Derek Winnert

The Giant Claw ** (1957, Jeff Morrow, Mara Corday, Morris Ankrum) – Classic Movie Review 2,902

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Fred F Sears’s laughably simple-minded 1957 low-budget sci-fi horror monster movie The Giant Claw stars Jeff Morrow and Mara Corday as scientists Mitch and Sally. The mythical creature intended as the film’s showpiece is a poorly-made puppet.

Director Fred F Sears’s laughably simple-minded 1957 low-budget sci-fi horror monster movie The Giant Claw stars Jeff Morrow and Mara Corday as scientists Mitch MacAfee (Morrow) and Sally Caldwell (Corday). The mythical creature intended as the film’s showpiece is a poorly-made puppet.

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The duo pair up to defeat the huge bird from outer space that flies at supersonic speed, has no regard for human life or buildings, and is threatening New York City and goes on to terrorise the world. Panic ensues on a global scale. Unluckily for the humans, the monster is big enough to attack fighter jets and pick up a train in its beak and has a radar-resistant shield to stop it being found.

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The Giant Claw could land comfortably in the So Bad It’s Good collection, because, with its daft giant bird monster, it is certainly quite bad enough to be funny. Indeed, it is infamous for the shockingly poor quality of its special effects, which raise guaranteed laughs.

On the other hand, it’s just an average Fifties monster movie, Morrow gives a good, serious performance, and it’s only when the bird appears that hilarity is the only possible response. So, though The Giant Claw delivers Z-movie laughs throughout, it doesn’t reach the hysteria of Plan 9 From Outer Space. But then, what does?

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Morrow first saw the movie in his home town but, hearing the audience roar with laughter every time the monster popped up, he left early to go home and drink.

The cheap and cheerful script is weak but is coherent and not especially terrible. The writers to blame are Samuel Newman and Paul Gangelin. The score by Mischa Bakaleinkoff is adequate, too, and effectively sets the mood and atmosphere.

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The Giant Claw also stars Morris Ankrum as Lieutenant General Edward Considine, Louis D Merrill as Pierre Broussard, Edgar Barrier as Dr Karol Noymann, and Robert Shayne as General Van Buskirk. Also in the cast are Morgan Jones, Frank Griffin, Clark Howat, George Cisar, and Robert Williams.

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Both Sears and producer Sam Katzman are well known, even notorious as low-budget B-movie genre film-makers. The film was released by Columbia Pictures in a double bill with The Night the World Exploded (1957).

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Because of the low budget, Katzman hired a low-budget special effects studio in Mexico City to create the mythical creature that was supposed to be the showpiece of the production, but the result was a poorly-made puppet.

Principal photography took place at Griffith Park, substituting for the New York-Canadian border, with interiors filmed at the Columbia Annex studio.

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It includes special effects footage raided from Ray Harryhausen’s shots in Earth Versus the Flying Saucers. The crumbling Washington monument doubles for New York City skyscraper debris, and there’s even a split-second glimpse of flying saucer!

The statuesque Mara Corday (born Marilyn Joan Watts on January 3, 1930) was a Playboy pin-up of 1958. She celebrated her 90th birthday on 3 January 2020. The American showgirl, model, actress and Playmate is a much loved 1950s cult figure.

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After years of bootleg videos, Sony finally released the film officially on DVD in October 2007 in the Icons of Horror Collection – Sam Katzman, along with three other films he produced: Creature with the Atom Brain (1955), The Werewolf (1956) and Zombies of Mora Tau (1957).

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2,902

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com

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