The Giant Claw (1957) Wow this is bad!

[transmaster]

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.


The “Turken Naked Neck” Chicken

 

[dosmalo]

LOL! Yes it's that bad.
'Reptilicus' bad actually!

 

[transmaster]

I have all of these movies on my PC. I am now watching “The Monster That Challenged The World”. (1957). What is interesting about this one is it was mostly filmed on the Salton Sea. At the time the Salton Sea was a recreational area and it did have a US Naval facility used to test parachutes for use at sea. As a kid back about 1959 in San Diego the family used to go there. The Salton Sea was created by a break in the Grand Canal flowing from the Colorado, River. This breech was repaired in the 1960’s and the Salton Sea now a evaporated death trap for migratory birds.

 

[dosmalo]

I actually think 'The Monster That Challenged the World' is a half way decent creature feature. I know that when I was a kid and the dude pokes the monster's eyeball out I freaked!

 

[SiliconTi]

The Monster That Challenged The World

That movie used to scare the crap out of me as a kid, especially the rabbit cage scene.

Just watched it not long ago with my wife - holds up quite well

 

[dosmalo]

I think sometimes TMTCTW is confused with
the film "It Conquered the World' which stared Peter Graves and was a really, really bad stinky turd of a movie.

 

[mr_light]

I actually liked the movie, up until they showed the chicken puppet.

 

[teal'c]

I was seeing that TV listing this month, googled it and saw the pic in the OP's post, and .

 

[Grenadeslio]

As kids we thought it was great, growing up on a horse ranch we buried a dead pheasant with the claw sticking out of the ground, great stuff lol.

Another great one from the same year.

 

[transmaster]

I have “Deadly Mantis” if I was a “Preying Mantis” I would consider a slander law suit.
Really the best of them was “Them!”

 

[Grenadeslio]

Shot right here in S Fl, gotta love when the ants walk on the sky.

 

[transmaster]

The scene with the catatonic little girl was awesome when she yelled THEM!. I love all these B scifi flicks just watched The Time Travelers the other night and Moon Zero Two.

Sandy in Them!


This is Sandy Descher today.

 

[tubed]

 

[FONSguy]

Reptilicus, Deadly Mantis, and Giant Claw all had string puppet monsters. THEM! used rod puppet ants. I really don't consider THEM! a "B" movie because of who's in it. James Arness, James Whitmore, Edmund Gwenn and Fess Parker...and uncredited...Leonard Nimoy. Other actors who appear in small parts include John Beradino, Willis Bouchey, Booth Colman, Richard Deacon, Lawrence Dobkin, Ann Doran, William Schallert, Douglas Spencer, Dub Taylor, Dorothy Green and Harry Wilson. I actually like Deadly Mantis. I built a "Gigantics" kit of the praying mantis and built a Lockheed Constellation to put in it's claws.

 

[Mystic]

While many of the "B giant/outrageous creatures feaatures" of the mid 50s to early 60s are outstanding in good and bad ways, my favourite "B grade" genre from that era are the "teenaged takes" on the classic monsters of The Univeral Pictures Horror Factory of the 1930s, i.e., wolfman (werewolves), Frankenstein's monster (ie, Frankenstein), etc. Notables:

I Was A Teenage Werewolf (AIP, 1957) Michael Landon, Whit Bissell, Yvonne Lime
I Was A Teenage Frankenstein (AIP, 1957) Gary Conway, Whit Bissell, Phyllis Coates
Blood Of Dracula (AIP, 1957) Sandra Harrison, Louise Lewis, Jerry Blaine

Not sure how Whit Bissell escaped the casting of Blood Of Dracula. An anomoly I s'pose. Bissell gets a lotta flack from film buffs and is often called The King Of B Movies but folks forget that he appeared in some pretty heavy and critically-acclaimed films including The Manchurian Candidate, The Caine Mutiny, and in one of (the original) Star Trek series' most memorable and beloved episodes, "The Trouble With Tribbles".

Interesting sidenote: while @ a certain midwestern university in the mid 1980s I made the acquaintance of a fellow graduate student who was Bissell's nephew. Or so he said, and then backed the claim with family photographs. How the topic of Bissell even came up I'll never remember, but there we were and there he was. Ah "life"... how sweet it is.

 

[RT Fan]

"The trouble with Tribbles" was on last night, i had to watch it! Whit Bissell had a heck of a career, there was barely a tv show on in the last 40 years on which he did not make an appearance.

 

[transmaster]

Watching “It Conquered The World” (1956). Tried to play it with jRiver and it crashed it every time. Watching it with VLC. Seeing Lee Van Cleef in a roll other than a outlaw in a western is interesting.

 

[FONSguy]

Lee was also the marksman who fires the isotope into the neck wound of The Beast From 20 Thousand Fathoms.

 

[transmaster]

Does jRiver have taste? Tried playing “Nude on The Moon” (1962) it also crashed jRiver.
Nude on The Moon is a true “B” grade movie “B” meaning boobs’. I watched a interview with Doris Wishman one of the directors. She said that in 1962 they could get away with bare breasts and 1/3 of the butt cheeks. The woman had no vocal lines because they would have had to pay them more so they communicated via ESP. The space suits were rented and were mostly from Buck Rogers serials. They were in from storeage and smelled strongly of mothballs, they didn’t have them dry cleaned.

Had an update on jRiver that didn’t load properly. Blew it out and reloaded it everything OK now.

 

[Mystic]

"The trouble with Tribbles" was on last night, i had to watch it! Whit Bissell had a heck of a career, there was barely a tv show on in the last 40 years on which he did not make an appearance.

re: Bissell, the man got around tinsel town, didn't he? Of course coming up on Bill Asher's radar almost guaranteed Work For Life @ The B Screen, dinnit? Now sittin' 'n' thinkin' on it, I don;t recall ever having seen Bissell in a "Beach Party" genre (API) film. Rickles & Keaton, oh yes, as well as the "main players" like Avalon, Funicello, Lembeck (& the other Ratz & Mice), (John) Ashton, Animal, and Candy, etc. But not Bissell. Did I miss him @ some point @ one of those beach/surf jobs?