The Giant Claw (1957) Wow this is bad!

[RT Fan]

Just checked his bio on IMBD, no mention of surf/beach films, he somehow missed/avoided that particular genre.

 

[Johnno_Oz]

 

[IPADave]

I've always enjoyed horror movies. "Creature Double Feature" was a favorite when I was kid. It was a weekly show on one of the local UHF stations. They showed just the kind of films mentioned in this thread. My favorite is "Creature From The Black Lagoon".

When my GF Elaine and I watch a bad movie we just do a Mystery Science Theater on it. This way we still get our entertainment value.

-Dave

 

[NAD80]

Remember all those movies. Check out peter graves in "The beginning of the end". Good premise but oh those grasshoppers so bad.

 

[NAD80]

Grew up with creature features https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creature_Features_(WNEW). Chiller theatre. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiller_Theatre_(New_York_City). http://dvddrive-in.com/Chiller/chiller.htm

 

[FONSguy]

We had "Count Gore DeVol" in the DC area. Occasionally, one of the local stations ran some Sir Graves Ghastley for a while too.

 

[FONSguy]

The Giant Claw was on Comet TV yesterday. It sure DOES STINK! Using a blur instead of the puppet in too many scenes really stood out as bad movie making.

 

[mr_light]

You really understand why they delay the big "reveal" of the puppet as long as they could...

 

[sfox52]

Fons, Count Gore de Vol was played by the same guy who was CaptainTwenty. I still like to mess with old friends by giving the Vulcan hand sign and saying Live Long and Win Lots of Prizes! I spent my first twelve years in Indianapolis, there was a "creepy movie" host in those days that went by "Sammy Terry".

 

[FONSguy]

Dick Dyszel. Being a local to DC I've watched him for decades! He was Bozo too.

 

[FONSguy]

I just looked for behind the scenes photos etc for The Giant Claw. It seems they outsourced the Claw SPFX to a Mexican SPFX company to save $. Maybe not the best decision. Imagine a giant bird WITH TEETH, that wispy hair on its head, and the never moving legs. At least they photographed it at the right speed to mostly hide the strings.

 

[transmaster]

From Wikipedia:
Jeff Morrow (Mitch MacAfee) later confessed in an interview that no one in the film knew what the titular monster looked like until the film's premiere. Morrow himself first saw the film in his hometown (New York City) and hearing the audience laugh every time the monster appeared on screen, he left the theater early, embarrassed that anyone there might recognize him (he allegedly went home and began drinking).

Beaky Buzzard

 

[2011etec]

Detroit area tv host, The Ghoul.Believe it was channel 4 in the latter 70,s?

 

[danj]

The Giant Claw is the story of a giant bird from outer space that is terrorizing the Earth. Even for this genera the movie is bad. One of the trivial details that make the movie interesting to watch is actors Jeff Morrow (Engineer Mitch MacAfee) and Mara Corday (mathematician Sally Caldwell) had gone through a nasty divorce just before the filming of this movie and they absolutely hated each other. They didn’t know until they walked onto the set they were in the same movie. If you watch carefully some of this hatred comes across.

The Giant Claw, The low budget Monster.
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There are movies that are "so bad they're good" and there are movies that are just plain stinkers and THE GIANT CLAW is one of the later. It is even worse than ROBOT MONSTER, which took some doing. Jeff Morrow was a decent actor but he starred in some dreadful dreck.

 

[danj]

Another piece of dreadful schlock is "Billy the Kid versus Dracula." Yes, it's even worse than the title suggests. It was sadly one of the last film appearances for the great character actor J. Carrol Naish. I'm sure he took the role because he needed the money and seeing him in such a terrible production is very sad, for he deserved better.