The Giant Claw

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"

"The Giant Claw" is an adorably horrible monster movie featuring a silly plot, inept script, pedestrian acting, and the most endearingly ridiculous monster ever to threaten mankind. Stories abound about disappearing budgets, Mexican puppet makers, Jeff Morrow slinking out of the theatre when he first saw his feathered antagonist, etc., all of which elevate the movie to the rarified status of one of the "Worst Movies Ever". This is, of course, nonsense, as most people would not bother to finish the "Worst Movie Ever"; whereas, people watch "The Giant Claw" (and its ilk) over and over again. I'd bet in 50 years people will still be snickering over the anti-matter space buzzard when, for example, "Star Trek: Beyond" doesn't even make it into trivia contests. How do you rate a movie that is awful by any measure but yet makes the world a better, or at least a more whimsical, place simply by existing? Metaphorically, HAL would give it a 0, Dave would give it a 10, so I'll split the difference and give it a 5.

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".

What a hoot!!!! This film tops them all......and the 50's had some real "winners" in the genre. And like all that went before and after, this will win your heart. Knowing that computer generated effects and advanced use of the blue screen were things yet to come, we usually have to bite the bullet and figure they did the best they could with what they had. BUT, in this case, they really hit bottom with the monster bird. It has to be the worst of all.....it's a damn wooden puppet on strings that bobs around like Big Bird on a binge......pretty pitiful. Jeff Morrow probably wanted to commit suicide or die of terminal embarrasment after seeing this film in its finished state. And the lovely Mara Corday, who was always stuck in the lower echelon of film making, had to count this as a low point in her career. She deserved better. And of course Morris Ankrum never learned....he just kept plugging away in "B" films and became on of the most famous faces seen in supporting roles. Now, after saying all those negative things, I can honestly say that I love this movie....it is so outrageous that you are just sucked in, forever becoming a fanatic of low budget, 50's horror/science fiction films. Yes, it is really bad, really bad.....but somehow you can't quit watching. Have fun with it!!!!!

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.