9. The Giant Claw (1958)
When Mara Corday watched The Giant Claw for the first time, she shrank back in her seat and told her husband the picture was dreadful. The eponymous colossal bird billed as a Flying beast out of prehistoric skies on the poster and reckoned to be as big as a battleship twelve times during the movie looked more like a turkey puppet on wires, and the audience burst out laughing. In the film, Corday plays a mathematician who, together with Jeff Morrows pilot, attempts to stop the monster from destroying New York (or its toy model equivalent). This being 1950s sci-fi, there are countless white coats around to offer scientific analysis. That bird is extra-terrestrial, claims one. It comes from some godforsaken, anti-matter galaxy millions of light years from the Earth. No other explanation is possible! Perhaps if producer Sam Katzman had gone with Ray Harryhausen, his original choice to do the special effects, the film wouldve turned out differently. But Harryhausen had butted heads with Katzman on Earth Vs The Flying Saucers and knew all about the producers penny-pinching ways, so he cited prior commitments and politely declined. Katzman eventually went to a model maker in Mexico, and the results speak for themselves.
Ian Watson
Ian Watson is the author of 'Midnight Movie Madness', a 600+ page guide to "bad" movies from 'Reefer Madness' to 'Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead.'
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