The Giant Claw (1957) Even as he toiled in Columbia Studios' rock-bottom, bargain basement productions, genius special effects animator Ray Harryhausen still managed to work miracles..... in films like "It Came From Beneath The Sea" and "Earth Vs. The Flying Saucers".......
You could only imagine what one of these movies would look like without Harryhausen's creative brilliance and his incredible stop motion creations........
Oh.....wait a sec......you don't have to imagine. Here's what it would look like...."The Giant Claw".....
Grade Z producer Sam Katzman paid about a buck and a half to a puppet maker in Mexico to make this film's monster.......a squawking, eye bulging buzzard on strings, resembling one of Jim Henson's early attempts at Muppet monsters......
(And we should point out we're speaking here of Henson's Muppetry in its earliest appearances on TV variety shows....as a kind of weird stand-up comedy act in which his most grotesque creatures would usually end up devouring each other as a punchline......)
The ridiculous, laughable, battleship-sized vulture in "The Giant Claw" arrives from an anti-matter galaxy from beyond, equipped with a force field that renders it impervious to bullets, missiles and even radar tracking. Even worse news for us on earth, it's here to lay eggs and enjoy mid-air snacking on all the hapless suckers parachuting off the planes it destroys.
Hey, not to worry......it's the 1950's after all and our sturdy band of scientists and army generals band together to meet this awkwardly flapping threat before they all get flipped the bird, so to speak.....literally. (Naturally, this bunch includes Morris Ankrum as our favorite military honcho in charge of eradicating cheesy sci-fi monsters, no matter were they appear from....)
The gang's desperate attempts to concoct an anti-matter ray result in electronic flameouts similar to Val Kilmer's attempts to build a space laser in 'Real Genius'.....and time's a wastin' as this Big Bird (who'd never take crap from Ted Cruz) busies itself by smashing toy buildings and cute model trains (accompanied by destruction footage borrowed from "Earth Vs. The Flying Saucers")
And we ask you, how can not dearly love a monster who takes time off from its busy schedule of world devastation to swoop down and take out an entire carload of hot-rodding juvenile delinquents? No more shouting "Daddy-O" for these rebels without a cause........
We felt a pang of sorrow for Birdy as it inevitably sucked on a missile hit and took a dive into the Atlantic......even before that, it already had its freshly laid egg perforated with bullets by our heroes, but what the hell......screw it if it can't take a yolk.....
"The Giant Claw" remains a wonderful, still cherished time capsule of poverty-row 1950's cheeseball sci-fi and so silly that even back when pre-teen Baby Boomers watched it at Saturday matinees, everyone laughed their asses off at it.
Call us a gooey sentimentalist, but for the unintentional laugh out loud fun it still provides, 3 stars (***).
Just be thankful they didn't include a scene where the Claw drops the same kind of collateral damage as pigeons do on the sidewalk and your car windows.......
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