The Giant Claw

Story

At a military station near the North Pole, Sally Caldwell (Mara Corday) is doing mathematical calculations where jet pilot Mitch MacAfee is cruising at 10,000 feet, and the entire team is ready to recalculate the station’s radar system. Suddenly, Mitch sees a giant blur race past his plane, which he labels a UFO. But only Mitch’s plane shows up on radar. Turning the plane around, the blurred object passes him again, “As big as a battleship.” Soon, a multitude of planes are ordered into the sky near Mitch.

Back on Earth, Mitch asks Major Bergen (Clark Howat) if they discovered the object, but Bergen threatens to have him thrown off base. Radar illustrated nothing but Mitch’s plane, and Bergen accuses Mitch of lying about the UFO. Bergen states that one of the search planes never came back. Bergen then receives a distress call from a transporter airline plane carrying 60 passengers that is now missing. Before the radio went dead, the pilot reported seeing a UFO. And once again the radar screens showed nothing.

Mitch and Sally are flying back home during a storm in nasty weather. The pilot, Pete (Frank Griffin), asks permission to fly from 8,000 feet to 12,000 feet to get above the rough weather. Flying higher, the pilot Pete soon sees a giant blur pass him by. Soon, the plane lurches and jerks, and one engine stalls after catching on fire. The plane suddenly falls and crash-lands on Canadian soil. Pete is seriously injured, and they grab him, the important papers, and exit the flaming plane. A local, Pierre (Louis Merrill), takes Pete, Mitch, and Sally to his home, and an ambulance arrives to transport Pete to a hospital. Soon, the animals sound restless; Pierre investigates, and shortly thereafter, screams. With Pierre injured, lying on the ground, Mitch and Sally carry him inside as the thunderstorm rages. Pierre raves that he saw a devil with wings, a giant bird that predicts one’s immediate death. As Mitch and Sally are escorted to the airport, a giant claw mark is embedded in the field behind the house.

Aboard the plane flying home, Mitch uses a map to provide the pattern the UFO is using in its attacks/sightings. Meanwhile, a military plane approaches the spot where Mitch crashed-landed when the giant battleship passes the investigative plane. For the first time, squawking bird sounds are heard. The crew inside observes as a giant bird circles the plane, ready to attack. The four crewmembers abandon ship wearing parachutes, and one member is targeted and eaten by the bird with a hearty crunch. Later, a crew of military men requests that Mitch see General Van Buskirk (Robert Shayne) immediately. Meeting with Buskirk, Mitch reports all that he knows. Mitch, Buskirk, and others view slides of photos taken by a pilot and see the bird as big as a battle. The photos are shown to General Considine (Morris Ankrum) in Washington, DC, and he asks many questions of Mitch and Sally. Considine comforts Mitch by telling him many planes are searching for “this giant buzzard.” Considine, while talking over the phone, gives orders to shoot it down.

The squadron fires at the giant “chickenhawk,” but the explosives seem to have little effect, and the bird grabs a plane out of the air. One man reports it’s like hitting a battleship with a slingshot. No weapons seem effective. The bird is spotted flying across the world, striking terror into anyone who sees it. For two days after returning from Washington, Mitch has his nose buried in his work, trying to figure out a method to destroy the bird. Mitch doubts his method would ever succeed. Mitch tells Sally the bird absorbs energy from the things it destroys, including humans. Sally theorizes the bird came here to build a nest. General Considine reports the bird now swoops to the surface to snare trains, cattle, horses, fields, homes, and all manner of transportation! The bird is attracted by movement. Mitch and Sally, while being taken to a helicopter, find it almost snatched from the sky by the bird. Mitch is searching for eggs that the bird probably laid in a nest.

Landing the helicopter and exploring the wooded area, high on a hill, the giant bird lands near her egg, thrashing the brush around. Mitch and Sally each shoot holes in the egg using high-powered rifles. The bird takes flight, attacking the humans who survive, but their companion is not so lucky. Mitch says more eggs probably exist. Driving home for safety's sake, four teenagers in a hotrod are using their car lights and playfully pass the older people. Shortly after the car passes, the bird attacks their jalopy.

Reporting to General Considine, Mitch can create a device that will disable the bird’s antimatter force field, allowing regular weapons to destroy it. Considine, who has no plan, wholeheartedly supports Mitch’s ideas, and the military will support it. Mitch and his crew, after multiple failures, seemed doomed to fail again and again. During this period, the ever-squawking bird attacks trains and other ground objects. Soon, a terrific explosion occurs in Mitch’s lab, almost killing him, but the antimatter device works. It is quickly attached to the rear of an old aircraft and takes off.

Meanwhile, the giant bird rests on the top of the Empire State Building. People below run for cover as the bird continues to squwack, using its beak to destroy the structure and throw debris onto the crowds below. Soon, the bird attacks the UN building, a symbol of world peace. The bird quickly follows Mitch’s airplane, and he hurriedly rushes to set up the weapon. Soon sparks and smoke erupt from the rear of the plane, directly in the path of the enormous bird. Generals Considine and Buskirk fly a plane firing missiles at the bird, which plunges into the ocean. Only the bird’s one giant claw remains above water as the bird sinks. The end credits appear.

