Wednesday, September 5, 2012

The Giant Claw (1957)


I hate the Giant Claw. You can never pick up shit with it, and when you finally get fed up and put your fist through the glass the manger is all like "You owe us 900 dollars!" Nine hundred eight dollars and twenty-five cents for a little plush porcupine. Fucking assholes.

Anyway, that's not what this movie is about. This movie is about a gigantic, awesome/hilarious bird that's going around knocking toy airplanes out of the sky. Check it out:


My favorite part is when it attacks this plane the main guy is in, forcing him to make an emergency landing. Everyone bails out, the plane explodes, and then the special effects guys (or possibly some interns) throw a bunch of burning wood right at the actors! I guess they didn't have OSHA back then. Initially, this main guy is pretty much the only one who's actually seen the Giant Claw ("That makes me chief cook and bottle-washer in a one-man bird watcher's society," he says. What?), but before long it's causing panic, terror, and horror (and, later, more panic and some nightmare terror). Even worse, there's no way to kill it because it has an atomic force field, or some such nonsense. This movie came out in the 1950s though, so you know they'll come up with a super-scientific gizmo to destroy the force field, and as soon as they do it only takes a couple of rounds (pussy) to drop that sucker right into the drink:

The Giant Claw should've flipped everybody off right here.
That would've been hysterical.
Okay, I'll admit that the Giant Claw isn't as badass as, say, Rodan, or Q the Winged Serpent, and even while they were making it the people who dreamed up this movie had to be like "We are gonna be mocked for decades for this," but I liked it anyway. Really, how often do you get to see a giant, ratty space vulture with a mohawk flying around eating parachute guys right out of the sky? Unless you have access to the stuff I have access to, not very often, so I suggest you check this flick out.

"I'm the Giant fucking Claw, and you can ALL suck it! Kaw!"

6 comments:

  1. I remember watching this ast age seven thinking it was a comedy! At least I think I was seven... however I have a vague memory of strokin' one off to Mara Corday. Hmmm.

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    1. Maybe you were just an early bloomer. Like my neighbor's fourteen-year-old daughter.

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  2. Exactly how big is the Giant Claw? I can't seem to remember...

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    1. How big is he? I dunno, not quite Rodan-sized, but definitely bigger than a pterodactyl. Sorry I can't be more specific, but I'm better at fielding production questions, like "Who was the director?" and "How big were the lead actress's tits?" I'm not good with this science stuff.

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  3. He changes in size through-out the movie. At the beginning, he's big enough to fit a bomber plane in his mouth, later his mouth is just big enough to acquire a parachutist (parashooter? paralegic? paratrooper? parapsychologist?)

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