The Giant Claw (1957)

Global panic ensues when it is revealed that a mysterious UFO is actually a giant bird that flies at supersonic speed and has no regard for life or architecture.

Director:

Fred F. Sears

Writers:

Samuel Newman, Paul Gangelin

Stars:

Jeff Morrow, Mara Corday, Morris Ankrum

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Jeff Morrow	...	Mitch MacAfee
Mara Corday	...	Sally Caldwell
Morris Ankrum	...	Lt. Gen. Edward Considine
Louis Merrill	...	Pierre Broussard (as Louis D. Merrill)
Edgar Barrier	...	Dr. Karol Noymann
Robert Shayne	...	Gen. Van Buskirk
Frank Griffin	...	Pete - Pilot (as Ruell Shayne)
Clark Howat	...	Maj. Bergen
Morgan Jones	...	Lieutenant, Radar Officer

Storyline

When electronics engineer Mitch MacAfee spots a UFO as "big as a battleship," from his plane, the Air Force scrambles planes to investigate. However, nothing shows up on radar, and one of the jets is lost during the action. MacAfee is regarded as a dangerous crackpot until other incidents and disappearances convince the authorities that the threat is real. Some believe it is a French-Canadian folk legend come to life, but it turns out to be an extraterrestrial giant bird composed of anti-matter whose disregard for human life and architecture threatens the world.

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Plot Keywords:

ufo | giant bird | radar | supersonic speed | french canadian | 

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Taglines:

Flying beast out of prehistoric skies!

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Genres:

Fantasy | Horror | Sci-Fi

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Certificate:

Unrated

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

June 1957 (USA)

Also Known As:

The Mark of the Claw

Company Credits

Production Co:

Clover Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

75 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Screenwriter Samuel Newman re-used the character name "Dr. Karol Noyman" (here played by Edgar Barrier) for an entirely different character played by John Carradine in the 1959 film Invisible Invaders, which Newman also wrote.

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Goofs

After Mitch causes the explosion in the lab by using the mu mason projector, Sally and Dr. Noymann stand up in the next room and rush into the lab where Mitch lays prone on the floor. Sally passes through the door into the lab first. In the next shot from within the lab, Dr. Noymann is passing through the door first.

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Quotes

Narrator: An electronics engineer, a radar officer, a mathematician and systems analyst, a radar operator, a couple of plotters. People doing a job, well, efficiently, serious, having fun, doing a job. Situation: normal. For the moment...

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Connections

Featured in Nightmares in Red, White and Blue: The Evolution of the American Horror Film (2009)

User Reviews

Makes "Mothra" look like "Gone with the Wind"

Yes, 'fraid I feel positively compelled to stand up and be counted in support of "The Giant Claw"(if only for sentimental reasons).It's yet another of those decidedly creaky but fun Z - Grade sci fi flicks from the golden days of late night television.

If you look closely at one of the Pentagon scenes where Jeff Morrow and lovely Mara Corday are chatting to military chief Robert Shayne you might just detect Mr Shayne trying hard to stifle a laugh as he turns away from the camera at one point. And by jingo, by crikey ... who could blame him ? He's just finished delivering an impassioned speech about "Bombarding the creature with guns, rockets and cannons ... God help us ..... NOTHING can stop It"! He's knows only too well of course that the so called "Monster" looks like an escapee from a Safeway freezer. In fact, it looks like a Christmas turkey that got away halfway through being plucked ....... about 47 years earlier! I mean, like man , that's got to be the most grisly lookin' buzzard in the entire history of ornithology.

After 70 minutes of failing to succumb to constant direct hits by interbalistic missiles the creature does, indeed, appear to be unstoppable. Finally, Vic and Mara decide to climb aboard a technologically challenged DC 3 prop plane which has some sort of unspecified atomic ray gun hangin' out the back of it. Apparently the idea is to squirt puffs of talcum powder in the pot boiler's face in the hope of blinding it and forcing it to crash land into the North Atlantic. And guess what ..... the whole crazy scheme WORKS!

Sure enough the buzzard cops a blast right in the baby blues, goes into a nose dive and takes a dramatic plunge into Neptune's Garden. OK, so what if the final impact does look suspiciously like a pile of garden rubbish being flung into a tank of water by someone who was standing just off camera. Even the most world weary monster chasers couldn't help but to feel just a touch sad as we watch the brave bird slowly disappear beneath the waves, Titanic style.

Of course, it probably deserved it when you think about all those model cars that it destroyed and all those papier mache buildings that it sent crashing to the floor of the Columbia Studios.

Makes "Mothra" look like "Gone with the Wind"