The Giant Claw: Difference between revisions

En route back to the United States, Mitch and Sally's plane is attacked. Screeching is heard. They crash-land on a farm but survive unscathed and are taken in by a redneck named Pierre. More screeching is heard. Mitch and Sal go outside and find Pierre lying on the ground in terror near his spooked livestock. He claims to have seen the mythical witch ''La Cargagne'', an omen of his impending death.

Finally arriving back in General Buskirk's office, Mitch is surprised to discover that his story about a battleship-sized UFO is no longer dismissed as pure fallacy. Another aircraft, this time carrying a bunch of investigators, was lost shortly after the pilot radioed a distress call that a bird the size of... wait for it... a battleship, was attacking the plane. Not to mention some googly-eyed pictures snapped by a high-altitude balloon's camera.

Thus we finally get our first glimpses of the beast that would put the combined worst of the bestiaries from every [[Dungeons and& Dragons]] Monster Manual to shame: a mighty battleship-sized phoenix from outer space, that flies faster than the speed of sound, that emanates a force-field of antimatter protecting it from all that the military can throw at it... as embodied by ''' a puppet that looks like [[Sesame Street|Big Bird's]] evil twin'''.

This movie is simply priceless. It's got everything that a B science-fiction/horror movie from the 50s should have; a completely ridiculous monster, laughable dialogue delivered with total sincerity, copious use of mismatched stock footage, gobs and gobs of pseudo-scientific [[Techno Babble]]... you name it. All that's missing is the [[Fauxlosophic Narration]]. Although the actors' ruminations on their careers upon seeing the monster for the first time might've been entertaining.

Because... perhaps most priceless of all is the fact that all scenes with the actors were filmed first -- and ''then'' the scenes with the puppet were spliced in. None of the cast actually saw what they were supposed to be terrified of until they attended the film's premiere. Reportedly, Morrow, upon hearing the ''audience's'' reaction, left the theater with a red face hidden beneath a turned-up collar.

By the way, it was released by Columbia Pictures -- also responsible for ''[[Lawrence of Arabia]]'' and ''[[Jason and The Argonauts (Film)|Jason and Thethe Argonauts]]''. This is the one that tends not to be mentioned in the studio-anniversary clip shows.

It never got an episode on ''[[Mystery Science Theater 3000]]'', which, quite frankly, is a crime. [[The Angry Video Game Nerd (Web Video)|James Rolfe]], however, [https://web.archive.org/web/20131029105933/http://cinemassacre.com/2009/10/13/13-giant-claw-1957/ gives a fine insight on it].

* [[Attack of the 50 -Foot Whatever]]

* [[Big Applesauce]]: The climax takes place in New York.

* [[Defrosting Ice Queen]]: Sally Caldwell is quite the ice queen towards Mitch, at first. Then his "charm" finally wins her over.

* [[Sci -Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale]]: Nor do they have any other measurement than "as big as a battleship", apparently.

* [[Stock Footage]]: One shot of a building losing its top in New York has been recycled from a building in Los Angeles being shot by a [[The War of the Worlds (novel)||Martian War Machine]].

** Several shots of collapsing buildings crushing hapless civilians beneath them were taken from two other 50's atomic horror movies, [[The Beast From 20000 Fathoms|The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms]] and [[Earth vs. the Flying Saucers]].