If ever a movie became a joke just because of its monster, this is the one. A worthy nemesis would have raised this into a much higher ranking (and probable obscurity).
Tagline: “Flying Beast Out of Prehistoric Skies!” [Where they got the prehistoric part, I don’t know]
WTF Factor: **** [The bird design gets two stars on its own.]
Notable Quote: Repeat after me: “…as big as a battleship!”
Synopsis: The titles run with a giant claw in the background, not really hinting at the atrocity of the owner. A typical 50’s narrator expositions human advancements in defense of freedom. We focus in on a team at a military installation calibrating a new radar system. Mitch MacAfee (Jeff Morrow), a civilian electrical engineer, is piloting the test flight.
Mitch divebombs the test facility, to the annoyance of Sally Caldwell (Mara Corday), the project mathematician.
Then Mitch see a fuzzy UFO, “big as a battleship,” on the test flight. Nothing shows up on radar and no one believes Mitch, until two planes disappear in the area.
Mitch and Sally fly to New York, but their [toy] plane crashes after a UFO attack, killing the pilot (although no one checks very closely). Sally and Mitch are saved by French-Canadian Pierre Broussard (Louis D. Merrill), who has ze outrageous ak-sent.
Sally: “Flying battleship, pink elephant, same difference. You should really should try buttermilk instead.”
Mitch: “I said it looked like a battleship, not that it was a battleship.”
The military saw nothing on the radar again, so they aren’t taking things very seriously, annoying the heck out of Mitch.
Something flies overhead, scaring the farm animals and Pierre. Pierre believes it to be the legendary La Carcagne [a herald of death, appearing as a gigantic woman with a wolf’s head and batwings]. A car arrives to take Mitch and Sally to the airport and we see a giant claw print in Pierre’s field as Sally and Mitch leave for their New York flight.
In a charming interlude, Mitch sexually assaults [well, kisses] a sleeping Sally on the plane. This being the ‘50’s, she then flirts with him in what passes for clever banter. Mitch figures out that the UFO is flying in a spiral pattern outward from where it was first sighted. Sally is skeptical.
The next day a CAB [Civil Aeronautics Board] investigating plane is attacked by a big, scrawny bird marionette, who eats the parachuting passengers.
In a military meeting, Sally remembers that nearby weather balloons are equipped with cameras – what a break! This gets us some sad/hilarious closeup pictures of the bird.
Everyone heads to Washington.
Mitch:“There’s no scientific or any other kind of reason in the world why our radars don’t track it. They just don’t.”
Lt. General Ed Considine (Morris Ankrum) is in charge of the project. He orders military planes to attack the bird with everything they’ve got. Unfortunately the bird doesn’t care, so on to Phase 2. Mitch suggests “atomic spitballs,” which is exactly what Phase 2 is designed for. A scientist spews technobabble about anti-matter; big bird is not from Earth (gasp!). It exudes some sort of anti-matter screen that protects it and allows it to escape radar detection [so much for no explanation].
Meanwhile, the bird is now terrorizing the entire world.
Mitch is working frantically to find a way to destroy the bird, with Sally’s help. Sally figures out that the bird has come to nest, somewhere near Pierre’s farm. Meanwhile the bird is attacking folks on the ground, since there aren’t any planes to eat, and the entire world has declared some form of martial law.
Mitch and Sally find the bird’s nest on Pierre’s farm, and when the bird returns and lays an egg, Mitch and Sally (“I’m from Montana!”) shoot and destroy the egg.
Ms. Bird is not pleased and eats Pierre, then a bunch of teenagers in a hot rod [which visibly dangles on a wire when the bird drops it].
Mitch and Sally devise a weapon and Mitch gives the general some technobabble about mu mesons and mesic atoms. While they work unsuccessfully on the weapon, Ms. Bird carries off a toy train like a string of sausages.
Mitch finally comes up with a working model. While he rigs up a plane, Ms. Bird perches on the Empire State Building, which is unfortunately made of papier-mâché and crumbles.
She then smashes a few more buildings and eats the U.N. headquarters. The plane distracts the bird and deploys their weapon, with the plane farting mesic atoms. Now the bird is vulnerable to regular weapons, the military steps in, and the bird carcass slowly sinks into the ocean.
Thoughts: What can you say about one of the biggest joke science fiction/horror movies of the Fifties? When one thinks of silly monsters, The Giant Claw is near the top of the list. Think scraggly teeth, flaring nostrils (?!), an accordioned ostrich neck, and a mohawk.
Seriously, look at this thing. The head shots really capture its charm. I don’t know how MST3K missed this one.
What one can say in all fairness is that the movie is not nearly as bad as the monster. It has a relatively strong cast and moves along smoothly. The mood of the movie is dead serious, which makes the ludicrous monster more hilarious. According to the actors, they did not know what the effects would be like as they reacted to them, and they were told that the monster would be terrifying. The actors did not know what the bird looked like until the movie premiere. Imagine their embarrassment.
To be fair, the actors weren’t being obtusely naïve. They were told that a good chunk of the film’s budget was reserved for the special effects. Producer Sam Katzman’s Clover Productions was responsible (at some level, at least) for a couple of the decade’s better science fiction/horror films, including Earth vs. the Flying Saucers (1955; also directed by Fred F. Sears) and It Came From Beneath the Sea (1955). In both cases, the special effects were headed by Ray Harryhausen, with state-of-the-art stop motion animation. Supposedly Harryhausen passed on doing the effects for The Giant Claw, although the intended effects could not possibly have been achieved with the actual budget.
Notable Credit:
- Technical Effects Created by Ralph Hammeras and George Teague
These individuals must have sinned greatly in a former life, because whatever their contribution to the effects, it almost certainly did not extend to the monster itself. The bulk of the effects were farmed out to a nameless Mexican studio, from whence a monster legend was born. No level of technical skill could have been adequate to counteract the laughable creature design.
Imagine an alternate universe where the monster was indeed frightening and the effects were competent. Ironically enough, the movie would probably rest in obscurity (unless Ray Harryhausen had indeed done the effects). Let’s face it; this movie is infamous for its hilarious monster.
It’s hard to call yourself a Fifties science fiction/horror fan and not have seen The Giant Claw. The monster design holds up across generations. Enjoy!
Quick bits:
- Astoundingly, the bird puppet features front-and-center in the movie trailer.
- A few brief Harryhausen effects crept in while the cities were being destroyed.
- Fred F. Sears died later in 1957 from a heart attack at the age of 44, having directed more than fifty movies over a twelve year directing career.
Suggested double feature: The Giant Gila Monster (1959), which makes this one look like Shakespeare (but isn’t bad-funny).
Tagline for Coming Attraction: “She had no one to play with for thirty years.”
