Angriff der Riesenkralle

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.

People always blast this movie and in some ways that is justified; I mean the monster does look like Sesame Street's "big Bird" on acid, but let's face it, the fact that it is laughable is not the fault of director Fred F. Sears (who had also done the very effective EARTH VS. THE FLYING SAUCERS and THE WEREWOLF). Nor can we blame it on the cast who do their jobs very well. Sam Katzman was an old hand at saving money even if he had to sacrifice quality so he had the special effects done in Mexico after the principal photography was done. Maybe someone south-of-the-border thought the giant bird-beast really was scary. I guess we will never know for sure. You have to love the dialogue. Robert Shayne's line "It's just a bird, a big bird. Enough firepower to wipe out a regiment can't even slow it down! Sure, it's just a bird." or Jeff Morrow's: "I don't care if that bird came from outer space or Upper Saddle River, NJ." and you can't forget the classic: "You keep your shirt on and I'll get my pants on." They just don't write gems like that anymore. Oh, has anyone else noticed that there is a character in this film named "Dr. Karol Noymann"? The same name was used for John Carradine's character in the 1959 film INVISIBLE INVADERS. Coincidence?

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"

Better written than "The Night the World Exploded," "Creature With the Atom Brain," Twelve to the Moon," "The Deadly Mantis," "Beginning of the End, "The Black Scorpion" and "Fiend Without a Face;" better paced than any of those, plus "Kronos," "Spacemaster X-7," "Rodan" and "The H Man"; at least as well directed (by Fred Sears) as "Earth vs. the Flying Saucers," this movie gets most of its pans due to a ludicrous monster and some supporting actors better befitting a "Three Stooges" short. However, even the monster is better than pretty much anything Japan produced after its 50s "Golden Era". Besides, you pretty much cannot go wrong with Jeff Morrow and Mara Corday.

I wish the movie had included the occult legend of a "Stargate" at each of the poles. That would certainly explain how a creature could pass from an "anti-matter galaxy" and ours. Nonetheless, this scientific mumbo jumbo is far more convincing than the "Element 112" nonsense of "Night the World Exploded." Thanks to Morrow, Corday, Morris Ankrum and Fred Sears expert direction, ludicrous monster or not, the movie actually generates some fairly good suspense. I give "The Giant Claw" a "5".

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.