| The Giant Claw | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical releasehalf-sheet display poster | |
| Directed by | Fred F. Sears |
| Written by | Samuel Newman Paul Gangelin |
| Produced by | Sam Katzman |
| Starring | Jeff Morrow Mara Corday |
| Narrated by | Fred F. Sears |
| Cinematography | Benjamin H. Kline |
| Edited by |
|
| Music by | Mischa Bakaleinikoff (uncredited) |
| Color process | Black and white |
Production company | Clover Productions |
| Distributed by | Columbia Pictures |
Release date |
|
Running time | 75 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
The Giant Claw is a 1957 Americanmonster film fromColumbia Pictures, produced bySam Katzman, directed byFred F. Sears, that starsJeff Morrow andMara Corday.[1] Both Sears and Katzman were well known as low-budgetB film genre filmmakers.[2] The film was released as adouble feature withThe Night the World Exploded.
Mitch MacAfee, a civil aeronautical engineer, while engaged in aradar test flight near theNorth Pole, spots anunidentified flying object. Three jet fighter aircraft are scrambled to pursue and identify the object but one aircraft goes missing. Officials are initially angry at MacAfee over the loss of a pilot and jet over what they believe to be a hoax.
When MacAfee and mathematician Sally Caldwell fly back toNew York, their aircraft also comes under attack by a UFO. With their pilot dead, they crash-land in theAdirondacks, where Pierre Broussard, aFrench-Canadian farmer, comes to their rescue, and reports seeing a giantmonster bird he callsLa Carcagne. MacAfee's report is met with bewilderment and skepticism, but the military authorities are forced to take his story seriously after several more aircraft disappear. They discover that the gigantic bird, "as big as abattleship" and purported to come from anantimatter galaxy, is responsible for all the incidents. MacAfee, Caldwell, Dr. Karol Noymann, General Considine, and General Van Buskirk work feverishly to develop a way to defeat the seemingly invincible creature.
The climactic showdown takes place inManhattan, when the gigantic bird attacks both theEmpire State Building andUnited Nations building. It is defeated by a special type ofexotic atom,muonic atoms, deployed from the tail gun position of aB-25 bomber aircraft, which successfully collapses the creature's antimatter shield and allows missiles to hit and kill the monster. The giant bird plummets into theAtlantic Ocean outsideNew York City, and the last sight of it is a claw sinking beneath the ocean.
According to Richard Harland Smith ofTurner Classic Movies, the inspiration for the story may have been taken from media reports about scientific discoveries in the field of particle physics, dealing with matter and antimatter. Other influences included the Japanese filmRodan (1956), and theSamuel Hopkins Adams story "Grandfather and a Winter's Tale", aboutla Carcagne, the "mythical bird-likebanshee from French-Canadianfolklore".[3] The Adams story was published inThe New Yorker in January 1951.[4]
A character inThe Giant Claw (Pierre Broussard) mistakes the menacing bird forla Carcagne, said to be a monster resembling a giant woman with a wolf's head and bat-like black wings and which, like the banshee, is a harbinger of death.[5]
Under the working titleMark of the Claw, principal photography took place atGriffith Park, subbing for the New York-Canada border, with interiors filmed at the Columbia Annex nearMonogram Studios from February 1 to 20, 1957.[6] Katzman originally planned to utilizestop motion effects byRay Harryhausen, but due to budget constraints he instead hired a low-budget special effects studio inMexico City,Mexico, to create the mythical creature that would be the showpiece of the production. The result, however, was a poorly made "marionette."[4] The puppet's construction was so underwhelming that a common misconception stating it was made in Mexico City for only $50 became very popular, but no credible sources support this assertion.[7]
Morrow later confessed in an interview that no one in the film knew what the titular monster looked like until the film's premiere. Morrow himself first saw the film in his hometown, and hearing the audience laugh every time the monster appeared on screen, he left the theater early, embarrassed that anyone there might recognize him; he allegedly went home and began drinking.[8]
In May 1957,Sam Katzman stated in an interview withVariety, that his films at the time had cost between $250,000 to $500,000. Despite the production utilizingColumbia’s B-unit, they had a much larger budget than other contemporaries.
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Critical reception was generally negative, with film writer and historian Bill Warren commenting, "This would have been an ordinarily bad movie of its type, with a good performance by Jeff Morrow, if the special effects had been industry standard for the time. That, however, is not what happened. The Claw is not just badly rendered, it is hilariously rendered, resembling nothing so much as Warner Bros. cartoon-characterBeaky Buzzard. Once seen, you will never forget this awesomely silly creation".[9]
The Giant Claw has been mocked for the quality of its special effects.[10] The menacing bird, in particular, is considered by many to be badly made, being apuppet with a very odd face. Film criticLeonard Maltin noted that the film disappointed for those reasons, "(a) lack of decent special effects ruins the running battle between colossal bird and fighter jets. Big bird is laughable".[11]
TV Guide panned the film, awarding it a score of 1 out of 4, criticizing the film's monster as "preposterous-looking".[12]
Not all reviews of the film were negative.Allmovie gave the film a positive review, stating, "The Giant Claw has a terrible reputation that isn't entirely deserved – to be sure, producer Sam Katzman opted for the cheapest, worst-looking monster that one could imagine, a ridiculous-looking giant bird puppet that makes the movie seem ludicrous. But except for those moments when the title monster is on the screen, the movie isn't bad – so for the first 27 minutes, until it appears for the first time and evokes its first rounds of laughter, the picture is working just fine within the confines of its budget, script, and cast". Allmovie also complimented Morrow's performance as "the best thing in the picture".[13]
The Giant Claw had been a staple of the bootleg video market, with only two officialVHS releases (one in theUnited States by Goodtimes Home Video and the other by Screamtime in theUnited Kingdom).
In October 2007,Sony Pictures Home Entertainment released the film on DVD as part of the two-disc, four-film set,Icons of Horror Collection: Sam Katzman, along with three other films produced by Katzman:Creature with the Atom Brain (1955),The Werewolf (1956) andZombies of Mora Tau (1957).[14][15]
On February 25, 2014, Mill Creek Entertainment (under license from Sony Pictures) included the film on theSci-Fi Creature Classics DVD alongside20 Million Miles to Earth,It Came from Beneath the Sea, andMothra.
In 2021, it was released on Blu-ray byArrow Films as part of the limited editionCold War Creatures: Four Films from Sam Katzman set. The other films included wereCreature with the Atom Brain,The Werewolf, andThe Zombies of Mora Tau.
