10 Gloriously Schlocky 1950s B Movies You Have To See

The Giant Claw is easily one of the most ridiculous monster designs of the 1950s. The bird's face isn't featured on the poster, and for the first 20 minutes you don't see it, so you figure it's going to be a stunning reveal. Well, it definitely is stunning.

The bird bobs up and down like a puppet, it’s got a ridiculous, long neck, crazy hair, and eyes that look like they came from the $1 bin at a Halloween shop. Who was behind the decision to make it look like this? It also produces screeches that don’t even sound like they’re coming from the bird. All it does is fly there with its mouth in a fixed position, and yet it’s making all these horrible noises somehow. It barely even flaps its wings, either, just gliding along while clearly being held on a string.

After about fifty boring dialogue sequences, the main characters deduce it came from another galaxy and has an antimatter shield around it. In the last act, the bird comes to New York City, the scientists blast it with an isotope and then shoot it with missiles, and that’s it. Everything about the movie is hilariously cheap, including a moment where the bird picks up a train that was clearly shot using a model train set. It’s schlocky '50s filmmaking at its finest.