that , after attacking the creature with guns, rockets and cannons, it seems that nothing can stop it. Unfortunately, all the concern would simply trigger peels of laughter from viewers who already know that the "monster" looks like a really bad kid's puppet. I mean, like man , that's got to be the most grisly looking buzzard in the entire history of ornithology.

But, after being hit repeatedly by several ballistic missiles and showing no signs of slowing down, the creature does, indeed, appear to be unstoppable.

Eventually, Jeff and Mara decide to climb aboard a DC 3 prop plane which has some sort of unspecified, experimental gun poking out the back of it. Apparently the idea is to squirt puffs of talcum powder in the pot boiler's face in the hope of blinding it and forcing it to crash land into the North Atlantic. And guess what ..... the whole crazy scheme WORKS!

Sure enough the buzzard cops a blast right in the baby blues, goes into a nose dive and takes a dramatic plunge into Neptune's Garden. OK, so what if the final impact does look suspiciously like a pile of garden rubbish being chucked into a tank of water by someone who was standing just off camera. Even the most world weary monster chasers couldn't help but to feel just a touch sad as we watch the brave bird slowly disappear beneath the waves, Titanic style.

Of course, it probably deserved it when you think about all those model cars that it destroyed and all those papier-mache buildings that it sent crashing to the floor of the Columbia Studios.

In terms of its production values, "The Giant Claw" makes "Mothra" look like "Gone with the Wind"

From the has-to-be-seen-to-be-believed school. A giant bird from space descends on earth, snatching up entire trains, hot rodding teenagers, and overacting bit players. Toss in terrible effects, hammy acting and science of the Ed Wood school and you have a surefire winner for any bad film fest. Then there is the bird itself, which comes complete with flareing nostrils.......

I'm really getting tired of people "dissing" this film by apparently taking the attitude that all films have to mimic "Citizen Kane" in order to be worthy of enjoying! Sure, the "science" in the film is decidedly unscientific, and the monster DOES look like Beaky Buzzard from a Warner Brothers' cartoon, but, so what? The film is enjoyable for what it IS: just a fun-to-watch, schlocky "sci-fi" film of the fifties--with acting that is NOT "amateurish" (as another reviewer noted)--with the additional benefit (to us guys, at least) of having one heck of a sexy-looking heroine (Mara Corday).

Lighten up, and ENJOY.