Tag: Jason and the Argonauts

The Giant Claw (1957)

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.

Clash of the Titans (1981)

 

CLASH OF THE TITANS (1981) Three-and-a-half stars

Harryhausen vs. Harry Hamlin.

That’s what CLASH OF THE TITANS amounts to in the long run for this viewer.

Artist, designer, visual effects man, writer, and producer Ray Harryhausen (1920-2013) mastered the dying art of stop-motion animation. His credits include MIGHTY JOE YOUNG, THE 7TH VOYAGE OF SINBAD, JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS, ONE MILLION YEARS B.C., and CLASH OF THE TITANS, Harryhausen’s final production in which he goes out with a big bang.

Harryhausen is the real star of CLASH OF THE TITANS, and not Harry Hamlin or even big-name actors Laurence Olivier, Ursula Andress, Maggie Smith, Burgess Meredith, and Claire Bloom.

I like CLASH OF THE TITANS a lot because of all them stop-motion creations.

Let’s see, we have scorpions, the Stygian witches, Calibos and his vulture, a two-headed hound of Hell, the Kraken, the mechanical owl Bubo, and, of course, Medusa.

The Medusa sequence is the pièce de résistance of CLASH OF THE TITANS and responsible for at least three stars alone.

Harryhausen himself favored Medusa among his many creations.

The snake-haired Medusa, we all know that she’s deadly with arrows and she can turn a person to stone if you make contact with her eyes. Personally, I pretend that every salesperson in a shopping mall is Medusa and eye contact must be strictly avoided. Perseus (Hamlin) tricks Medusa with his reflection and he lops off her head. Then, our hero uses Medusa’s head to turn the formidable Kraken to stone.

A wide range of filmmakers have been inspired by Harryhausen’s work, including Steven Spielberg, Joe Dante, James Cameron, Tim Burton, Peter Jackson, and Sam Raimi.

In 2010, Academy Award winning animator Nick Park talked with the BBC about his three favorite Harryhausen moments. He finished up with Medusa from CLASH OF THE TITANS after picking two from JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS.

“It was so well done and frightening,” Park said. “It’s all the same technique but going to different heights of intricacy.

“I thought it was a combination of really good lighting and shadow. I do admire a lot of CGI, but there’s something not real about it.

“In the Medusa that Ray did it’s there and it’s grounded, there’s real light hitting real surfaces. Somehow your brain knows it’s not real with CGI.”

I’ll be honest, I am far more interested in Harryhausen’s creatures than the rather convoluted plot involving Perseus, Andromeda (Judi Bowker), Calibos, Cassiopeia, and the gods pulling all the strings.

That’s what I meant by starting this review “Harryhausen vs. Harry Hamlin.”

Most of CLASH OF THE TITANS plays like a soap opera, not helped out by pretty boy Hamlin and Bowker, who seem like they should be on “Days of Our Lives.”

Google is a wondrous invention: With just two magic words and one little click, I found the 1987 People article on Hamlin, “The Sexiest Man Alive” double issue no less, and the opening paragraph of “Last of the Great Romantics” just hooks me in against my better instincts.

“The name seems wrong for The Sexiest Man Alive, Harry is a name for an uncle, or a guy who asks you to the prom because his mother made him. Of course, Harold would be worse. So Harry it is. Harry Robinson Hamlin, to be precise … the Harry everyone’s just wild about.” (Personally, I prefer Harry Truman or Harry Potter, quite possibly since neither will ever be proclaimed “The Sexiest Man Alive.”)

The article comes back around for a swipe at CLASH OF THE TITANS.

“And there’s always the possibility of doing a remake of CLASH OF THE TITANS. ‘I brought my toga home,’ says Harry, raising hopes of another glimpse of those knees. He’s kidding, of course. Frivolous flicks are a thing of the past for The Sexiest Man Alive. Besides, says Harry, laughing, ‘I used the toga to wash my car.’”

Frivolous flicks a thing of the past for Hamlin? Hamlin’s career has included 105 episodes of “L.A. Law,” 21 of “Movie Stars,” 12 of “Veronica Mars,” eight apiece of “Army Wives” and “Shameless,” and 15 of “Mad Men,” as well as a plethora of TV movies and other shows.

Hamlin should count himself lucky to be associated with CLASH OF THE TITANS.

Because Harryhausen trumps Harry Hamlin every single time.