A movie such as the howler "The Giant Claw" may not exactly overflow with quality, but that's precisely what makes it an endearing artifact from the 1950s science fiction boom. Provided one can turn off their brain and is ready to laugh a lot, this can be good fun. Well, fun, anyway.
The story has an enormous Muppet-like turkey / buzzard from outer space flying to Earth to cause much death and destruction while the usual stock heroes rack their brains trying to come up with the means to annihilate it.
Jeff Morrow ("This Island Earth") is the egghead hero, lovely Mara Corday ("Tarantula") his leading lady, and the supporting cast features such prominent character actors of the period as Morris Ankrum ("Earth vs. The Flying Saucers"), Edgar Barrier (Welles' "Macbeth"), and Robert Shayne ('Adventures of Superman'). The dialogue is often hilariously ridiculous, and it gets to a point where one has to believe that the filmmakers, led by director Fred F. Sears ("The Werewolf"), had their tongues in their cheeks the entire time. The actors deserve a lot of credit for keeping straight faces while mouthing their lines.
Of course, no matter what the intentions were, what truly makes "The Giant Claw" something special are the hysterical, not-so-special effects; the monster ranks as one of the dumbest-looking to ever be created for a feature film.
Things get off to a comfortably predictable start as we're obliged to listen to the standard narration / exposition common to so many other 50s genre efforts. From then on, the movie is simply a horrendous hoot. Bad movie lovers can also amuse themselves by playing a drinking game whenever words or phrases such as "battleship", "electronic engineer" and "La Carcagne!" are uttered. All in all, this is 75 minutes of agreeably silly entertainment.
Trivia note: the Karol Noymann character played by Barrier also turns up in "Invisible Invaders", where he's played by John Carradine; both movies were written by Samuel Newman.
Five out of 10.
The story has an enormous Muppet-like turkey / buzzard from outer space flying to Earth to cause much death and destruction while the usual stock heroes rack their brains trying to come up with the means to annihilate it.
Jeff Morrow ("This Island Earth") is the egghead hero, lovely Mara Corday ("Tarantula") his leading lady, and the supporting cast features such prominent character actors of the period as Morris Ankrum ("Earth vs. The Flying Saucers"), Edgar Barrier (Welles' "Macbeth"), and Robert Shayne ('Adventures of Superman'). The dialogue is often hilariously ridiculous, and it gets to a point where one has to believe that the filmmakers, led by director Fred F. Sears ("The Werewolf"), had their tongues in their cheeks the entire time. The actors deserve a lot of credit for keeping straight faces while mouthing their lines.
Of course, no matter what the intentions were, what truly makes "The Giant Claw" something special are the hysterical, not-so-special effects; the monster ranks as one of the dumbest-looking to ever be created for a feature film.
Things get off to a comfortably predictable start as we're obliged to listen to the standard narration / exposition common to so many other 50s genre efforts. From then on, the movie is simply a horrendous hoot. Bad movie lovers can also amuse themselves by playing a drinking game whenever words or phrases such as "battleship", "electronic engineer" and "La Carcagne!" are uttered. All in all, this is 75 minutes of agreeably silly entertainment.
Trivia note: the Karol Noymann character played by Barrier also turns up in "Invisible Invaders", where he's played by John Carradine; both movies were written by Samuel Newman.
Five out of 10.