The Giant Claw (1957)(Columbia Pictures)

Written By: Ken Hulsey

With Thanksgiving Day upon us, I decided to serve up a little cinematic turkey of my own. I would be willing to bet that no one reading this could find a better "turkey", than Fred Sears 1957 dud entitled, "The Giant Claw."

Over the decades "Claw" has reached a unique place in cinematic lore, thanks in most part to its laughable monster. A monster so ridiculous looking that it never once appeared in any advertising for the film. A monster so lame that even the movies cast never saw the design during filming. A monster so goofy looking that the audience broke out in laughter every time it appeared on screen.

A monster so cheesy, that Ed Wood must have stayed awake at night, wishing he had thought of it first.

Yes, boys and girls, the monster in this film is a puppet. I know that throughout the history of monster films, puppets have been used very effectively as a cheap alternative to expensive, and time consuming, stop-motion models. Two examples of this are, "The Land That Time Forgot, and the early, "Godzilla" movies. This puppet, however, was not of that quality. This was actually a marionette that looked like it belonged in a "Punch and Judy" show at a carnival.

Nuff said.....

The actual movie itself, isn't too terrible. It is probably no worse than any of the other giant monster flicks that were churned out at the time, including, "Black Scorpion", "The Deadly Mantis" and "The Monster That Challenged The World." The only problem is there is no way to get around the monster. It is so distractingly bad that after you see the film, you can't remember anything else about it.

Honestly, you watch the movie and see if I'm not right?

I used to see this film all the time when I was young on an afternoon movie program that aired in Albuquerque, New Mexico, called "Dialing for Dollars." The film was usually aired during a week of programing that featured other campy monster films, like "Attack of the Crab Monsters" and "Green Slime." Once and a while the film would be mixed in during a week of Japanese monster films, even though it is an American film. I have fond memories of "The Giant Claw", even though it is a real stinker. I suppose the film had something to do with nurturing my love of "less than stellar" movies.

Plot:

Mitch MacAfee (Jeff Morrow), while engaged in a radar test flight, spots an unidentified flying object. Jets are scrambled to pursue and identify the object but one goes missing. Officials are initially angry at MacAfee but are forced to take his story seriously after several other planes disappear. A gigantic bird, purported to come from an antimatter galaxy, is responsible for all the incidents. Mitch, along with his mathematician girlfriend Sally Caldwell (Mara Corday), Dr. Karol Noymann (Edgar Barrier), and generals Considine (Morris Ankrum) and Van Buskirk (Robert Shane), works feverishly to develop a way to defeat the seemingly invincible enemy. The climactic showdown takes place in New York City, with the bird attacking both the Empire State and United Nations buildings.

History:

The Giant Claw is a 1957 sci-fi film about a giant bird ("It's as big as a battleship!") that terrorizes the world. Produced by Clover Productions under the working title 'Mark of the Claw' and released through Columbia Pictures, it starred Jeff Morrow and Mara Corday, and was directed by Fred F. Sears. The film has been a staple of the bootleg video market with only two official VHS releases (one in the USA through Goodtimes Home Video and the other through Screamtime in the United Kingdom) to date, Columbia Pictures finally released the film officially to DVD in October of 2007 as part of the two disc four film set Icons of Horror Collection

Trivia:

Jeff Morrow confessed in an interview that no one in the film knew what the titular monster looked like until the film's premiere. Morrow himself first saw the film in his hometown and, hearing the audience laugh every time the monster appeared on screen, left the theater early, embarrassed that anyone there might recognize him.

A character in the film mistakes the bird for La Cargagne which is, in fact, an actual monster from French Canadian folklore that resembles a giant woman with a wolf's head and bat-like black wings and which, like the Banshee, is a harbinger of death.