THE GIANT CLAW (1957) ***

Funny how none of the alternate titles for THE GIANT CLAW, a low-budget monster movie from director Fred Sears and producer Sam Katzman, are BATTLESHIP or FLYING BATTLESHIP or BIG AS A BATTLESHIP, because that’s how multiple characters — especially our protagonist, electronics engineer Mitch MacAfee (Jeff Morrow) — describe “The Giant Claw” for at least the first 30 minutes.

Of course, the Giant Claw looks absolutely nothing like a battleship. Mitch himself says at one point to his lady friend’s expression of disbelief, “I said it looked like a battleship, not that it was a battleship.” Yeah, sure, whatever, best never mind.

I love how most of the movie’s promotional goods avoid revealing the Giant Claw’s face, because that act would have undoubtedly scared off potential customers or attracted only those with a taste for absolutely ridiculous movies. At least, that way — not depicting the monster honestly in cinematic propaganda — it took precisely 27 minutes before audiences had the laughter of a lifetime caused by a movie monster. This is one of those movies where I would love to get in a time machine and head for the nearest theater (or drive-in) playing THE GIANT CLAW when it opened in June 1957. How did initial audiences react to it? Did they hoot and holler and howl derisively? Did they flee in total disbelief at the latest Sam Katzman motion picture monstrosity? Did they seek a refund to absolutely no avail? Did they write their Congressmen to complain?

One poster proclaims, “Winged Monster from 17,000,000 B.C.!” “Big as a Battleship!” “Flies 4 Times The Speed of Sound!” “Atomic Weapons Can’t Hurt It!” There’s a drawing of a bird — wings, body, and talons but no face — destroying a plane and a skyscraper. Could that be the Empire State Building? All pictorial renderings of the bird are basically the same — wings, body, and talons, as well as destruction, but no face — and that’s deceptive advertising in a nutshell. (Only those who got to watch the trailer got the real dope on THE GIANT CLAW.)

The producers originally planned to get stop-motion animation titan Ray Harryhausen (MIGHTY JOE YOUNG, JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS, CLASH OF THE TITANS) to create the monster, but he proved to be too much budget and so they outsourced the bird to a model maker in Mexico City. Reportedly, Katzman spent $50 on the puppet that became known as the Giant Claw. Fifty dollars well spent, for sure, and way to go, Uncle Sam.

The film’s posters and the characters themselves fail to accurately describe the giant bird mass murderer in THE GIANT CLAW. To be fair to the actors, they had no idea during filming what the Giant Claw would look like and were left to their own imagination. The characters, though, are made to look like blithering idiots because there’s a vast disconnect between their words and “The Giant Claw” itself, beginning with the battleship description. The filmmakers especially hung out lead actor Morrow to dry, because he gives a legitimately good performance. Legend has it that Morrow ducked out of the theater in embarrassment and got drunk at home after the audience laughed at the Giant Claw’s first appearance. It apparently only took once for Morrow.

Guess that I should try myself to describe the head of the Giant Claw puppet. Extremely long neck, big teeth, flaring nostrils, bulging eyes, and a Mohawk that should be the envy of any buzzard or punk rock singer.

Over the course of the plot, we discover this killer giant bird is actually an alien avian who has come to Earth to lay eggs and wreak destruction and terror on poor, poor humanity. We learn even more, but I will leave that explanatory exposition out of this review for all those individuals who have not seen THE GIANT CLAW before. Trust me, it gets even better as the film attempts to explain the Giant Claw more and more with dialogue passages that could inspire bouts of hysterical laughter. I believe the Mayo Clinic calls it “Pseudobulbar affect.”

Bottom line: This alien avian was sabotaged by a chintzy movie producer named Sam Katzman (1901-73) and both “The Giant Claw” and THE GIANT CLAW will live in infamy as one of the great bad movie monsters and one of the great bad movies, respectively. During my first viewing, I enjoyed THE GIANT CLAW more than many so-called “good” movies.

I have one particular favorite scene in THE GIANT CLAW.

It is reminiscent of the scene in Q: THE WINGED SERPENT (produced by Samuel Z. Arkoff) when lovable hateful creep Jimmy Quinn (Michael Moriarty) leads two hoods leaning on him to the Quetzalcoatl in the Chrysler Building. We hear the Big Q take a couple bites out of crime and Quinn absolutely revels in their demise, “Eat ‘em, eat ‘em! Crunch! Crunch!” I love to hate Quinn even more after that scene.

Anyway, when the Giant Claw chomps on a pair of parachuting passengers, I said out loud, “Crunch! Crunch!” Please keep in mind that in quarantine, no one can hear you scream.