 Go ahead and try to contradict me. Tell me that, somewhere in the back of your mind, the idea of seeing a real, live GIANT ANTIMATTER SPACE BUZZARD fails to cause a pleasant tingle. For me, it feels like somebody is massaging my hippocampus while wearing a joy buzzer. I giggle hysterically. If the tickling goes on too long I might become a vegetable, lose control of my bowels, or both (while still consumed by hysterical giggling). I am careful not to watch "The Giant Claw" too often. The story begins with Mitch flying a jet to help calibrate a radar system. While high in the sky, he sees something. Mitch cannot identify the UFO, but he does know it is big, about the size of a battleship. I think it looks like an old rug, but those are rarely sighted at 10,000 feet. Whatever it is, the UFO does not show up on radar. However, fighter interceptors are scrambled and sent to find the unidentified flying object. One does not return, and a transport aircraft also goes missing. The disappearances are a mystery. Yes, I know that if two planes go missing in the same area at the same time, assuming that they collided is not a bad start. Just remember that Mitch saw something the size of a battleship in the air. The Japanese did not have any flying battleships at the time (those came later), so it must have been something else. En route back to the United States with Sally aboard a military transport, Mitch runs afoul of the UFO yet again, except this time Mitch's plane is knocked out of the air. The pilot is killed, but the two passengers survive the crash, and what a crash! After they stagger away from the burning wreck, Mitch and Sally throw themselves flat just prior to it exploding. From offscreen, some member of the film crew chucks a couple of pieces of burning sheet metal at the protagonists! Yikes! Fortunately, the plane crashed near the cabin of an agreeable fellow named Pierre. He takes in the disoriented survivors and gives them unrestricted access to his homebrewed applejack. Venturing out into a thundering storm to discover what is spooking his livestock, the French-speaking redneck is scared out of his wits by something he sees in the clouds. We know that Pierre must have seen the Giant Claw. However, the Canadian calls it "la carcagne," referencing a local legend. Leaving the frightened man to experience his night terrors alone, Mitch and Sally board a plane to Washington, DC. On the way, Mitch tries to put the moves on his female companion. She wakes up (yes, Mitch starts fondling the young lady while she is asleep) and a stupidly funny conversation results that substitutes baseball jargon for plain sexual terms. Finally arriving 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 a battleship was attacking the plane. That is not to mention some googly-eyed pictures snapped by a high-altitude balloon's camera. Yup, there is a GIANT ANTIMATTER SPACE BUZZARD on the loose. Except, the military does not know the Giant Claw emits an antimatter shield. The interceptor aircraft sent to shoot down the bird are completely ineffective; it withstands rockets and high-velocity cannon fire, then catches and eats the jets. Dr. Noymann's examination of aircraft wreckage reveals that the bird is protected by an impenetrable antimatter shield. It only drops the shield to eat. For all intents and purposes, the Giant Claw is invulnerable to every weapon known to man. Until somebody gets smart and stuffs a small-yield nuclear device into a cow carcass and leaves it out for the bird to find. I guess that sort of explosive creativity was not obvious to America's military, circa 1957. It is impossible not to laugh about the movie's special effects. They are the same quality as a 1930's serial, and almost show the same attention to detail. It is not unusual for a character to be sitting in the cockpit of a C-47, only to see the bird attack a B-25 model that it is supposed to be the same plane. The aerial battle between the space buzzard and the jet fighters is no exception. I think we see F-86 and F-89 fighters launching rockets, but when the bird catches a model plane in its beak the aircraft is obviously a delta wing model, like an F-106. Then we watch what looks like WWII camera footage of a flaming aircraft plummeting into the ocean. The constantly changing planes are not even the best part - that is the bird itself. Whoever designed the Giant Claw is a genius. It really is the epitome of a GIANT ANTIMATTER SPACE BUZZARD. Look at those googly eyes! Check out that neck! Listen to how the creature screeches and caws as it swoops through the air! I also dig the fact that everyone who sees the Giant Claw immediately thinks, "That bird is as big as a battleship!" People who have probably never seen a battleship say that. You might think I am making fun of the movie. I am, a little. However, I cannot imagine "The Giant Claw" without the title creature exactly as it appears, in all of its long, wrinkled-necked glory. The winged terror is completely absurd looking. Forget the premise; forget the execution - who the heck came up with that puppet? Someday, Hollywood is going to remake this film, with lots slick CGI special effects and a well-known actor or two. The bird will probably be a fiery extraterrestrial phoenix whose passing turns cities into raging infernos. Why are you accusing me of giving Roland Emmerich ideas? The Giant Claw circles the globe, eating cattle, spreading destruction, and causing quite a fluster in London (British people running in panic is not something you see every day). We even see it snatch a train off a set of railroad tracks and carry the whole thing, locomotive, cars, and caboose, through the air. In the midst of this chaos, Mitch realizes that the bird must have come to Earth to nest. There cannot be any other reason that the GIANT ANTIMATTER SPACE BUZZARD flew millions of lightyears through the intergalactic void, other than to lay eggs. Flying back to Pierre's cabin with Sally, Mitch conducts a search for the Giant Claw's roost. He finds a giant nest that contains a massive egg. Pierre freaks out and runs away, but Mitch and Sally shoulder their rifles and shoot the egg to pieces. I felt a little sorry for the bird, because it might have come to our planet in search of a safe nesting ground (maybe on its home planet there are GIANT ANTIMATTER SPACE SNAKES that eat eggs). Angered by the destruction of its egg, the Giant Claw goes after Pierre and kills him. Then, as our two protagonists drive down a dark country road, the bird appears and grabs a car filled with teenagers. You know something? I am starting to see a pattern in all of this. The Giant Claw is following Mitch around. Maybe the government should send Mitch on a one-way mission to the moon or something. The least they could do is make him the US ambassador to Russia. Since the Giant Claw is shadowing Mitch, it only makes sense that he comes up with a plan to defeat the monster. Using a focused meson emitter, it might be possible to short out the antimatter force field. Once the protective screen is gone, the Giant Claw is a dead duck. The electrical engineer works feverishly to complete the new weapon as the flying terror attacks New York City. This script was obviously not written by an infinite number of typewriter-assisted monkeys with an infinite amount of time. I believe there was one retarded lemur with two or three Etch A Sketches. It is still amazingly fun to watch, and it will make you giggle. Hey, doesn't Roland Emmerich own a lemur? |
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