Critique

Sam Katzman’s produced his share of low-budget films that appeared as double features and stand-alone features including Shadow of Chinatown, Spooks Run Wild, Ghosts On the Loose, Invisible Ghost, Black Dragons, The Corpse Vanishes, Bowery at Midnight, The Ape Man, Voodoo Man, Superman, Jungle Jim, Batman and Robin, Killer Ape, It Came from Beneath the Sea, Creature With the Atom Brain, Rock Around the Clock, Earth vs. The Flying Saucers, The Werewolf, Zombies of Mora Tau, The Man Who Turned to Stone, The Night The World Exploded, Don’t Knock the Twist, Kissin’ Cousins, Harum Scarum, Riot on Sunset Strip, and many other beloved and hated “B” pictures.

The Giant Claw is just about his lowest-rated film and has been vilified by fans for several generations because of its inferior special effects of the giant buzzard. According to IMDb, Katzman contracted a low-budget model-maker (and marionette maker) in Mexico City to construct the giant bird monster. Two years earlier, in 1955, Katzman hired ace special effects artist Ray Harryhausen to create the giant octopus in It Came from Beneath the Sea, a mediocre movie with a great monster. A year later, in 1956, Katzman again hired Harryhausen to create the special effects for Earth vs. the Flying Saucers. After hiring the best for creating the effects for two science fiction movies, apparently Katzman wanted to save money (or perhaps Harryhausen wasn’t available) by hiring a much cheaper special effects maker.

It can immediately be mentioned that the teaming of three artists—Ralph Hammeras, George J. Teague, and Lawrence W. Butler—could not compete with that of one Ray Harryhausen, and The Giant Claw’s monster was considered laughable by most audience members. It soon gained a reputation as the worst monster of the decade. But when one considers the naked alien from Phantom from Space, the grasshoppers from Beginning of the End, and the wasps from Monster from Green Hell, this turns out to be a very competitive race for the worst. I bet most of the kids back in 1957 considered the giant bird monster in The Giant Claw rather unusual in a good way, a monster unlike any other. And with men in suits, stop-motion photography, mechanical beasts, blow-ups of actual creatures in nature, and animation, a marionette was at least innovative, even if it failed to fully succeed. It certainly was worth the risk one time. At least it allowed the fiend to be shown earlier in the movie than many other monsters in similar movies.

Speaking of Monster from Green Hell and many other movies, such as The Incredible Petrified World, The Flame Barrier, and The Last Woman on Earth, whether or not they feature special effects, all these movies and many more are simply boring, badly made, or of little interest. I’d rather see The Giant Claw any day over these other movies simply because The Giant Claw is an outrageous hoot and fun to boot. The film is never boring and in its one hour and 15-minute running time never outstays its welcome. It may feature an outré monster, but the movie always carries itself along. Can you say the same for The Screaming Skull? Or Man Beast?

I like to think of The Giant Claw in this way. Let’s say Ray Harryhausen created the special effects for this movie and produced them well. Let us observe other parts of the movie to critique its quality. First, let us look at the initial scenes in which a massive, unidentified blur passes by an aircraft. The blurred bird that fails to show on radar is mysterious and suspenseful. The military fails to believe pilots' observations until they start going missing.

Second, the scene with Pete the pilot, who first takes his plane to fly over 12,000 feet (during raging thunder, which adds to the suspense) and then reports a giant blur, followed by sputtering and jerking, causing the plane to crash-land, is another sequence of heightened fear.

Third, when the surviving crew, with badly injured Pete, is taken to the home of local Pierre, all this during the night scene amid thunder, is creating a somber mood which gradually increases. When Pierre hears the animals growing restless and goes outside to investigate. Shortly thereafter, found screaming and lying on the ground, ranting about some mythical demon bird, which ups the tension. The way the bird is not shown but vaguely described is remembering just what a terror-builder from radio horror was. That which is described is more horrifying than what is visualized (especially in this case).

Other scenes add to the suspense, such as the one where an imprint of the giant bird is seen in a field behind Pierre’s house, the sequence where Mitch and Sally find the rustic hill with the egg and the scene that follows, where the giant bird attacks the humans after shooting the egg multiple times, and the climax where the bird is destroyed and sinks into the sea.

Remember, the very short running time only adds to a tight, stressful movie, and the fiend is viewed from the very beginning to the very end, unlike most 1950s science fiction double-billers. A. bird monster (besides Rodan) is quite unique as a monster for the era. Jeff Morrow made a distinguished 1950s hero, and Maras Corday was an iconic heroine. Director Fred F. Sears had a successful history with the genre. And Morris Ankrum was a specialist at playing military leaders.

It’s a shame Sam Katzman went cheap for the monster and related special effects for this production, but the same can be said about the I Was a Teenage Frankenstein monster, and the ping pong-eyed aliens from Killer From Space. Since Katzman had used Ray Harryhausen so often, there was no going back to a cheap Mexican marionette maker. But even with outrageous special effects, the giant bird monster from The Giant Claw provided over an hour of fun.

What salvages The Giant Claw is its star power, an effective story that generates tons of suspense, and the monster's appearance throughout. The film is certainly not among the 1950s best endeavors, but it offers 75 minutes of fun and was sure to interest the younger generation of movie fans. Me, I would rather watch this than many other inferior genre efforts. They all can not contain the special effects created by Ray Harryhausen!

THE GIANT BIRD PROTECTS HER EGG AGAINST ALL THREATS

THE HIGH FLYING BIRD IS ABOUT TO CHOW DOWN ON A PARACHUTIST EVACULATING FROM HIS PLANE.

THE GIANT BIRD IS ABOUT TO SNATCH ANOTHER AIRPLANE FROM THE SKY.

garysvehla509@gmail.com

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